Let's Dance

Oh yeah. Who thought that at the beginning of the season we would be in the semis of the ACC tourney, playing our best basketball and pretty much a lock for the NCAA tourney. Now the only question is whether or not we get the Bye game. (I really hate the play-in 12 seed game, so dumb especially for everyone who loves to fill out brackets--at least this expansion should shut up further expansion talk for awhile) (Sorry, have to continue rant--what would 96 teams mean?? South Carolina would be on the bubble, teams at or below .500 would be in consideration, I guess I shouldn't be surprised at how stupid the NCAA can be, Jim Sweatervest and THE Ohio State rule breakers deserve some serious punishment. You know that the NCAA let them off easy and had a wink/nod situation where they allowed Pryor to play in that BCS game. Now they better come down hard)

So we won. When Stitt is on we can match-up against some of the best teams in the country. I am so impressed with how he has matured as a player in the past month. Well not emotionally but as a player. He hits threes, drives to the basket with authority, finishes plays, has become an elite defender, rebounds well for a guard, has that fire and leadership this team needed. I am so glad Trapani is gone. He is a match-up nightmare for us.

The key to this team is that players have developed roles. I feel like everyone knows more or less where they fit into the scheme, so players play within the system and themselves. I don't see ill advised drives from Tanner Smith--I see him hustling, playing good D, passing the ball well and knocking down the occasional outside shot. Jerai knows he can knock down a mid-range jumper. The ball goes inside-out more often than ever before.

The team is gaining confidence in itself at the right time. This season has been a huge success and I think this is the time as fans that we sit back and enjoy. I know we want to win championships but it is not very often that we can say that our basketball team has overachieved. Jay Bilas should eat a big pile of crow(he had us dead last). TDP did something right (although he tried to do something wrong before stumbling into the right decision) and I think Brownell is fantastic. Lets hope we can win a few recruiting battles from this but for now I am all smiles.

If we lose to UNC, it won't matter. All I want is a first round victory in the big dance and my wishlist for this season is fulfilled. Thank you seniors! Go Tigers!

Noel Johnson's Dad Leaves Clemson

Well this bites. First I am a fan of Noel Johnson as a basketball player (well as a player on this particular Clemson team). He couldn't play a lick of D or penetrate that well but he wasn't named Tanner and he has the height and ability to shoot the ball.

He didn't start the season and looked awful on the court until the past couple of games when he went from that guy on your pick up team who takes all the shots and thinks he's the man (but you were probably better off without him) to lukewarm milk. Donte Hill and now Sing Noel are gone. 9 players remain. With Booker and Grant not being able to stay on the floor we are going to be seeing a lot more Tanner, Jennings, and the frosh Stanton as well as *gasp* Narcisse and Bobo. I would gladly have TO (Terrance, Terrance) back, my goodness.

My goodness. So exploring all of our options I have a solution. DMac...He plays his senior year for the bball team and he lights it up. Won't happen because he will be trying to get ready for the draft. But it would be awesome...

Nuke--not happening and we really need wings not point guards anyway. Vic Beasley is an interesting option that could be explored.

We should also look into one of those early enrollment things--didn't Dawkins do that for Duke?? Get a kid after January? It would at least help with practice, redshirt and learn the system. We will certainly be needing a ton of help next year.

I think 8-8 in the ACC is looking more and more like a mountain to climb than an achievable goal. Tanner, please learn to shoot a 3. Jennings, rebound like a man (and shoot 3's). Booker--relearn those post moves you showed last year then forgot because Purnell put regression juice in all his new players diets. Do you remember how as a Freshman Stitt was like an 80% FT shooter?? Oh and everyone learn the motion offense.

Western Carolina Review

Well its Basketball season already. Surprise, surprise I'm actually excited for this season. I want to see if this team will actually learn how to run some offense and pass the ball into the post. I thought the world of Purnell after Shyatt but thought we did less with more last season. I was personally looking for the Sweet 16 last year with the incoming recruits.

So this season I just want to make the tourney and go 8-8 in conference play. Kenpom currently has us at 9-7, which I think is possible for this team, and 28th overall, a little high for now but not entirely removed from the realm of possibility.

For all you stupid pundits Kenpom has the ACC dominating the BIG 10 and BIG 12. Just because sports people (I refuse to use the word journalists) come from the Big 10 doesn't mean they should let their bias show so obviously. Oh and putting the word BIG in front of your conference doesn't make it better--just silly(especially when the numbers don't add up anymore). Can't wait for the Big Ten versus ACC this year. At least in Basketball we have something like this that can shut down pundits for a little while.

Oh yeah so the game...

I keep hearing that Bobo won't/can't contribute. I don't agree and I love that the staff is committed to getting some production from him. Purnell was always clueless with big men--I think Devin Booker regressed last year. Bobo can get opposing teams big men into foul trouble, he can manufacture some points against smaller teams like VTech or Miami, and that is worth the investment. Think of Duke last year and Zoubek.

Jennings looked like he might be able to contribute and Booker looked great, lots of putbacks etc. Brownell looked to be mixing and matching and had his guys ready to play. He passes the initial smell test, unlike Wake Forest and their loss to STETSON!! hahaha.

On the not so positive side we lack depth in the backcourt. With Stitt in bad foul trouble (his play wasn't just bad, it was absent) and Young with an injured thigh bruise, we had to turn to Cory Stanton and even Anderson. That is fine in non-conf but scary for ACC play if Stitt or Young go down with an injury. Stitt seemed to be playing more of the 2 which he didn't seem to particularly care for but with a Brownell's offense it shouldn't matter. Noel Johnson has to be a big part of our offense if we are going to have success this year. He needs to be a consistent 3 pt. threat and really struggled last night. I am also worried about our ability to defend the three with such small guards on the floor.

Tanner Smith 1-6 from the FT line?? Tigers can't afford to shoot below 65% from the line this year. My same criticism of Smith remains--a great glue guy but his junk ball play won't stand up in ACC play, especially without the intentional chaos of Purnell's system. This scares me. Grant seems about the same as last year.

Now this is all after one game so feel free to laugh at these observations. Western Carolina was an above average team last year and Wofford will actual be a test next week. We will know more about the team after Wofford. Good start, hope Brownell and crew can help this offense.

Quick Clemson NCAA Post-Mortem

There's an old adage that teams that like to press don't like to be pressed. Yesterday afternoon we observed a more fundamental truism: teams that turn the ball over too much don't like to be pressed. It was pretty obvious to anyone paying attention that Clemson was almost certain to lose to Missouri. Both teams rely primarily on their defensive ability to force turnovers to drive their offensive output, and the Mizzou Tigers simply don't turn the ball over. Yeah, there was a chance our press might cause them problems, but you aren't a top five team at avoiding turnovers for nothing. The advantage was all Missouri going in and they burned us time and time again as we made stupid decisions with the ball. We kept it close with ridiculous, unsustainable 3-point shooting in the first half but when we regressed to the mean in the second half the game was as good as done (felt like the second Maryland game in that respect). Also, if you don't understand the concept of regression to the mean, read this. Its related to baseball but the idea is the same--if the team has a certain "true" level of performance, then given enough time the team will revert to that level regardless of how well they perform over smaller stretches of time. We went 8-11 from 3-point land in the first half, there was no way we were going 16-22 for the game.

I know everyone is down on the players for not playing hard the last ten minutes of the game, but I think there's a reason. Seems to me they new their margin for error was small--they had to keep things even for 40 minutes to try and pull it out at the end because they wouldn't be able to force turnovers or get enough stops in the halfcourt to spark a run (to say nothing of our complete lack of a four-minute offense). Once they were in a hole, they knew they were beaten. Sure, it's not a good reason for not playing hard and it reflects extremely poorly on the coaching staff for their inability to motivate/prepare the team mentally, but there it is.

I've been yelling it as loud as I can from this tiny blog pulpit: turnovers are killing us. This is the worst year for Clemson at turning the ball over since the first season Purnell took over, and it's not even close. There's been a ton of talk around the blogosphere about the lack of an offensive plan for the Tigers and their inability to even execute simple fundamentals. This is undoubtedly true; I won't argue this point. Purnell and his (newly-hired?) assistants need to take a long look at the tapes this offseason to figure out how to improve the halfcourt set. But I would argue that we have an even more fundamental problem: empty possessions from turnover after turnover. Often, we don't even get a chance to setup the halfcourt 'cause Stitt is dribbling the ball off his leg. This is also a more fundamental problem because it isn't going away next season with Stitt as our de facto team leader and ball-handler.

Next season has all of the makings of a bad year for the Tigers, outlined by ClemBen in the post below. We've got a turnover prone "senior leader" point guard blocking and taking playing time from a better player one year his junior (don't even get me started--the last few games of the season should have sealed in everyone's mind that Young is the better player than Stitt now), a lack of an strong inside presence capable of creating a shot, and a guy starting at the two position that would be fighting for playing time at the back end of the bench for a middling SEC team (how many times was Tanner Smith burned off the ball on the perimeter leading to easy points? I give him credit for decent defensive fundamentals, but when he's matched against someone quick and fluid, he's toast). Most of our problems are related to the most fundamental aspects of the game; for example, perimeter players gotta be stronger with the ball and make crisper passes to right part of the player receiving the ball while inside guys need to improve footwork in the post. It's easy to tell Clemson to go out and make up a few nice offensive sets and practice them 1000 times, but we won't get to .500 in the ACC next season without first improving the fundamentals on offense and bringing our turnover count down to a reasonable range.

Crap at the Half

Well this half is another microcosm for why we can't achieve that elusive elite or even top 25 status this year. NO 3 point shooting. Potter has been so wide open and just bricking--not even close. Tanner shot an airball. Young has had some poor shot selection. Booker has become unable to drive and score with his back to the basket. How many turnovers can we have??

Another pathetic offensive output. 21 points?? We are playing good D but still have an occasional breakdown where someone isn't rotating. The real problem is we can't get out and run. No forced turnovers means ugly offensive sets. Purnell needs to hire a young offensive mind who can recruit. Lastly FT shooting has once again become an eyesore--Booker are you kidding 1-6??. Maybe a loss wouldn't be that bad because at least we would have some time to work on the fundamentals again. Guys look confused, Booker throwing it away--not an appealing combination. My only suggestion is to get Stitt driving more but he is so loose with the ball and always liable to turn it over that I wouldn't rely on it.

What really concerns me is that we have no recruits of any note coming in aside from Marcus Thorton. These guys really need to develop in the offseason for Clemson to remain relevant...

ACC Tournament Preview Round 1: NC State vs. Clemson

NC State vs. Clemson, 03/11, ~9:00pm, Greensboro Coliseum

I agree with DrB at the end of this post, a win tonight should lock us into a seven seed. On the other hand, a loss probably drops us into the 8/9 matchup. As a result, the stakes are actually a bit bigger than they might seem because in most years there is a fairly substantial step down in talent between #1 seeds and #2 seeds. I would rate Kansas and Syracuse as shoe-ins for #1 seeds at this point, and the difference between playing one of those teams and playing some of the potential two seeds like Ohio State, West Virginia, or Purdue would be pretty large. Of course, while this is all fun to contemplate, it depends on getting a favorable matchup in round one and taking care of business against the Wolfpack tomorrow.

NC State struggled to a 5-11 finish in the ACC and 17-14 finish overall. On paper, they're a league average to a little below league average in just about every statistical category. Their most conspicuous weaknesses are probably an inability to force turnovers and an inability to keep opposing teams off the offensive glass. As a result, NC State is no push-over. I know alot of people see the near-collapse at Raleigh earlier this season as a direct result of losing Demontez Stitt in the first half. While losing Stitt certainly didn't help, I think it's ultimately a pretty lazy assessment. It glosses over the fact that we got whipped on the offensive boards all game long (not something that would be affected by losing Stitt) by a team that doesn't play particularly well on the offensive glass. In fairness, we also were unable to force any turnovers, which is probably an area where we missed Stitt more.

What I'm trying to say is that while we don't match up poorly with NC State, we don't particularly match up well against them, either. I think we will need a consistent effort from T. Booker and the rest of the inside players and we will have to get some breaks in the pressure defense if we want to run away with the game. Unfortunately, Sidney Lowe had the cognizance to limit the playing time of the turnover-prone Javier Gonzalez to ten minutes against the Clemson press. Outside of Gonzalez, the Wolfpack actually do a pretty good job handling the basketball.

Hopefully Clemson comes out taking the challenge seriously and doesn't play like last year when they moped around as if they deserved a first round bye. I think this is a game Clemson should win on a neutral court at least 3 out of 4 times, but that depends on whether they actually show up ready to play. GO TIGERS!!!

FSU Chokes, Tigers Pull One Out

I think that is the first time this year(maybe the Butler game) where I was about to give up hope and then Clemson delivered. It was the first time this year where I woke up my napping wife as I let out a yell and my fist shook when Andre Young hit that three after the steal.

Ok this was one ugly game. It was painful at times but a road win against FSU is everything our tournament resume needed and we hit the magic 20 win mark. A fourth straight 20 win season and 20-8 record.

Mid Blog Pro OP Rant

For all you OP haters out there, ponder this set of simple stats. Before OP took over, by my count, Clemson had only 7 twenty win seasons(it was possible to get to 20 wins consistently starting in about 1953 with 26 total regular season games, 28 started in 1974). So only 7 times before Ollie did Clemson achieve that goal. Now we have done it 4 straight times. Twice in the 70's, 3 times in the 80's, only twice in the 90's and now four times all with Purnell. Barnes is the only coach who took us to three straight tourneys, something hopefully Oliver will duplicate with this season.

We get frustrated with OP from time to time with lack of offensive sets, poor ft shooting, and an over reliance on the press from time to time but people don't mimic Gamecock fans and start thinking that we have arrived in bball. We aren't going to fire OP and bring in some power coach. Littlejohn and the general bball facilities need an upgrade and we don't have the recruiting budget of some schools. We are under .500 lifetime as a program for crying out loud. Let us just enjoy OP and win a game in the NCAA tourney!!

Speaking of making the tourney we are now 2-5 on the road which isn't good but its a lot better than the eyesore that was 1-5. We have no other major flaws in the resume and 8-6 in the conference isn't bad. I think if we split the next two we should be in. But that is still very debatable and dependent on other teams--what is really interesting is playing for the tournament bye. To have a shot at the ACC Champs you must have the first round bye and now FSU, Wake, VT, and Clemson are all even at 8-6. Duke and Maryland have all but wrapped up the first two slots.

We own the tiebreaker over FSU so our only game against Wake is all the more important since we lost to VT. TigerMax will have a more in-depth breakdown. But the way it is looking if we beat Wake we have a bye. FSU and Wake play on Wed. March 3rd.

Quick game notes--Tanner Smith continues to struggle but hit his first big shot of the season. Stitt had an ugly game and got frustrated with about six minutes to go, started turning the ball over left and right. We played good D and got some nice steals in key situations (obviously when down by one) but where we really struggled was getting the ball into the post when they were fronting Booker. Our offense consistently gets pushed off the ball and can't get into any rhythm so we end up making bad passes and taking bad shots bc we are always forced late into the 35 second count. We need a few different sets to mix it up and keep the D on their toes. Teams that pressure the ball well like Duke give us nightmares because we don't play strong enough with the ball.

Stitt needs to work on this the most. He couldn't drive at all today against not only the height but the ball pressure of FSU. Anyway, the season was slipping away but we held on and grasped a win out of the jaws of defeat. It was poetic to see their 81% FT shooter giant Alabi miss one and then watch Booker stroke 4 straight. Stitt also had two clutch FT's. Awesome win and maybe this is the momentum we need. We can beat Wake--it's Dino and besides they are overrated...

Update: Here is a video of FSU Coach Hamilton after the game, if you watch to the very end he gives this blank stare and little laugh. Must be a tough loss to stomach, glad to be on the winning end tonight.

A Tale of Two Halves: Rants and Raves

Well we started the game hot and shot lights out from three point land in the first half. Noel Johnson, Andre Young in particular. Grant got some bogus foul calls but Booker played really awful in the second half--why did he take 3, 3-pointers in the second half? I think our real problem in this game is the same problem we have had all year, mind numbing turnovers. How many times do I see Stitt dribble the ball off his own foot or try to split the D and lose his dribble. It is simple fundamentals. Smith had another awful game and we went away from the inside play too quickly in the second half. It is a shame to see what Clemson can be this year, their potential finally coming through, with the first half and then see what they really are in the second half.

Now playing at Maryland isn't easy but it is not like Maryland is this amazing team. The way the announcers on the Clemson network were calling it, Maryland was like a final four contender or something. We got burned on a ton of Maryland offensive sets, they caught us backdoor like eight times and let Vasquez become the assist man. Gary had a good game plan offensively. The press got shredded and in the span of four Maryland possessions we went from being tied to down by ten. I liked OP's use of the timeouts but once again we folded and didn't have the mental toughness. Disappointing loss and we now need to win 2/3 to feel good about an automatic NCAA bid.

Moving Right Along: Post game Virginia

This was a great win for us. We easily handled a much improved Virginia Cavaliers team and beat them by a large margin--no playing down to our competition. I like Bennett as a coach and think Virginia will be a formidable foe in the near future, they were just gassed for this game and didn't expect TBooker and JGrant to have 14 and 18 points respectively. We dominated inside and got some great minutes from Milton Jennings (thank you!!). Purnell is starting to use the freshman more and more which really bodes well for next season, Noel Johnson continues to struggle however which is disappointing. I was also really disappointed with some bonehead turnovers in this game, many of which involved Tanner and some from Stitt. Its those unforced turnovers that kill us against better teams.

If our inside guys can keep playing at a high level, Booker had some sweet pure post moves today, and we knock down 35% from three point range--we can hang with anyone in the country. I think that the week long break was really helpful--we had fresher legs and we need it for these upcoming road games. Looking back at our predictions early on--9-7 is still within our grasp as well as making it to the tourney and winning at least one game. That would be an improvement from last year. What we really need is to peak at the right time--that means the time to finally gel as a team has come. Milt is showing life, the inside game is solid, we play pretty good D, the FT shooting has improved--all key things to continue on the road. What we need to see a little more improvement on to push us into that upper echelon is decreased turnovers, better 3pt shooting, and toughness on the road.

Right now I think we can go 9-7, win one game in the ACC and NCAA tournaments. Lets make it happen Tigers!!

VT at the Half: The Delaney Flop Show

What a mixed bag at the half. First, Malcolm Delaney is like Reggie Miller. No FG's in the first half but 14-16 from the FT line. They are giving him every single little tick or tack foul. Which would be fine but Stitt gets hacked going to the basket and nothing, or breaking the double team and nothing. We played well defensively in the first ten minutes, really well in fact, and I liked what a few of our bench players did when they came in. We got a little tired but were blocking a ton of shots in the beginning--that's a motivated Booker. Jennings is having his best game to date. Young needs to knock down a three. Tanner made one and then clanked a couple, and Potter made his first and then took some poor shots.

When we commit to passing the ball to Booker, good things happen(except when he goes to the line). I think it helps us when they double team him. We are on the road and should be winning so it is disappointing to be down by 2 but every time Delaney goes to the line its 2 free ones. Take notes tigers, Jennings, Stitt--you can't miss the front end of the one and one. Stitt looks ok but not 100% on defense I would like to see him not re-injure himself and set himself back but this is a critical game to win, on the road for Selection Sunday. We should let more students in too!! So much better crowd that way...

State of Clemson Basketball: 2010 mid-ACC update

With National Signing Day out of the way and Clemson basketball in the middle of a 6 day break, its a good time to reflect on the team's performance halfway through ACC play. Again, the point of these posts is just to try and discern any interesting statistical trends, taking advantage of the statistics over at Kenpom.com.

I don't think it's any secret that Clemson is underperforming this season. The obvious culprit is the offense, which has struggled in just about every imaginable way to put points on the board. The statistics agree with this sentiment pretty strongly. First I'm going to show charts that are slightly different from previous charts I've shown, these track differences in offensive/defensive efficiencies across the last two years:


I don't have the data from midseason 2009, so that point is interpolated by averaging the bookending points. Clearly, we are struggling on offense this year. But what's I really find interesting is the relationship between offense and defense over the past two years. In 2009, the defense steadily declined while the offense steadily improved. This year, the defense has steadily improved while the offense has steadily declined. Last year, the defense fell apart largely because Clemson became too predictable in their pressure defense over the course of a game, allowing teams to routinely break the press and score. Often teams weren't settling for a drive to the basket, either, but were looking for (and making) wide-open threes. This year, Purnell came out with a clear plan to counter the defensive struggles of last year by mixing up pressure looks not just during blocks of possessions but even from individual possession to individual possession. The results have been fantastic and are clearly evident from the forced turnover rates--Clemson's defense ranks 4th in the country in opposition turnovers and 5th in steals. Make no mistake, rate of forced turnovers is driving the defense--our effective FG% defense is a respectable 50th in the country, but that lags well behind the other strong defenses in the ACC.

On the other hand, I imagine Oliver Purnell was not counting on the complete implosion of the offense. I'm not showing the overall efficiency data relative to recent years, but we are currently as bad as we've been since 2006. Let's look at the four factors the offense to try and get some answers:

It looks all four factors have gotten slightly worse across the board. I would wager the fluctuations in FT attempts/FG attempts and offensive rebounding percentage are little more than noise and not much to be concerned about. However, the turnover% and FG% (the two most important factors), while up only slightly, still look troublesome. Here are the component offensive factors:

Now we see something emerge. Our drop in effective FG% appears to be directly related to our struggles from behind the arc since the start of ACC play. Also, our rate of having the ball stolen has gone up slightly, although I doubt that alone explains the increase in turnovers. The other factors don't worry me too much, and unbelievably our FT% has actually gotten better since the start of ACC play (must be that flukish 18-20 UNC performance).

I think our offensive troubles since the start of ACC play can be traced primarily to 3-point problems and to a lesser extent, an increase in both forced and unforced turnovers. I've been pretty adamant since the start of the year that our three-point shooting would be fine, but I can't ignore the data any longer--we need more threes to start falling. I didn't anticipate Young's struggles. He's not missing shots, but he's having a hard time getting open looks against the taller ACC competition. Potter has regressed substantially, and while Johnson hasn't been a disaster as a freshman (35%), I was hoping (probably too much) for more. Stitt has improved from around a 30% shooter in his first two years to 35% this year, but his injury has left him out or hobbled through most of ACC play. Tanner Smith has been a catastrophe, shooting below 30% now on just 61 shots. All of this adds up to a markedly below-average three-point shooting team for the ACC.

Meanwhile, on the turnover front, while Stitt has actually marginally improved a couple of percentage points, overall he still sports an ugly turnover rate of 23.1 (meaning he turns the ball over 23.1% of the time he is involved in a possession). This gain has been offset, however, by Young's increase from 16.9 a year ago to 21.9 this year. With our two primary ball-handlers giving the ball back in one out of five personal possessions, Clemson's having a tough time just letting plays develop long enough to get looks at the basket.

There's not much I can see Clemson doing to improve their problems behind the arc. Minor tweaking is probably all Purnell has at his disposal now, something along the lines of 1) letting Johnson shoot as much as possible hoping he develops into a more reliable shot by the end of the season, 2) relegating Tanner Smith to defensive specialist, and 3) figuring out ways of ensuring Andre Young is open at least a few times a game. The turnover problems are even worse. While I believe Andre Young's true turnover rate lies closer to 16.9 than 21.9, he's done little since Stitt's injury to support this. Its a difficult problem to solve midseason.

The most frustrating aspect of these offensive struggles is that we could be better now with a little more emphasis on fundamentals. We have the shooting skills to be better than 64.2% from the line. While our 2P FG% is keeping us afloat, everyone knows from watching the games that we could be even better. And of course, if we could just stop dribbling the ball off our legs, we'd cut a good 5% off our turnover rate. All of these little things would add up to at least a respectable ACC-level offense.

You would think Purnell might turn his attention to these offensive fundamentals. However, watching the team (particularly since Stitt went down) and listening to Purnell's recent statements to the media, its pretty clear Purnell has gone in the opposite direction: he's looking to further improve the defense. I think this also explains the increase in defensive efficiency since the start of ACC play (second chart above).

If true, it's an interesting gambit and I actually kind of like it. The key selling point for me is Stitt's injury. While Young has filled in reasonably well in his absence, without Stitt we almost entirely lose the ability to penetrate on offense. Given Stitt's poor all around play after returning from injury last year, its difficult to count on him being the same player when he finally does return. With that in mind, if our half-court offense is going to essentially consist of Trevor Booker underneath and Grant cleaning up on misses, we might as well focus on defense to keep the other team's points down and try to score some easy points off turnovers.

There's been a lot of chatter around the blogosphere about discontent with Purnell. This puts me in a rather odd position where I feel compelled to defend Oliver Purnell; long-time readers will know we've been critical of Purnell when the situation warrants. I don't feel like this is the time. To me, the first two charts indicate that the program is not necessarily plateauing, we just haven't been able to combine excellent offense and defense at the same time since the end of 2008. Right now, we have room to grow on the offense (even in the remainder of this season) until we get closer to previous seasons. Its tough to fault Purnell for the perfect storm of 1) Booker taking small steps back in productivity both at the FT line and in 2-pt shooting, 2) the failure of Jennings and Johnson to develop into useful players, 3) Andre Young's battle with turnovers, and 4) Stitt's injury. Even with only one or two of these, the offense is good enough to win a couple of the close games we've already lost.

Purnell did a good job of adjusting to our problems in the offseason, I suspect he'll do the same in offense in the coming months, spilling into next season. I can easily see this group of players providing equally efficient offensive and defensive production, even though it is taking longer than any of us would have liked.

Boston College Preview 2

Clemson vs. Boston College, 01/26, 7:00pm, Conte Forum

Only got a few minutes here, I've been back at the 14 hour work day again...things should calm down by the end of the week. I wanted to drop in and comment quickly on the upcoming BC game and the general state of Clemson basketball.

About three weeks ago I wrote that Boston College, N.C. State, and Virginia were bringing up the rear of the ACC this season. Since that time, BC has managed to distinguish itself from the pack, in a bad way. It's not really that BC has played terribly, they beat a better than-their-record indicates Miami team and nearly knocked off VT, both on the road. But they haven't played well against better teams, getting absolutely blown out by Duke, Clemson, and Maryland, with the Maryland game at home. At the same time, I've been reasonably impressed with the positive steps forward by NC State and Virginia so far this season, leaving BC at a distance behind. I think you can make a strong argument at this point that BC is in a bit of a tailspin as a program, its now going on three years since they were a legitimate bubble team, if there is such a thing. BC is still a team struggling on defense mainly because they can't force turnovers and secondarily because they don't defend the shot particularly well. On offense they can't shoot the ball, particularly from behind the arc. Raji and Tripani have been doing a pretty good job getting some open looks, but if the team they are playing has any semblance of an offense, its hard for them to slow it down enough.

Of course, Clemson's offense will be lacking the services of Demontez Stitt and frankly hasn't looked great lately, but this is absolutely a game Clemson should win. I know it's a long road trip to frigid Boston for a two hour game on a Tuesday night, and I know that a lot of people view Stitt as the key to the offense, but this is still the very definition of a winnable ACC road game for the Tigers--they have to take advantage. (By the way, I like the decision to hold Stitt out for this game. Clemson shouldn't need him to get some offense going against BC and if he's not close to 100%, he's just blocking time that would be better spent with Young at the helm. As in the Duke game, when he doesn't have his explosive first step, he's not worth much on the floor. Plus, I'm really worried that he injured himself more severely in the last five minutes of the GT game.)

That brings me to the general state of Clemson basketball. I didn't get a chance to write up the Duke game because I was swamped at work, but ClemBen did a pretty admirable job of summing up my feelings in rant form. With a couple of days to reflect, though, Clemson is right where I thought they would be about three weeks ago. Sure, I thought they would be less competitive in a game where they nearly pulled the upset (GT) and more competitive in a game they never really had a chance in (Duke), but really your opinion of the Tigers shouldn't change anymore after the last two games than it should have after the blowout win over UNC. Duke's a championship caliber team this year and while of course I would have liked to have been more competitive, that's really a game where we need a healthy Stitt to create some offense. Meanwhile, UNC (1-3 so far in ACC play) isn't turning out to be much of a team this season.

Last two games notwithstanding, Clemson is still on track for a 9-7 or 10-6 season (leaning towards 9-7) with an NCAA tournament invitation. Lose to BC today, though, and we'll be fighting the "bubble team" label all the way into March.

Georgia Tech Recap

Georgia Tech 66, Clemson 64

Devastatingly close loss. Really had an opportunity to add a win to ledger that wasn't expected. There's another way to look at this loss though: we went toe-to-toe with one of the better teams in the league on the road; a team that poses not insignificant matchup problems for us on offense. Without Demontez Stitt at 100% (although, to be fair, it looked like he was playing around 90-95% most of the time). Let's take a quick look at the chart:

NCAA Basketball

I can't find win probability charts, but this is pretty close. I assume they are using Bill James' formula to calculate safe leads, but I might be wrong.)

Ouch. Had the 64-62 lead with 1:25 to go. I thought we had a good game plan coming in. For the most part, we kept GT off-balance by mixing up the pressure and on offense we opened them up and got reasonably good looks by having Stitt drive the lane (Young added a couple of nice drives as well) and being able to feed the ball into the Booker brothers (Devin looked great in limited action, banging around inside against the tall GT defense and drawing fouls). We also were drawing fouls left and right inside, putting their big men into foul trouble which helped opened up the inside a little more. I realize we only put 64 points on the board, but that was with a handful of shots that should have fallen and even worse performance at the FT line than usual.

My only complaint would be the offensive plays in the last 3 possessions or so, starting with the wild drive by Tanner Smith (3-11 from the field, that's the disappearing Smith we all know from last ACC season!). I actually quite liked Stitt's decision to penetrate with the lane wide open on the last real possession; he just picked a bad time for another of his inexplicable turnovers (which, admittedly, seem to have occurred less frequently in the past few games). My only real complaint is that we didn't at least try to get the ball inside to Booker in one of the final possessions. He'd been having a lot of success drawing fouls and it felt like we had the GT big men on their heels.

Lastly, can't talk about this game without mentioning the ridiculous call at the end. I don't care if Booker made any kind of contact on Peacock's "drive", you don't call that with 3.2 seconds remaining in a game. As an official, you don't risk making a touch foul call that gift-wraps the game for one team after an evenly played first forty minutes. Officiating in basketball is not, nor should be, context-independent. Let them decide the game in an overtime period, which, incidentally, I think would have likely favored the Tigers because of GT's foul situation.

All in all, I come away from this game feeling oddly optimistic we can end up at 10-6 in the conference instead of 9-7. We played a tall team with well-above average defense on the road to a draw. Trevor Booker held his own and didn't disappear, as was common against teams with a tall inside presence last year. We were able to feed the post on occasion. We managed relatively open looks from behind the arc, and shot the ball pretty well. It gives me hope that we have more than a fighting chance in the FSU and WF games later in the season.

Georgia Tech Preview

Clemson vs. Georgia Tech, 1/19, 7:00pm, Alexander Memorial Coliseum

Before I say anything, Rest in Peace Gaines Adams. I'm not good at these kinds of things, so I'll send you to someone who is (DrB) and add my deepest condolences. Also, if you haven't already, consider heading over and signing the sympathy card at Tigernet.

Since the game will be played one way or another, time to talk about it. The loss of Stitt makes a already formidable task quite a bit harder. Stitt has a mid-foot sprain and is hoping to be ready for Saturday's tilt with the Blue Devils. I'm a bit skeptical with websites that say full recovery requires "a few weeks." And really, a not fully-recovered foot could result in the same post-injury Stitt we saw last year, the one without the explosive first step. The injury is particularly bad timing because this is by far the strongest defense we've played since the Duke game and we could use a slashing Stitt to penetrate against the GT zone. Normally, this would be a great opportunity for Young to show his game is otherwise equal to to Stitt. Unfortunately, it looks like Young's not feeling well, either.

GT's defense specializes in shutting down their opponent's FG percentage, holding teams under 30% from behind the arc and around 41% from inside the arc. This is where Stitt would be pretty invaluable, we need someone who is able to break down the defense and create space. Its a little hard to gauge how our halfcourt offense will perform, most teams haven't been willing to go inside against GT this season with the shot-blocking presence of 6'10" freshman Derrick Favors and 6'9" sophomore Gani Lawal, but I guarantee Clemson will be looking to T. Booker to shoulder the load tomorrow. I think the thing to look for early in the game is whether Clemson is able to feed the post or if Booker is able to score in some other way--that's probably how FSU pulled off their victory earlier in the season. If Booker isn't seeing success, we don't have a lot of weapons to turn to and GT will be sticking right to the arc to keep Potter or Young from getting open shots.

There is some hope, though. It's not that GT has been playing up-and-down so much this season, the only inexplicable loss was to Georgia and they've played well against some other good teams only to come up a little short: FSU, Dayton, and the rapidly improving Virginia Cavaliers. No, the Achilles heel of the GT team right now is their turnover problems on offense, which feeds right into our primary strength this year. They are actually about as bad UNC, with sophomore Iman Shumpert leading the way downhill. Unfortunately this could be offset somewhat by GT's ability to crash the offensive boards, ranking 15th in the country. Clemson has predictably begun to struggle with defending the offensive glass as ACC play has begun, falling to 170th in the country.

This sets up an interesting matchup, we have a defense that we profile poorly against but an offense we profile decently well against. If we can force some turnovers with the pressure and T. Booker can get some baskets to fall, we could very easily keep up with the Yellow Jackets and have a shot to win the game in the final five minutes. But if we fail to get the turnovers machine rolling along, we could be in for a long night. Already down a starter, Purnell might have to consider folding up the tent relatively early in this game to avoid burning players out in anticipation of the Duke game on Saturday. If Stitt is really able to return, we might have a slightly better chance against Duke then playing at GT without Stitt.

NC State Recap or Thoughts on In-game Collapses

I'm going to do these recaps as often as possible during the ACC season, similar to what I was doing last year...

I don't have a lot of time, so straight to the chart:

College Basketball

(Chart from Statsheet. I can't find win probability charts, but this is pretty close. I assume they are using Bill James' formula to calculate safe leads, but I might be wrong.)

All in all, I thought it was a fairly standard outing this season by the Tigers. We're going to hear a lot about how this was a "tale of two halves" or whatever, but the nature of Clemson's game (particularly this year) is such that when the pressure is working, the defense looks great; but when Clemson starts looking tired, the other team makes adjustments, puts in someone who can handle the ball better, or starts getting a few bounces/calls to go their way they are going to put points on the board. UNC could never make the adjustments and we stomped them for two halves. Duke almost never had a problem and they stomped us for two halves. No one's going to accuse Sidney Lowe of being a coaching genius, but limiting turnover machine Javier Gonzalez to 10 minutes of playing time (well below his season average of ~27 minutes) isn't the work of guy who doesn't understand the situation. All of this raises a bit of a red flag: while the pressure defense probably hasn't been better since the days of Hammonds and Mays, the half-court defense (while perhaps a little better than last year), isn't enough to keep even offensively-challenged teams like NC State from scoring.

It's good to keep in mind, however, that the nature of Purnell's (and by extension, Clemson's) brand of basketball is inherently pretty volatile, a number of different factors like referee style of officiating ("calling it close" or "letting them play"), the level of fatigue for Clemson or the opponent, a series of missed calls, etc. can have a dramatic impact on the overall effectiveness of the defense. This can leave the team look like a polished, overwhelming machine at one point in time and totally clueless the next--and I think this is heightened somewhat this year because we lack a really solid half-court defense to fall back on. The prototypical game which I refer people to is the Villanova game in round 1 of the 2008 tournament. We came out and absolutely flustered Villanova's pair of excellent but inexperienced guards (Scottie Reynolds and Corey Fisher, I believe), building a quick lead in the first ten minutes of the game--and it looked like we could do no wrong. Then the guards remembered that they were pretty good, stopped throwing the ball away, and cut the lead in half by the break. Then in the second half, it looked like Clemson could do nothing right while giving up 48 points en route to a 6-point loss. The key: Reynolds and Fisher shredding through the pressure defense.

Anyways, I've wandered off topic here but I guess I needed to justify my statement above: this did feel like a standard Clemson outing. Ever wonder why Clemson struggles to "close out games" or "finish strong"? The preceding paragraph seems like a reasonable explanation--mull it over for a while. I don't by the lack of leadership argument; a coach couldn't design a better leader than T. Booker. This reasoning also explains how Clemson manages furious finishes from time to time. Remember the Butler game? Remember how tired Butler looked early on in the second half? The same players allegedly lacking a leader managed a thrilling comeback. Remember last year's allegedly dysfunctional squad pulling off an improbable comeback at Virginia Tech? Maryland two years ago? This may be a bit preemptive, but if someone wants to complain about Clemson's failures to "seal the deal", can we at least get some acknowledgement of their ability to unexpectedly storm back to victory? And then maybe we can start seeing the two outcomes as sides of the same coin. Clemson plays a volatile style of basketball, sometimes it works for us, sometimes against us, and sometimes we have just enough in the tank to overcome home-court advantage plus three points.

***Lastly, unrelated to the above, I wanted to comment on Stitt's status. I'm not the biggest Stitt fan, I'm on the record as saying that Young is more than capable of filling most of the roles he plays for the team. But that doesn't change the fact that losing Stitt for any extended period of time is a big blow. No one on the team can replace Stitt's explosive first step and his ability to penetrate and cause problems for the defense. It also seems like he's been cut loose a little over the last three games, and the results have been pretty good. Unfortunately, he's also got a growing injury history. He's got a little bit of Dwayne Wade in him that way--penetration guy with little regard for his body and a litany of nagging injuries hampering his play. Unfortunately, Stitt's injury sounds pretty serious--not a pulled muscle or something. There's also the issue of how healthy he is when he finally comes back. If you watched the team closely last year, Stitt never seemed the same after coming back from a pre-ACC season injury. I'm not going to jump to any conclusions here, but obviously keeping the game close against in Atlanta on Tuesday just became a lot more difficult. I'll try to comment more when we get news of the severity of the injury.

What in Tar Nation? Clemson Spanks UNC

UPDATED BELOW, Tigermax

After Duke everyone was going to meltdown but thats because lots of football fans dont understand how to be basketball fans necessarily. Basketball season isnt about your record so much as peaking at the right time. I mean sure you want to win the conference regular season champs and have a good seed in the tourney but its about getting your team playing at the optimum level late in the season. Its also very much about match-ups, with Duke last year we matched up well against their suspect guard play--this year we dont match up well at all. However, we do match up well against UNC and made them look silly committing around 26 turnovers. TBooker at the point of the press really helps put on the pressure. It also helps him get into his offensive mindset with a couple easy flushes that come from that position.

We looked a lot better in a lot of aspects of the game but I wanted to just highlight a couple right now. FT shooting!!! We were 18-20 from the line. Hallelujah! I'll take 90% from the line any night. Stitt scored 20 points on 8-14 attempts. We need him to play well and drive the offense. He is the only player on the team with a legit first step who can drive and if he can cut down on some of the turnovers then he will be exciting.

I dont like Potter much at all and his shot selection is mind-bottling but he had 5 steals. We need him to be a legit three point shooter. I liked Noel Johnson sticking those two threes early, really set the tone but we went cold thereafter. We missed 11 threes in the second half--dont think we made one. Smith missed some open looks but had a solid game otherwise. The three point shooting has to get better if we are going to challenge in the ACC. And I do mean challenge because Duke just got beat by a manic GTech team. We beat UNC and FSU is up and down as well. Anyone can win this, Duke should be favored but I think we can beat them at home with the Freshman not looking completely shell shocked.

This was a good learning game, wish we could still get the younglings more time in the games, but a victory to relish. Its been six years since we beat these Tar Heels and I think we could have broken the curse had we played in the Dean Dome. I am looking forward to the Duke rematch. Going away to NC State, playing a lot better than I expected, and the always dangerous GTech team are two tough challenges as well. The ACC will be a dog fight but since I hate that metaphor I'll leave you to discuss what that actually means...

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Tigermax adds: Not quite as satisfying as the Duke thrashing last year, but pretty darn close. This was a case of a team with a glaring weakness (UNC's turnover problem) running smack into a team perfectly tailored to take advantage of that weakness (Clemson's pressure defense). As Clemben pointed out above, Duke really had the same problem coming into their game last year.

At the same time, I would caution against viewing this as some watershed moment for Clemson basketball. They played very well against a team they match up well against. Not to underplay the victory, it's good for all sorts of reasons (NCAA tournament resume, ACC standings, ACC tournament seeding, improved FT shooting, etc.) Also, if you put stock in this sort of thing, you can certainly argue that Clemson displayed intangibles last night that haven't been present recently. But it shouldn't really change your opinion about the basic skill level of the team. We still have fundamental flaws that can be exploited by the right team. I'll be withholding any revisions in overall team skill until we play the same way against a tall team that forces turnovers and plays outstanding defense; the general profile of teams that have given us fits in the last couple of years.

Duke preview I: not last years' Dookies

Sunday, Jan. 3rd, Cameron Indoor, 7:45pm

Still working on the midseason review, but its become more involving than I initially thought. I'll hopefully have it up after next week, but I wanted to focus on the Duke game first...

Years of underperformance, selection committee overseeding, and media adoration have etched the image of Duke as an over-rated squad in the minds of college basketball fans across the country. This is largely justified, Duke hasn't been an elite squad for several years. However, I think we may be at the point where the pendulum has swung the other way; Duke has been labeled as "overrated" for so long that this is the year they might actually be underrated. After reading some of the chatter 'round the Clemson blogosphere (although the OP notably voices some caution), I think there may be the mistaken impression that after last year's performance Clemson walks into Cameron Indoor as, if not the favorite, the unquestioned equal of the Blue Devils. I aim to show you in this post this viewpoint is diametrically opposed to reality.

How is this year's Duke team so much better than the team that was beaten down in Littlejohn last season? Two things stand out after looking over the stats and also based on what I've seen from them this year. First, they stopped turning the ball over. I think this stems from two primary developments: 1) the graduation of Greg Paulus, who was a graduate student quarterback for a crappy Big East team for a while under the tutelage of one Rob Spence and 2) the remarkable improvement of Nolan Smith. Smith has gone from a guy who turned the ball over a poor 25.3% of his personal possessions as a freshmen, a semi-respectable 20.8% of the time as a sophomore, and now as a junior he's turning over the ball a microscopic 12.6% of the time. Wouldn't that have been nice to see from Demontez Stitt?

The second thing is the increase in height at Duke. I'm not talking about Zoubek, although he's more useful as a senior, particularly on both glasses. I'm talking more about the emergence of 6'10" sophomore Miles Plumlee and the arrival of this 6'10" freshman brother, Mason. Miles has been a beast on the offensive and defensive boards this season and a potent shot-blocker. On top of this, they've been getting quality defensive bench minutes from 6'10" freshman Ryan Kelly. Put it all together and in one season Duke has gone from 62nd in the country in average effective height to 9th.

These two developments have given Duke reliable ball-handling and a strong inside presence, two features noticeably lacking from recent incarnations of the team. It also spells big trouble for the Tigers, because both of these improvements cut into what made last season's game such a success. We forced turnovers left and right last season with our press; that's not likely to be repeated now. Trevor Booker dominated Duke inside last season; again, that's not likely to happen this time around. Throw in Clemson's general struggles last season with tall teams that feature a good defense and things start looking a little bleak.

There's still hope, though. While Duke runs out a good defense, it's not elite, ours is still probably a little better, and it certainly isn't at the level of a Florida State or Wake Forest. The Duke big men have probably been more valuable on offense than defense. I hope this means we still get some points in our half-court offense. We can also hope for some regression from Nolan Smith, I can believe the jump from 25 to 20 after a year of getting used to the college game, but that's an awful big jump in the third year.

All in all though, we're looking at long odds here. If Clemson can hold the margin of victory to under 10 points, I think its a moral victory and we can build on that to try and score the upset back home at Littlejohn later in the month. Or we can hope Nolan Smith melts down again in the presence of the press. GO TIGERS!!!!

Re-emerging for a post or two

I've been working the 12-14 hour day again the past three weeks or so. I'm still lacking much of any free time, but things have calmed down a bit and I thought I'd chime in with a few thoughts here and there. It sucks to condense the last few seismic weeks in Clemson sporting into bullet points, but it also sucks I was stuck in working hell at the same time.

• I'll just go ahead and say what everyone else is thinking: we have no chance on Sunday against Kentucky. It doesn't even matter we match up fairly well against Kentucky, after this season's colossal collapse, I can't see the team showing up motivated for a semi-away game in the Gaylord's Bowl. It would take a miracle motivator; and even though that's one of the reasons why we hired Swinney, I don't see it.
• I think this season has once again exposed the fallacy of hiring based on intangibles. We can all agree that the coaching got better as the season progressed, and by and large this was a more satisfying style of play for Clemson fans to watch, but Swinney did little to alleviate the problem with the team not inexplicably showing up to play certain weeks (see Maryland, Sakerlina). 2 times this season (plus a likely third in the bowl game), including a game against a team that failed to beat another ACC team, that's not much better than a Tommy Bowden season.
• Dabo Swinney has his work cut out for him. Ultimately, an 8-6 season is acceptable given this was basically the expectation going in (with a Division title added in as a bonus). But he really could have used something more to help him ride out next year. With the talent coming off the roster in various skill positions combined with a cratering in recruitment efforts (documented by ClemBen in the previous posts), he's gonna be relying solely on his and his staff's coaching ability to somehow improve the team next season. Heaven help us. Something north of .500 next year will be an accomplishment.
• I fully believe Swinney will have three seasons to establish himself, but his final record in season 3 will be a big part of how long he lasts at Clemson. Unfortunately, as far as having the players needed to address the teams' shortcomings, things aren't looking much better for season 3 than season 2.
• On to basketball: ClemBen's been covering things just fine in my absence. I would just echo that this team can get better and should get better as the season progresses. To be honest, I think Purnell has struggled a bit to get the freshmen to fit in the system. While these are talented freshmen, they are not the kind of talent that Purnell has picked up in the past.
• There's still time for the freshmen to improve this season. Obviously we didn't see as much as we would have liked in the pre-ACC season. But Jennings and Devin Booker have looked slightly better as the season has progressed (albeit against vastly inferior opposition). Johnson needs to find his shot, its taken him way too long to get calibrated to the college game.
• Purnell is spreading the minutes around even deep into the pre-ACC season. I really hope this pays dividends at the end of the season and we don't see a drop-off in energy level as the season progresses, particularly with so many freshmen unaccustomed to the longer seasons.
• Kenpom's player ratings are out, and have been updated now through the College of Charleston game. A summary really deserves a post of its own, but just to hit some highlights:
• Tanner Smith has the second best offensive rating on the team. This highlights 2 problems, first, as ClemBen has hit on, Tanner Smith is not the team's answer on offense. He plays okay against inferior competition, but if you recall he completely disappeared in league play last year. To my eyes, he's really not much better this year. He's playing a little sharper in defense and maybe passing the ball a bit better, but he's not shooting the ball particularly well, handling the ball well, and he's completely out of control when he goes to the hoop. Second, Tanner Smith's rating highlights the problems Booker has had getting out of the blocks this season. He's been trying to expand his role by driving to the hoop and its hurting the team. He needs to get back into the blocks and concentrate on finishing plays. As ClemBen said, more solid 4/5 play, please.
• Andre Young is crushing Demontez Stitt in just about every measurable category except one: percentage of minutes played. This is disappointing, because it reinforces the image of Purnell as a coach who tends to favor veterans even when they are not the best performers. In fairness its not completely one-sided. Stitt is sitting at 68.3% minutes played while Yound is at 57.5%. As we've documented before, Stitt has his uses; he's the best option for Clemson when they need to create off the dribble, and his assist total this year is starting to reflect the fact that he's looking to pass at the rim instead of looking for the shot. But his turnover rate is right where it was last year, before ACC play even begins. I'd like to see the minute percentages between the two at least flipped by the end of the season.
• Despite the wailing about the lack of three-point shooting, we've actually been doing pretty well. Despite his recent struggles, Potter is at .478 for the season and Andre Young is the best player at .404. Great numbers all around, really, with Stitt unexpectedly logging a .353 and Noel Johnson sitting at 11-31. The only difference is the drop in the total number of shots, but I think we expected that coming in and I don't think its necessarily a bad thing. We need to work more off Booker inside. I expect Potter to regress much more as the season goes along, but hopefully Johnson or Smith pick up the slack.
• On the team level, Kenpom has Clemson ranked 6. Pay no attention, its still too early.
• FT% is back to 2007-2008 levels. Very disappointing--this team has the skill to be a better FT shooting team. The excuses I gave last year don't hold water anymore. Hopefully this is just related to the recent swoon we've seen from Trevor Booker at the line, and hopefully he rights himself soon.
• The win over Western Carolina is nice, I think they will be serious contenders for the Southern Conference title, which could add a footnote to our tourney resume come March.
• To again echo ClemBen, when someone asks me the biggest problem facing the basketball team, I don't hesitate to say "turnovers, turnovers, turnovers". Got to hang on to the ball in the halfcourt set. We are giving up way too many possessions. Switching out Young for Stitt helps, but Smith and Young need to improve as well.
• I'm not as optimistic as ClemBen on our prospects for the ACC season. I felt in order to really contend we needed a freshmen or two to quickly become significant contributors, which hasn't happened yet. Right now, I think a 10-6 ACC finish is a realistic expectation.

Merry Christmas/Happy New Year everyone. And GO TIGERS!!!!

Western Carolina Catamount Reaction: Booker Brother Bookends??

Another good performance overall, but being the critic I am and looking towards ACC play lets breakdown a few things. We are still really sloppy with the ball. Stitt had eight assists tonight but he turns it over so much. They ran a 1-4 offense set which allowed them to get some open looks. We did an alright rotating, which we are doing a lot better in--basically because the freshman have learned what to do. But I absolutely hate the Stitt, Potter, Young, Smith, Grant line-up because they cant rebound. Potter and Tanner cant rebound like forwards and Grant has always had trouble rebounding strong, he is adequate but needs Booker. Whats worse is the 16-32 FT shooting, which is very troubling. OP has always said that they need to just recruit better FT shooters and we give him a pass. Now he has all his kids and we are regressing, something needs to be done--its becoming an area of concern. Booker has regressed in a major way, 8-17 just dont cut it.

Booker looked more comfortable in the paint tonight, looking like the more dominant force he was at the end of last year. I think it was the intl play and talk of the draft that had him trying to look more like an NBA 3 than a college basketball monster at the 4 or 5. We forget that Booker played center his freshman and sophomore season almost exclusively. Ok Booker had a monster game but Devin Booker continues to impress me. He makes it so easy for guards to pass it in to him, he has been schooled on how to set himself for the entry pass and the guards are learning how to throw it in--well Potter, Stitt and sometimes Smith still need to improve but Booker Jr. is going to be big off the bench and keeps improving his defense. Right now I am calling it--the Booker Brother Bookends! Or something like that, its trademarked...any reporter must now reference this blog or your a bad journalist...haha. Bookend Bookers may be better(a play on the Bamberg bookends??). Anyway, its clear the brothers feed off of each other and I think Devin pushes TBook to play more aggressive and flashy. Lots of sweet flushes when the two were in together tonight--think they made Sportscenter...


Jennings also provided a nice spark off the bench and was really active--getting some rebounds, put backs and energy. Hopefully now he can step back and let his offense come to him some more.

So rebounding and turnovers were the big problems. Our press looked a little crisper too, Booker is really quite good at the point--that is where the press is most poignant. Noel Johnson took a small step backwards though, I'm not a fan of Potter who went 1-5. Johnson only took one shot. Lastly for all you Narcisse fans--tonight was a perfect example why he shouldnt play more than the other freshman. He comes in and gives you energy, but its risky. He turns it over way too much to be a regular offensive substitution. You cant have your prime bench players coming in and screwing up the flow of the offense. Put him in for a defensive or offensive spark that is limited to ten minutes a game as he learns how to better manage himself within the flow of the offense. Like I've said before, it can come but his ceiling is so much lower than a Jennings, Devin Booker, or even Donte Hill I think going forward. I thought Hill showed us something last game and was disappointed not to see him tonight. Bobo gain some weight! If he had any kind of big man presence he would be so dangerous...maybe next year...

Nice win Tigers, we get a week break and then a tune up for Duke with SC State which is nice. I really want us to take it to a highly ranked but suspect Duke team. Would be a nice upset that vaults us in the top 15 at least...

Illinois Preview

ACC-Big10 Challenge, Illinois vs. Clemson, Dec. 2, 7:15pm, Littlejohn

As I wrote in the last post, Clemson is in the midst of a crucial five game stretch. After Illinois on Wednesday and South Carolina on Sunday, there are exactly zero non-conference games that will catch the attention of the selection committee come March. We can always hope that a team like Long Beach State or, I don't know, Western Carolina get hot and convincingly win their conference but the odds against that appear pretty long at the moment. That's why the win against Butler was so important, the next two games are no longer essential for resume-padding.

That being said, the next two games are both winnable games for Tigers. I probably won't have time to squeeze in a post about South Carolina between the ACC Championship Game and Sunday, but let me just say something right now: thank you, Oliver Purnelll, for amassing a 5-1 record against the Gamecocks. Lord knows I have trouble sleeping some nights knowing I might die with Clemson trailing the overall series in one of the three main sports (of course we have historically dominated football and baseball) but through your efforts, Mr. Purnell, I can rest a little easier. Still trailing 86-73, though, so please, please keep up the good work.

Back to Illinois and the ACC-Big Ten "challenge". Fun fact: since it's inception in 1999, the ACC has yet to lose this competition, compiling a 62-35 overall record. But it's still fun to hear ESPN hype every year as the year the Big10 will once again become the best league in the country. On a related note Clemson is 8-2 in the challenge while Illinois has managed a 3-7 mark. That pretty much tells the story in a small capsule right there, because while Clemson has never been viewed as an ACC powerhouse, Illinois has often been right around the top of the class in the Big10. This is also a rematch of last year's pretty memorable game at Illinois, which saw Clemson eke out a victory in a seesaw match, ultimately winning after the Illini couldn't get a shot off in the final seconds.

The early returns for Bruce Weber's Illinois team this year have not been kind. After destroying four paperweights, they are coming off back-to-back losses against Utah and Bradley. Its too early to say how good those teams are, but Utah did manage to lose to Seattle University. (Yes, that's right, Seattle apparently has their own University (not Washington University) and their own Division I basketball team with no conference affiliation. They are going around this year and providing filler relief to teams from various conferences across the country whenever its convenient for their schedule. Kind of like Notre Dame in football.) Anyways, once again back to Illinois. Still extrapolating from small sample sizes, but Illinois seems to be struggling quite a bit on defense. They've been holding teams to a reasonable FG%, although teams haven't been shooting the three much against them, but they've really struggled to force turnovers. That would be good news for Clemson, if we weren't so adept at handing the ball over to the other team with out any help. On offense, the bad news for Clemson is Illinois has done a tremendous job of not turning the ball over. On the other hand, they haven't shot the ball particularly well, particularly from beyond the arc.

As for Clemson, after the 76 Classic we are seeing some troubling trends emerge. First, poor guard play, specifically the inability of either Stitt, Smith, or Young to hang onto the ball. While this is par for the course for Stitt and Smith, I'm really disappointed thus far in Young. Additionally, we've really been giving up a lot of trips to the foul line, most since 2006. And we're still hovering around 64.6% from the line, in spite of Stitt's heroics.

The good news is that despite the fact we've looked lost in the halfcourt set for stretches at a time, we're still shooting a decent effective FG% (54.7%). I think this really underscores what we've said since the season preview--this team is a work in progress. Give the youngsters time to adjust to the system, we should get quite a bit better. Hopefully we don't need the improvement to take out Illinois and South Carolina at home and as long as Illinois doesn't come out shooting extremely well from the field (reversing their performance from the last two games), I think we've got a good chance to continue our recent run of success against the Big10.