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!

More on "Collapses"; FSU Preview 2

Following up on yesterday's post wherein I tried to counter some of the prevailing wisdom out there in TigerLand, I decided to look at how many times Clemson has blown a "significant" lead this year, and compare that to the number of times they have overcome a "significant" lead. I set the threshold at 10 points. That's a completely arbitrary number, it would be better to look at total points scored and have some kind of sliding scale where less than 10 points might be significant in a low-scoring game and more than 10 points would be significant in a higher-scoring game. But I haven't got that kind of time right now and 10 points is useful as a quick proxy. I might have missed a game or two (let me know if you find one), but as you'll see, it doesn't matter much:

Number of games Clemson has led by 10 or more points and lost this season: 2 (Illinois, Maryland)

Number of games Clemson has trailed by 10 or more points and won this season: 1 (Butler)

Yep, that's a whole lot of collapsin' by the Tigers right there. Like I said yesterday, I'm not sure where this notion comes from, but there's no basis for it in the numbers. Looking back over the game logs, I was actually pretty surprised at how infrequently we've played games where there were a lot of lead changes--the times we've lost this year we've typically trailed throughout and the times we've won we've led more or less from start to finish. Of course, there are occasionally runs by the opposing team to make things closer, but that happens to every team in college basketball.

Now to the preview:

Clemson vs. Florida State, 02/28, 5:30, Donald L. Tucker Center

No one needs to be told how important this game is to the Tigers. I've become more and more convinced that Clemson is going to struggle mightily against Georgia Tech on Tuesday because 1) GT is, at this point, a seriously underrated team that's played a conference schedule with the same degree of difficulty as Clemson and 2) Clemson will be coming off a 2 days rest vs. three days for GT. As laughable as this might have sounded just a few weeks ago, Clemson's easiest path to 9 wins might be to win at both FSU and Wake Forest. Translation: we have our work cut out for us.

I don't have a lot to add to the last FSU preview. The short version: our defense matches up well with their offense because they feature one of the worst turnover rates in the entire country (not just the ACC) while we run out one of the best turnover-causing defenses in the country. On the other hand, FSU's defense is better than our offense, right now ranking #1 against the inside shot and #8 in the country in effective FG% against. Their weakness, however, is defending the three, in which they are markedly below ACC-average. Teams that have beaten them this year, including us, have made lots of three-pointers. FSU also struggles to keep other teams off the offensive glass, which, given their height, is kind of baffling.

This is a game where I would absolutely expect the Tigers to run the press all evening long. Don't give FSU any breathing room, because every possession is a turnover waiting to happen. One possible complication is whether Oliver Purnell wants to try and hold back some to ensure we have any energy on Tuesday night against a GT team that also frequently turns the ball over. Unless we're down by an absolutely unwinnable margin, I wouldn't recommend it, because this is the kind of game that could turn in our favor quickly even if we are trailing by double digits at some point. Against GT you just hope that Senior Night provides enough adrenaline to fuel our insanely energy-expensive defensive pressure.

I would look for FSU to try and limit Clemson's three point looks by leaving Alabi 1-on-1 against Booker. I was really surprised that FSU continually collapsed on Booker when he got the ball in game 1 at Littlejohn considering how Alabi manhandled Booker by his lonesome last year. I think that was a real key for Clemson, they got a lot of good three-point looks I wasn't counting on going into the game with the inside-out play of Booker. As far as adjustments go, this seems like a no-brainer for FSU to at least try at the beginning of the game.

If Clemson can shoot the three ball at a roughly a 35-40% clip, get a few easy putbacks from Booker/Grant, and force the expected amount turnovers, they can win the game. If not, its going to be a slog. GO TIGERS!!

Maryland Recap 2

Maryland 88, Clemson 79

NCAA Basketball

I'm going to disagree a little with ClemBen here. I think we can say with some certainty now that Maryland is a good team. Not final-four caliber, but the sweet sixteen isn't a stretch this year for Gary Williams & Co. I think as a Clemson fan the game went about as well as you could hope for. We were aggressive in the beginning, particularly on offense. Gary Williams came out pressing us, probably hoping to slow our offense down like in the first meeting. I was impressed, Clemson showed a real ability to attack Maryland's pressure, getting down the court and finding open shots. With Maryland unable to get set in their defense, they were even worse than normal defending the offensive glass, leading to quite a few easy points. When Gary Williams dialed down the pressure and started setting his team back in the halfcourt, we stopped getting the open three-point looks. With Jerai Grant only playing 9 minutes, Trevor Booker looked really tired in the second half and wasn't able to fight for position on the blocks. Those two factors really combined to stunt the offense in the second half, and it slowly slipped away from Clemson. I really think Jerai Grant's fifth foul with about 11:00 minutes left was the death knell. Without an extra body to fight for the offensive rebounds and spell T. Booker, we were in deep trouble even if we were still clinging to a lead at the time.

On the other side of the ball, Maryland's offense really just overwhelmed us. If they hadn't missed so many point-blank shots in the first half they might have hung a hundred on us. Thinking back to the second half, it's hard to remember us getting any stops at all. I can remember Maryland throwing the ball away a couple of times, but we could not stop the sets Gary Williams was throwing at us. They had a great designed play where Vasquez gave the ball up at the three point line to Tucker who was running a curling around to shed his defender, and knowing that Smith would turn his back and follow Vasquez under the hoop, Tucker ran right behind Smith using him as shield to get three feet from the hoop. That's what you get from watching the tapes.

My only critique of Clemson's play is to wonder why we didn't abandon the press earlier in the first half--Maryland was really shredding the pressure from the opening tip. I can appreciate Purnell's desire to be aggressive and create some opportunities in a game we didn't have much of a chance to win, but I would have preferred to see Clemson concentrate on the half court after we built that big lead. That would have at least forced Maryland to fight for some of its points instead of allowing them to pretty effortlessly whittle down the lead in the waning minutes of the first half.

Now the pressure shifts back on us to win two of the last three. I wouldn't take this game as an indication of how we will perform the rest of the way; as I discussed in the preview Maryland really poses some matchup difficulties for us. They defend the shot well and don't turn the ball over, two traits that have bothered us a lot this season. We still have the ability to get into the NCAA tournament. Let's see if the team can bounce back in Tallahassee.

A Little More on Virgina; Assorted Thoughts

I don't have anything to add to ClemBen's succinct take below, but I just wanted to show the game chart from Saturday afternoon:

College 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.)

That's beautiful domination right there--the game was unofficially over at 9:38 to go in the game when Clemson jumped up 60-30. When I'm watching a game with two non-Clemson teams, I often find myself rooting for the team that falls behind just 'cause I want to see a close game. But when it comes to Clemson, I want every game to be like last Saturday's game. (Just to be clear, the converse is true for any game involving USuCk. I quite enjoy rooting for the other team to pile on the points...)

A few bullet points touching on Virginia and beyond:

• I want to take a second and recognize a trying week of basketball for Virginia. They really got burned by the weather: the cancellation of the Maryland game leaving them in the undesirable position of playing 4 games over a span of 8 days. Not that I think that playing one less game would have made enough of a difference on Saturday, but Virginia was hanging by the end of the first ten minutes. Tough to blame them for a lack of endurance, no team should have to prepare for that kind of brutal schedule. At any rate, on normal rest I suspect Virginia would have come a lot closer to the 60+ points I thought they would in the preview.
• Lots of people have commented on the improved play underneath. I would agree to an extent--we haven't seen the bad finishes on easy shots in the three game win streak that we saw when during the three game losing streak. I'm not sold on any increased ability to create points underneath, however. Virginia and Miami are average-to-middling at defending the 2-point shot, so we should be expecting Trevor Booker to put up some big numbers.
• On that note, mea culpa Jerai Grant, again. I should make disparaging remarks about him before every game, because he always makes me look stupid when I write something snide about him in the preview. It was really a pretty impressive performance--Grant wasn't just cleaning up the garbage on the offensive board (as I noted, Virginia is good at keeping teams off the offensive glass and true to form, we only picked up 5 offensive rebounds in the game. Helps that we shot 58% from the floor, of course), he was finding open spaces underneath and finishing at the rim. If he keeps things up, I may have to re-evaluate my opinion of him as an athletic role player that contributes a little on defense, a little on offense. He's not going to be a guy to build an offense or defense around, but he's turning into a valuable supporting player that complements well better players on the floor.
• Again, back to point #2. I know its exciting to watch Clemson actually make some shots inside, but let's keep in mind that Virginia and Miami aren't great teams at defending the shot. Its worth noting that while Grant had a good game (in which he did manage a lot of garbage buckets), FSU managed to shut down Booker pretty effectively. I still feel the FSU game was won on the strength of our outside shooting. While FSU defends the inside shot well, they have struggled quite a bit against the outside shot. I'm not going to get excited about an offensive resurgence until we look better against a team that typically holds their opponents to a low effective field goal percentage, the kind of team that we seem to have struggled against the most this season (think Duke, Virginia Tech, Georgia Tech). Maryland on the road should be a good test, while they do show something of a split by defending quite a bit better against the 2-point shot relative to the 3-point shot, it's not as dramatic as the difference in Florida State's defense.
• Let me hand out some credit to the offense in addition to throwing out some caution, though. Others have pointed out Clemson's better long-range shooting, but I would also point out that we've incrementally cut down on our stupid turnovers, gotten to the line a little more often, and shot better from the free throw line. Going from 64% to almost 68% since the beginning of February might not sound like much, but for this late in the season its an accomplishment.
• I think 8-8 should get any ACC team into the tournament this year, but for whatever reason the national perception of the ACC is at odds with reality. I think that means a maximum of six teams from the ACC, and I'm worried if there are multiple 8-8 teams at the end of the year, the #7 team gets the shaft. For that reason, Clemson needs to aim for a 9-7 finish just to be safe, which means stealing one on the road in addition to beating a tough (and at this point, significantly underrated) GT team at home on two days' rest. While things look better than they did a couple of weeks ago, nothing is assured at this point.

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!!

Virginia Tech Preview

Clemson vs. Virginia Tech, 02/06, 4:00pm, Cassell Coliseum

Sorry for the lack of comment on National Signing Day, definitely not my area of expertise, however. I know ClemBen had an opinion or two, but it looks like he's fallen off the grid again. My relatively uninformed perspective is that we did a good job overcoming a shaky start to the recruiting season, at least in part validating one of the primary reasons Swinney was hired.

Anyways, back to the basketball season. This time last season, VT was just kicking off a disastrous second half ACC schedule, which saw the team revert to 2006 form after two straight years of being fringe NCAA tourney contenders. The main culprit for their collapse last year was the absence of defense, specifically the complete inability to force any turnovers. This year, however, the Hokies appear to have transformed the defense, reaching back to the lofty heights achieved in 2007/2008. And yes, they are once again fringe-NCAA contenders. I actually like this this year's VT defense better than the 2007-2008 versions, its more balanced. They don't do anything particularly well, but they don't have any exploitable weaknesses, either. They do tend to send teams to the line a little too often, but if anything this should help them against Clemson.

The good news about this balance is that VT doesn't excel at limiting the opposing team's FG%, which seems to be something we have really struggled with this year. They aren't bad at defending the shot (and notably, they are about as good outside as inside), but this isn't like playing Duke. Unfortunately, they are also reasonably good at inducing turnovers, which is bad news for Clemson. I would caution that while VT is getting turnovers, they aren't getting too many steals. This could indicate that they've been getting a little lucky and will see some regression as the season goes along. Frankly, given VT's track record of not forcing many turnovers, I would weight this possiblity rather heavily. Also bad news for Clemson: VT can keep opposing teams off the offensive glass. Look for Jerai Grant to vanish again after two consecutive "breakout" games.

So why isn't VT a shoe-in for the NCAA tournament? Well, that's the good news for the Tigers--on offense, VT is a markedly below average ACC team. They have Malcolm Delaney and, well...that's about it. They simply cannot shoot the ball and have a worse three-point percentage than Clemson. The bad news for Clemson, though, is VT doesn't like to turn the ball over and also pounds the offensive glass, two factors that will work strongly against our defense.

Before I really sat down to think about this game, I like Clemson's chances quite a bit. I was anticipating a Maryland-like game where both defenses try their hardest to keep the other offense from finding a rhythmn and we end up with a close, low-scoring affair. But now I am much less confident of Clemson's chances. We just don't match up well with the Hokies, particularly their strength in offensive rebounding. Additionally, we won't have any stupid turnovers from VT to help bail us out of the times we lose possession after throwing the ball away. In order to win, I think Clemson will need to slacken the press and concentrate on shutting down their offense in the half-court. We have the capacity to limit their point total by playing hard in the half-court. In fact, we've often gotten into trouble against VT because we play the press for too long. Let's see how Purnell plays this, but if VT is scoring early and often after breaking the press Clemson will find itself in quite the early hole and without the proper offensive tools to find a way back into the game.

Maryland Recap

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

Good ugly game for Clemson. I think there will be a lot of talk about how neither Clemson or Maryland played well. While I agree to a certain extent (Clemson has not played well on offense for more than 10 minutes at a time for three games running...), I would point out that while there was an abundant amount of sloppy play, part of this can be explained by both teams having excellent defenses. Both teams played to there strengths on defense, Clemson forcing turnovers against a normally surehanded Maryland team (it looked like the press really rattled a few of their younger players) while Maryland held us to 31% from the field. I thought one difference on defense was the job Clemson did in limiting Maryland's easy opportunities after breaking the press and also defending the shot well in the halfcourt set. I don't care how bad the other team looked, holding a good shooting team like Maryland to 36%is something to be happy about. To 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.)

Clemson also won because they took advantage of the primary weakness in Maryland's defense I pointed out in the preview: their inability to keep teams off the offensive glass. Clemson racked up enough boards to keep possessions alive and give us second chances, helping to compensate for the low low field goal percentage. Gary Williams' team have never been great on keeping teams off the offensive glass and from watching them its easy to see why: Maryland likes to challenge shots with two or three guys while treating the rebounds as secondary. Its not necessarily a bad strategy, heck, Purnell employs the same strategy, albeit to a possibly lesser degree, for Clemson. But tonight Maryland ran into Jerai Grant. I don't talk about Grant a lot, and even take a few not-so-subtle jabs at him from time to time, but I give him credit for seizing an opportunity to perform last night. Grant's best skill is probably picking up offensive boards (and points resulting from these boards), but he often gets overpowered or outjumped when playing against a team with considerable inside size and/or heft. Last night, though, he was playing a team that struggles to stop his best attribute as a player, and he made them pay. It will be interesting to see if Maryland goes after Grant next time we play to try and put him in some early foul trouble and take him out of the game.

It was a must win situation and despite the generally close score throughout, I was never too worried about the final result. Good, physical performance by the Tigers. Virginia Tech is actually a team with a somewhat similar defensive profile to Maryland, but lacks the good offense. Based on last night's performance, I think we've got a good chance of winning on the road this weekend and getting back on the right side of .500 in ACC play.

Boston College Recap

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

College 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.)

Now we're in trouble. When I said yesterday we were still on pace for 10-6 or 9-7, I neglected to mention that the margin for error was a lot thinner than three weeks ago. When you lose all the games you're supposed to lose, then you have to win the games you're supposed to win. Now we're looking at 8-8 and trending towards 7-9. I originally listed the road game at Maryland as a toss-up, but the way Maryland's been playing, that's looking more and more like wishful thinking.

Bullet points:

• This game was lost on lax defense in the first half. Yeah, the first half offense wasn't great either, but you can't give up 42 points to Boston College of all teams in the first half and expect to win.
• I've been semi-sorta defender of Potter in the past, but that was the latest in a string of invisible to bad performances. His defense in the first half was bad and only passable in the second half. With the drop-off to from Potter to Johnson arguably non-existent right now, there's no reason not to give Johnson the playing time. The coaching staff has to think about the long-term future of the club, and giving Johnson playing time should help ensure that he develops into more than, well, David Potter. I'm not holding my breath; Purnell has always had a veteran fetish of sorts.
• I've said it since last year: Tanner Smith should be a shooter. He's not a driver. This is clearly becoming one of the worst personnel mistakes of the Purnell era. No one's saying Smith is a gifted or natural shooter, but if he had spent the last two years working on his jump-shot (not just the 3-point shot) instead of driving the lane...wouldn't that be a nice offensive skill to have right now?
• How many times did we see Dallas Elmore pull up and nail a wide-open jump shot? That's what Tanner Smith should be doing right now instead of embarking on wild lane-drive after wild lane-drive.
• I'm really tired of hearing about how difficult ACC road games are. Give me a break. Home-court advantage gives you about a three point advantage relative to a neutral court. If you are a better team by more than three points, you should beat the other team on the road, not dig yourself into 17 point halftime deficits. Losing coaches and announcers kissing up to losing coaches like to frame ACC road games as possessing some magical property that prevents better teams from winning. I find this extremely annoying. There's a much simpler and believable explanation: lots of ACC teams are losing on the road because there's a lot of parity in the conference this year.
• This, however, was not one of those games. We should have won. This wasn't a case like last year when we lost to Virginia on what I felt was a bizarre series of bad calls and bad bounces all adding up to an improbable loss. We got beat because the other team played largely solid fundamentals and we didn't. We were lax on defense in the first half. The players and coaches are to blame for not getting ready.
• But perhaps the blame should rest more on the coaches for Tuesday's debacle. Not only was the team flat, but we were outcoached. We're seeing something pretty amazing this year in the ACC: teams are all starting to add real pressure to their defensive looks. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but the coaching staff needs to adjust. We haven't gotten killed by turning the ball over (so far) but BC and GT both used the pressure to shorten the game clock against an offense that already has problems getting open shots in the halfcourt. I know Purnell's dictum is that good defense leads to good offense, but he has to adjust. There's no excuse--he has the personnel now to implement a better half-court offense.
• Along these lines, we're starting to see the template for opposing ACC coaches against Clemson: run a halfway competent full-court pressure defense and play tight man-to-man. Has the added bonus of slowing the game down and keeping the number of times you have to break Clemson's press to a minimum.
• This goes back to the point I've been worried about since the offseason. Will Purnell try to force the more gifted offensive players he's recruiting into playing his system, or will he be flexible and creative enough to bend and adjust the system to accommodate the talents he's recruited. Remember, this is the first time in his career he's recruited players on par with other more storied programs. By this point, the verdict is all but in: Purnell has opted for the less flexible route.
• Jerai Grant always "comes out" against inferior defensive teams, Len.

There's plenty more to write, but I'll try to pick something out and be a bit more coherent later in the week. I can't believe I'm saying this, but the coaching staff better make some adjustments or we're headed back to the NIT this year. Last year when it was clear the ACC had developed an effective gameplan against Clemson, I argued that Clemson's roster construction left Purnell without any real options and no way to really adjust. This year, there's no excuse.

College of Charleston Reaction

That was the game I have been waiting for from these tigers. Jerai Grant had easily his best game of the season--when he is a force inside, this team is a premiere team. If we have Grant as a solid contributor in ACC play we can beat NC and Duke but without him we are too soft on the inside for my liking. I really liked adding Johnson to the starting line-up over Potter. Potter is a better value as a sixth man, giving more opportunity for future players with higher ceilings to emerge.

I am impressed with Devin Booker's poise on the block and in the paint. He is a big man, not trying to do too much, just smooth down low. I said in the offseason that Hill is going to be good and we saw a glimpse of that tonight. He plays good defense and just knows how to score points. Jennings had another solid game, which is key--we need him to build his confidence. We looked sharp on defense and ran some good set plays. We still need to work on the rebounding bc we will suffer against bigger stronger opponents going forward. Western Carolina beat Louisville so this will be another good test for us gearing up to play Duke. Last I think its really important that Stitt plays with confidence. When he is driving and hitting shots, when Grant is dunking, and Booker is taking it to the hoop this is easily a Sweet 16 team. Add in some supporting/outstanding freshman play and you have an ACC contender, final four possibility.

On Loving/Hating Tanner Smith

First off this post is not going to be popular--I know that, but I think its a good debate to have so here it is. I have a love/hate relationship with Tanner. On the message boards and in the blogs there is a general love that follows Mr. Smith. Now I dont think he is a bad player, I'm just not sold yet, and its a debate that is pivotal to the complexion, the demeanor that the team develops going forward.

So Smith is loved because:

• he hustles and gets to those loose balls
• he is the great white hype
• he is a team leader and team player
• Hitting above 80% from FT line, getting a lot of steals
  
• he is a go-to guy on offense
  

Wait what? He is a go to guy on offense? A compliment to Booker right? Here is where I have a problem--I love Tanner as a glue guy, the hustle guy that makes everything work--not as a go to guy. I also dont mind if he is a guy who helps fill in for Oglesby by hitting three point shots but that hasnt been working out lately. Potter and Smith are both struggling to be a complimentary piece but are perhaps playing out of their roles. Potter rode his early hot streak but now is taking a ton of bad shots. What Smith has become is this slasher, scorer for the team?

Let me first list my reasons for not loving (obviously this is too critical, every player has flaws, but with Smith becoming a go-to guy, I think it deserves deeper inspection)

• he makes bad passes--I counted about ten possessions in the ECU game where Smith made a bad pass that was a turnover or resulted in the other player committing a turnover. He makes some good passes--great assists but he has this tendency to revert to his Freshman mistakes and throw these stupid little passes out of the flow of the offense. One was a bullet to Young who was like two feet away, no one around, for no reason??
  
• Related to the first point, on the break he is not a great finisher. Too many times this year I have seen Tanner hustle to the ball, charge down the court and make a poor decision. He throws it away, doesnt make the best pass, and takes much more difficult shots than needed. He has trouble finishing around the basket and I think its because he lacks top end athleticism.
  
• Rebounding: Yes, he gets to loose balls and makes hustle plays but he gets caught (along with the rest of the Clemson team) flat footed trying to rebound. This is true for all the freshman, especially Jennings. We are getting beaten to rebounds and left staring at the ball because we arent elevating on to rebound. Tanner doesnt block out particularly well either, which we need from our three position.
  
• His defense is good but again he doesnt play above the rim much.
• 3-point shooting has been disappointing, only 32%--needs to be closer to 38-40 to be a legit threat deep.

I realize that this is a lot of ranting but I am worried that against superior athletic ability, Tanner will struggle and force some drives and turnovers like he did in the A&M and Illinois game, that the discrepancy between his talent and what he makes up for in hustle will be magnified. I like Tanner right now, but I love him as a glue guy. Cut down on the turnovers, improve the strength on rebounding, and finish at the basket. Thats what I am looking for heading into ACC play from Tanner. (Is the real reason why everyone likes him is cause he is white, unfulfilled basketball wish fantasies? Well I guess there is that whole thing about him being a good, selfless person too...)

Last bit of ranting, Narcisse has surprised me. When Purnell gave him that scholie I thought it was a total waste and he is not. He has some great leaping ability, long arms for the press and some tools to work on. What keeps him out of the line-up and should continue to do so is his lack of body control. Its one of those intrinsic qualities needed for basketball, a kind of body balance. Narcisse completely lacks a level of fluidity which makes his ball handling in particular but also his passing and sometimes shooting ugly. So while he can fly out of the gym, he will do things like jump way too early, give the ball away right after he has stolen it and generally spaz out from time to time.

These are kinks and growing pains that can be worked out of his game but at 6'6 he is not going to play the 4 unless he gains some serious muscle mass, and cant play the 2 bc of the poor ballhandling, shooting--so he is a 3 but lacks a great jumper or the ability to consistently create off the dribble. He is another athletic hustle guy who could try to develop into something more (to his credit you can see him trying to develop a three point shot). Its a question of whether you spend that developing time on him or someone like Milton Jennings (5* with height, a supposedly beautiful stroke that we havent seen yet and all the tools to land in the NBA) who finally had a good game in his limited minutes against ECU. Thats why I support Purnell in his choice to give Narcisse less playing time. Grant has taken a step backward in his progression, and we will need him much more than Narcisse in ACC play. Worry about why his minutes are decreasing...