Let me state that I emphatically hate idiot callers on radio talk shows. Let me add that I am one of those idiots and I will gladly participate if anyone even so much as pretends that they think I have something valuable to say. And the fine folks at CFB Weekly allowed me to have a return appearance to the show, so go ahead and give it a listen.

From what I recall, I was asked if we could win against BC if Matt Ryan was able to shred our defense. I like our offense, but I don’t think the team can win without a fine effort from the defense (and special teams).

Asked about the status of Bowden, I can say that his position is still up in the air and dependent on how the season ends. It’s great to be 8-2 and on a 4-game winning streak, but the happiness can easily be shattered by 3 straight losses. Additionally, I have the fear that once Tommy really achieves success, he may just up and leave. He certainly has a lot invested in the program, but at some point it just might not be worth dealing with Clemson fans anymore.

Lastly, there was a question about the ACCCG and who I would rather see Clemson play (based on the huge IF about beating BC). I choose Virginia Tech. Sure they’ve got a better defense. And special teams that destroy us. And the momentum in the series recently. However, I think UVA can play with more focus and is more able to will a victory. The destruction of Miami at their hands reminds me too much of Wake’s thrashing of FSU around this time last year. That said, I fucking hate UVA and while I would love to bury the bastards, I have a gut feeling that reason will go out the window and some stupid shit will happen and lead to their victory and I absolutely cannot deal with that.

It’s nice that our women’s tennis team is doing well. It’s also nice that the women’s tennis players are much nicer to look at than, say, any of the male athletes on campus. So it’s nice to know they’re coming to town.

The fifth-ranked Tiger women’s tennis team will wrap up its 2007 regular season this weekend with matches at Virginia and Virginia Tech. Clemson (17-3, 8-1 ACC) will face the Cavaliers (10-8, 4-5 ACC) at 11:00 am on Saturday at the Snyder Tennis Center in Charlottesville, VA.

Unfortunately I’ll probably miss the chance to see the team because rain is in the forecast and getting out of bed that early on a Saturday isn’t always easy.

• The baseball team had gained some momentum before the Hurricanes came to town. That momentum is now gone, as the ‘Canes took the first and the third games of the series. Sunday’s Game 3 score was 7-6.
• The 8th ranked women’s tennis team went to Chapel Hill and kicked some baby blue ass this weekend. The #13 Tar Heels lost 6-1.
• Men’s tennis, on the other hand, lost on Friday to #2 Virginia 5-2. And they also lost to Virginia Tech 4-3. The lesson to be learned is that people from Clemson just don’t belong in Virginia.
• The bad news continues on into the world of men’s golf. The team finished 10th at the Administaff ASU Invitational. Coastal was first, UNC was 2nd. USCe finished 4th. The team did finish 8 shots better than 15th place USC-Aiken.

And for the golf team alumni at the Shell Houston Open:

• Lucas Glover missed the cut.
• J. Byrd earned $66,660 by finishing tied for 19th at -8.
• Matt Hendrix had three solid and one “oh my god what happened” rounds en route to winning $34,100 and finishing at -5.
• Charles Warren fared less well, but still made the cut. He finished tied for 66th at 2 over. His check was for $11,300.
• Finally, DJ Trahan finished all alone in the 8th spot. He was 10-under for the weekend and 11-under for the tournament. That performance was worth $170,500.

It may be worth noting that the 5 golfers above combined to win $282,500. I’m fairly certain they won more in a weekend that all the Gnomes make combined in a year. Which all goes to show that the time spent in the classroom would have been better spent harassing the cart girl.

With the tournament looming, and the team’s NCAA aspirations hanging in the balance, I find myself right where I want to be: pessimistic to the point of not caring. Ever since the disaster against Virginia, I’ve been in a pretty bad mood. Things got worse with the lose to a miserable Wake Forest team. Things have improved though. The Tigers beat Miami and a ranked Virginia Tech team on the road. Plus after taking the league lead, Virginia got beat by the same sad Wake Forest team. Schadenfreude? You betcha.

Moving on, tomorrow the team plays Florida State at noon. Clemson is 21-9, FSU is 19-11, and both teams went 7-9 in conference play. Two of Clemson’s wins were against Florida State. Clemson tends to be ranked a bit higher by the computers, and Vegas favors them by 1.5.

In my view, there are two burning questions that have to be answered.
1.) Does Clemson have enough luck to win in what is almost a home game for Florida State?
2.) Is it worth skipping work tomorrow to watch the game on TV?

There’s no good way to predict the answer to #1. So I did what any rational person would do. I flipped a coin; heads=yes. Two flips led to 2 tails. You heard it here first.

The 2nd question isn’t as easy as it sounds. Watching the team lose is more painful than work. And as demonstrated by the coin flip, it’s going to be painful. Going back to the coin, it says to skip work.

And thus it is decided.

The basketball team is done.

The done as in finished part is correct. But there is absolutely no comparison to made that suggest that the team is hot.

After starting 17-0 (3-0), they’ve lost 7 of the last 9 to sit at a lukewarm 19-7 (5-7).

Eternal optimist I am not, and I see a high probability of this team, which seems to have forgotten to win, losing it’s remaining games to Duke, BC, Va Tech, and even lowly Miami. Today they got destroyed 82-66 at home by Maryland.

The Terps (20-7, 6-6 Atlantic Coast Conference) saw its [sic] 12-point second half lead slip to 59-58 on Cliff Hammonds’ driving basket with 8:19 to go. But Strawberry, despite the Clemson crowd’s singsong chants of “Darryl, Darryl” about his famous baseball playing dad, scored eight of Maryland’s next 15 points to regain control, 74-63.

You can’t say that Clemson fans aren’t classy…

Anyway, I already said that the team has forgotten to win, and at this point it also appears that they’ve forgotten that games last for 40 minutes. And for that, Virginia, Wake Forest, and Maryland are all eternally grateful.

With the season winding its way to a gut-wrenching halt, and a 19-11 final record looming, I am remind that our basketball team never makes sense or does things that others describe as “likely.” Therefore it would be in character for the ol’ Tigers to show up against Duke on the 22nd and pull out a victory. However, I am not betting on it. I will bet on three things:

• 1.) A horrific loss at the hands of Krzyzewski,
• 2.) A bunch of really lame taunts and gags demonstrated by the Clemson faithful in attendance that will refer to our last, poorly officiated game against Duke and/or to their lacrosse team, and/or maybe even black strippers, and
• 3.) After the loss the Clemson faithful will blame John Swofford and the ACC.

To wrap up this post o’ sunshine, I will summarize: Clemson finishes the regular season 19-11 (5-11) to earn the pre-season predicted 9th place ACC finish; they lose their first ACC tournament game just like they lost their last 6 league games; the vocal Clemson fans will blame Swofford & the ACC; and the Tigers will become a bubble team for the NIT where they’ll drop their first game to end the season at 19-13 (the same as last year). Or in other words: “just like football.”

PS - There’s no need yet for you to buy me a “Fire Oliver Purnell” shirt nor fireoliverpurnell.com nor firecoachpurnell.com (neither of which are registered). Suicide watches will also be unnecessary. This time.

From CSTV:

“The Tigers took a 63-49 lead on a pair of free throws by Trevor Booker with 5:05 to play but that would be their last points of the game. ”

Yeah, that’s it in a nutshell. Clemson had this game won handily 5 minutes before the buzzer. Too bad they forgot about the last 5 minutes of the game. How exactly do you go scoreless for 5 minutes much less let the other team score 15 points? Did the Tigers leave the court or something!!! I was watching it via CSTV gametracker and watched the “flow of the game” go out the roof for UVA while Clemson flatlined. It may just be a one point loss but the way that they lost should put Clemson at the bottom of the top 25 in my opinion.

With all the regular season travels completed for the Tigers, everyone is glad that the team can stay home and play only in Death Valley. But just how important is playing at home? I decided to look into the numbers to see.

To keep things relevant, I looked at only the statistics since Tommy Bowden became coach

starting in the ‘99 season. Since that time his teams have gone 36-12 at home, 19-20 on the road, and 1-0 at neutral sites during the regular season. That leaves the bowls as neutral site games, in which Bowden is 3-3. Road trips are clearly a 50-50 proposition.

For simplicity, I’ll leave out neutral site games.

In percentage form, the home winning percentage is 75, with the road being 48.7. So the chances of winning by playing at home are improved by about 54%.

However, with two important league games looming, I went ahead and took only league games into consideration. Here, Bowden is 20-10 at home, and 16-16 on the road. Compare that 66.7% home winning percentage to the 50% road winning percentage, and the team is only about 33% more likely to win any given league game at home.

There is some bad news to be added to this year’s 4-0 start at home. So far under Tommy Bowden, we’ve never had an undefeated home season. And through 7 full seasons, there have been only three 1 loss seasons. However if we consider only home conference games, there is a lone season where the team did not drop a conference game at home. That year was 2003.

So how does Clemson compare to other ACC teams under their current head coaches? Read on…
Read the rest of this entry »

The remaining ACC schedule is about 50% resolved on paper. The following results are this gnomes view on how the games should play out to favor the Tigers chances at the ACCCG and rankings.

Duke v FSU
Since the ‘Noles have dug themselves a hole I will be rooting for them so that our win over them and our division come out looking better. I say that as if there is a chance that the ‘Noles could lose but ya never know, the Tigers lost to the Dukies on their home field once!

Maryland v Virginia
Once again another team that the Tigers will play versus one that they won’t see in the season. And again, the way Virginia has been playing this year, I don’t think that there really is any question that the Terps won’t run away with it. After a close loss to the Jackets, the Terps should be looking to keep their season in tact with a win in UVA. Of course the loss could be demoralizing and have the Terps in a slump. A loss for the Terps would separate them from the top of the division with 2 losses in conference, but I don’t see that happening so if anything as win would strengthen Clemson’s schedule when they play the Terps in the Valley later in the season.

Miami v Fla Intl
Seriously, let’s just get to the remaining good ACC game. There hasn’t been a game besides VT and BC this week that isn’t already decided on paper. Miami needs to get some good press and needs to light up FAI. No Coker hotseat heat here for once.

UNC v South Fla
I would say that this game is an ACC lock but UNC is on a downhill slide this year and USF usually has a good team rolling for them. From my developing stats page USF has #54 overall offense and #28 overall defense. This could be Buntings farewell song and could be a good bottom dweller game to watch a small school get some props by playing and possibly defeating an ACC team.

NC State v Wake Forest
This is the ACC game, besides VT/BC, that Clemson fans will have their eyes on this weekend. After the undefeated streak ending, 4th quarter meltdown against the Tigers, the Deacs head to Raleigh, the giant killing field, to face a hot Wolfpack team. NC State may be on a high after knocking BC and FSU down a notch over the previous weeks and may not see Wake as that much of a threat. I look for Wake to keep their smoke and mirror offense alive and take the pack down for their first ACC loss thus propelling them to the 1 loss familiarity that is the Atlantic division.