Clemson Basketball: Well, Clemson did it again. Another March basketball tournament, another early exit for the Tigers. Everyone knows about Clemson's woes over the past few weeks (and their consistency with late season failures in years past). Clemson's improvement from the pre-OP era is not lost on us. We acknowledge that Clemson steadily improved over the course of Purnell's first five seasons.Purnell's first season saw a mere 3 conference victories. His tenure peaked in '07-'08 with 10 regular season wins, an appearance in the ACC tournament Championship game, and an invitation to the NCAA tournament. This steady improvement had all of us extremely optimistic about the state of the program going forward.
The past two years, however, have not taken Clemson to the next level, as the Tiger's program got stuck with 9-7 ACC records and an 0-4 combined record in NCAA/ACC tourney play over the past two years. We would like to thank Purnell for bringing the program out of the hell known as the Shyatt era, but think that it is reasonable to see improvement moving forward. Getting out of the opening round of both the ACC and NCAA Tournaments is not an unreasonable request.
We will look further into the shortcomings of this team as we move along. G-men put together a well thought out post on the fundamental flaws that keep us from moving forward as a program here. I would recommend all CU bball fans checking this one out.
Clemson Baseball: The Tigers have now opened the season with consecutive sweeps over ACC foes, getting the Tigers off to their best conference start since the '04 season. Casey Harman has been pitching well, limiting the Hokies to 1 hit Friday night en-route to a 4-0 record on the year. Dr. B highlighted a few areas that this team needs to address moving forward. Here is The State's wrapup. I am starting to get more excited and comfortable with this staff as the games move along. Obvious issues that stick out early include the astronomical number of fielding blunders and Clemson's need to provide kill shots early when runners are on the bags. Next weekend's series at Virginia will tell us a lot about this team.
Clemson Football: Clemson gets into the heart of the Spring practice schedule Monday, and will continue pushing forward until the Spring game on April 10. You can bet we will be following this as it progresses.
Other: Tennessee RB and controversial recruit Bryce Brown has left the UT program. While this is not new news, it is interesting none the less. You will probably remember that Brown showed some interest in Clemson during his ridiculous recruitment last year. This is a Vol program that has been the butt of numerous jokes the past few months. While this probably has nothing to do with Lane, we will all be interested in seeing how Kiffin's year in Knoxville effects this program moving forward.