Clemson has added another piece to the basketball puzzle, adding former Tulane assistant Dick Bender to the staff. Click here for his most recent profile courtesy of Tulane. You will notice the Brownell connection through DePauw. Bender's role within this program has yet to be defined as he could assume the role of full time assistant or director of basketball operations depending on other coaching talent Brownell is able to bring to the program. This is the third such addition, as Brownell brought assistant Mike Winiecki and video assistant Lucas McKay with him from Wright State.
More football, basketball, baseball, golf, and some bling after the jump
In continued bball news, Clemson has gotten the core terms of Brownell's contract approved. Brad will receive a cool $900k annually for his services, compared to OP's Clemson pay of $1.3 mil per. The Tigers will also participate in the Paradise Jam, opening with Long Beach State on November 19. These early season tournaments are interesting and I believe they are excellent for the teams that participate in them. The teams get a sweet trip and good early competition...a pleasant location and a measuring stick for evaluation.
Baseball did not have a good weekend, as the Tigers got worked by a really good GT team. Clemson is having repeated problems with runners in scoring position and have to do a better job getting runs across the plate, particularly when playing teams that can really hit the ball in this aluminum bat league. The key item here to remember is the aluminum hardware that really gives the hitters an advantage (when compared to wooden bat leagues). If you haven't read up on this series, Dr. B broke it down here and Clemson University recaps each individual game on their site (Game 1, Game 2, Game 3). Clemson is stuck in a 5 game losing streak. Next week features a midweek contest with USC Upstate before hosting the University of North Carolina Tarheels in the weekend series.
We have worked our Miami Dolphin SBN sister site in preparation for next week's draft. They expressed interest in hearing about former Tiger standouts Ricky Sapp and C.J. Spiller. I encourage you to check out both pieces (Spiller's hereand Sapp's here) and comment at the conclusion of this article about these guys and how you see each player's future shaping up. We have spent most of our time here discussing how Clemson will respond to these roster losses but would love to hear how you see these guys performing in life after old CU.
A fantastic athlete from the state of Georgia has chosen UGa as his (verbal) destination. Georgia standout Devin Bowman says there is nowhere else he wants to go after attending the Georgia spring game and receiving the blessing of his mother. DB had interest from a wide variety of schools, including an offer from Clemson. Picking up Bowman would have added to a nice stable of defensive backs already in place here at CU.
Other teams closed down their Spring practice Saturday, including Alabama and Tennessee (if anyone is interested, there are quite a few of these spring contests on espn3.com). Man are these two programs going in polar opposite directions. UT keeps on losing players and Bama is flat out killing it in all aspects of the game: recruiting, preparation, and playing the game. I would encourage everyone to read this fairly old articleabout Nick Saban and how he has fully committed his life to coaching football and his business only approach to the game. Say what you will, the man is a freaking animal tearing it up on the gridiron and seems to care little about anything but football success. He is a football mercenary and is absolutely killing it. In fact, sometimes I think Saban views the actual games as an excuse to practice (anyone who blows off the President to mix in a practice session is nothing short of an animal and really strives to be successful).
Per the AJC, Georgia Tech got its championship rings last week. Hopefully this bling will further inspire Dabo and the Tigers to make the final step and win one of these things:
In golf news, former Tiger standout Kyle Stanley had a nice outing at the Jerry Rice's Nationwide Tour event, the Fresh Express Classic at TPC Stonebrae. Kyle fired a seven under in Sunday's final round to round out this tourney carding a stout -14 for the week. This was good enough for a 9th place tie and $16,200 in winnings. Kyle overcame some 2nd round struggles (two doubles carded on day 2) and rebounded nicely on Day 4 of the tournament, scoring 7 birdies through the first 10 holes Sunday.
In less competitive action, former USC RB George Rogers and Clemson football coach Dabo Swinney will both be participating in the BMW Championship next month. I would highly recommend heading out there if anyone out there gets a chance, as this is a good opportunity to meet some celebs (both local and nationwide) while seeing excellent golf in the upstate.