25 March 2008

HEY PAUL!

Clemson basketball fans: Dorsia is overrated anyways.

I can imagine that I was feeling the same immediate reaction of seething murderous rage that many readers of this website were feeling as the roller coaster that is Clemson basketball finally derailed at its apex and came crashing to the ground in horrible fashion through the second half of the Villanova game. A few thoughts on the game itself:

- I think we played the best basketball we'd played all year long during the first half. I also firmly believe that the refs did a decent job of not falling into basketball politics (i.e. calling fouls that didn't happen and letting obvious chops go uncalled) during the first half.

- Terrence Oglesby got cold throughout the game and it became really hard to watch him take shots. Also, his key areas seem to be free throws and insanely deep threes. He's potty at defense and even worse at any shot worth two points.

- Some readers caught the Purnell call in show and some of them said they thought they heard OP say something to the effect of "Now that Booker is gone, we're going to need Grant to step up." The readers said he kind of choked stumbled over Booker's name but it sounded like he said it. I'm thinking if two people caught it that maybe there is something that should be looked at.
UPDATE: I'm pretty sure he said Booker's name but it was just a slip of the tongue. I think he meant that Booker needed to step up now that Mays is gone.

- The officiating was terrible in the second half. So was the commentary. Those guys were practically blowing Jay Wright, even as he was getting T'ed up for his Coach K-esque sideline language. Nova played a little dirty and got away with it. All in all, it made me wish I had a neighbor who was a Villanova fan so I could knock on his door and then proceed knock his teeth out. Unfortunately, my neighbor is an Auburn fan so I try to avoid eye contact at all costs because I'm really just an internet tough guy. Plus the guy is kinda huge... I'm getting off track and making myself look like a pussy, so back to the post.

- We did check out early in the second half and it cost us dearly. When we stopped using the press, the game was lost. I think one of our reader's commented something like that in the preview post. Credit to whoever said that, take it in the comments section on this post.

- Most of the comments from the last post were from 1am to about 5am. Way to go guys. Good showing. It's nice to know we're your choice of reading material after coming home late from downtown.

On the season I think we did great. We were third in the ACC for the regular season. We made it to the finals in the tournament for the first time since the 60's. We made it to the NCAA tournament for the first time in ten years. We resigned OP for a millenia. We're starting to recruit kids who can play AND shoot free throws. We're on the up and ups and I'm excited about it.

To all those who are still pissed... NEWSFLASH: BESIDES INTERMITTENT FLASHES OF BRILLIANCE, CLEMSON HAS NEVER BEEN GOOD AT BASKETBALL. EVER. Be happy with what we've got. It takes years to decades to build a program and it's rare for a program to be built overnight. That being said, I can't wait to see what we can do in 2009.