Clemson Gets Unprecedented Hoops Respect

Clemson’s basketball team accomplished a pretty amazing feat over the weekend by losing to Wake Forest.

The defeat was the Tigers first of the season, a game in which they admittedly didn’t play their best while Wake continued to show America why it’s moved to number one in the rankings and is the nation’s last unbeaten this season.

But the Tigers accomplishment came Monday when the AP’s and Coaches’ rankings were released and Clemson was unchanged in its standing in both. The only game the Tigers played between the release of last week’s and this week’s poll was that Wake game. An 0-1 week and the Tigers remained at number nine in the coaches’ rating and number 10 in the Associated Press.

It’s near astonishing because we’re told by Clemson’s near-guru sports information director Tim Bourret (my broadcast partner on Clemson basketball games) that it’s the first time in the program’s history that a Clemson team has go through a week without a win while ranked and not fallen in the polls.

Clemson coach Oliver Purnell points to the fact that his team had rallied within a point of the squad that moved to number one with about five minutes to go in Saturday’s game and, thus, showed they could hang with the very best.

Tigers senior forward K.C. Rivers says he believes the program has achieved some much deserved respect with their success in recent seasons (65 wins the past two-and-a-half years).

I think it’s the combination of several factors.

-Clemson is a good team having proved that with a close win at Illinois and decisive victories at Miami and South Carolina as well as a solid home victory over visiting Alabama.

-Those who vote in the polls had an easy opportunity to view Saturday’s loss to Wake Forest as it was on national, broadcast TV so they saw for themselves the many near misses around the basket and rally from a double-digit deficit by Clemson instead of just reading about it. What we see with our own eyes will always have the most significant impact.

-The ACC and Big East have established themselves as the elite conferences at this point in the season. 10 of the AP’s Top 12 teams are from those leagues. Clemson is a 16-1 team in one of those conferences with many quality wins and is, thus, getting its just desserts.

-The Big Ten, PAC 10, and Big 12 have a few decent teams at the top but lack the depth of years past. As a result, they have a few teams in the rankings but not the bulk as in the past. In fact, each of those three conferences has two teams apiece among the Top 20.

-The SEC has fallen off the college basketball mountain, for now at least. Only Florida cracks the Top 25 (at number 24 this week) and, as a result the absence of teams like Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Alabama, LSU, etc. cracking the rankings leaves more space for others.

No doubt, Clemson benefits from being a good team from a stellar league. But that can also be an Albatross. Trips to Chapel Hill and other ACC venues are brutal and visits from Duke and others are no walk in the park.

But, at least this past Monday, the Tiger squad could take pride in having its own little piece of history for the program. An historic moment that keeps it among the nation’s hoops elite for at least another week.