Clemson falls to FSU 67-66

Florida State's Al Thornton hit the second of two free throws with 1.5 seconds left to lift the Seminoles to a 67-66 victory against Clemson University today in the first round of the Atlantic Coast Conference tournament.

The loss continued a history of first-round futility for Clemson, which has lost its tournament opener 41 times in 53 events.

The defeat -- the 10th in 14 games for the Tigers following a 17-0 start -- dropped Clemson to 21-10 and placed the team's NCAA Tournament hopes in jeopardy. The Tigers will find out Sunday where they're headed for the postseason.

New and Old Garcia

Most annoying people in the world

I don’t know if you have ever heard the Chapin furniture outlet commercials on the radio with Gladys and Joe, but I hear them all the time on sports radio stations. Most of the commercials are Gladys talking about how she loves Joe and how they have been married for 50 years. Some commercials even talk about Joe in the military and working for some auto lube place in the 70’s. Well the State newspaper did a article with them this morning, and have all there commercials listed so you can listen to them.

Trivia II Answers

Congrats to crummy who won with a score of 4.466666/10.0. Moose got a shockingly bad 2/10. Perhaps I should make this easier....

The Answers:

1. Yuri Gagarin
2. Savoy Special
3.
a. Nikkei 225
b. FTSE 100
c. CAC 40
4. Yangtze
5. Clerks, Mallrats, Chasing Amy, Dogma, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, Clerks II, etc.
6. Sterling Sharpe (The Jersey is Retired)
7. King Charles I of England, who was beheaded during the English Civil War, seriously how can you be from South Carolina and not know that: Coming Next week: What is the capital of South Carolina
8. New York Yankees
BONUS: 26
9. In the Red Sea on the opposite side of the Sinai Peninsula from the Suez Canal. It controls access to the Israeli port of Aqaba.
10. 11/17/2001 South Carolina v. Clemson; 85,000; South Carolina 20-15

more next Friday

week 1 questions

To go along with our Friday Trivia we will also start our weekly questions.

1.) Clemson In or Out of NCAA tourney
2.) Better baseball conference ACC or SEC
3.) Soup or Chili
4.) Texas Pete or Tabasco
5.) Better coach Uncle Dave Odom or Oliver Parnell

Friday Trivia II

1. Who was the first man in Space?

2. In the movie "The Natural" Roy Hobb's bat, Wonderboy, is broken and he replaces it with what bat?

3. The Dow Jones Industrial Average in New York has what equivalent in:
a. Tokyo?
b. London?
c. Paris?

4. Behind the Nile and the Amazon what is the next longest river in the world?

5. Name 5 of Kevin Smith's films. (He's Silent Bob for the culturally illiterate)

6. Who is #2 for South Carolina in football?

7. Who is Charlestown named for?

8. Who has won the most world series?

BONUS: How Many?

9. Where is the Strait of Tiran?

10. Largest Crowd in Williams-Brice Stadium?
a. what year?
b. against whom?
c. +-1000 how many?
d. final score of the game

Answers Monday or Tuesday

Biggest Rivalry in college baseball

This weekend Clemson and Carolina will meet in a home and home baseball series that could lay the ground work for breaking the tie in sporting events for the year, with Carolina taking Football and Clemson taking Basketball. Granted both Cu and USC basketball programs don’t have much to brag about, except for maybe Tre Kelly deserving Player of the Year in the SEC. I think Carolina has a great chance of taking both games this weekend, with Harris Honeycutt and Mike Cisco on the mound for the cocks.
A little did you know for this weekend as well?

The Carolina pitching staff has been tremendous in the first nine games with a team ERA of 2.41 in 82 innings pitched. The squad has 88 strikeouts to just 20 walks allowed and 65 hits yielded. 13 different pitchers have seen action this season already.

Any thoughts about the game, predictions?

I told you so

Since relatively early in the basketball season I told anyone who would listen that Clemson is not any good. Since I was speaking to mostly South Carolina fans I did not receive much opposition. Having grown up in Greenville, I have seen the pattern emerge every year the exact same way. Clemson plays a terrible OOC and starts off 10-0 or 11-2 or something like that. The Greenville News then writes an article about how they should be ranked, and they aren't getting respect, and they are a legitimate Sweet Sixteen team, etc, ad nauseum. The Clemson fans (who must be the most ignorant basketball fans in the ACC based on when the home crowd boos) begin talking about Final Fours and ACC Championships and Dental Hygiene and all other manner of things with which they are not the least bit familiar. And each year, just as I have had about enough ACC conference play shows up and reminds everyone just how bad Clemson is.

This year was no different. The hysteria of starting 17-0 had only been previously matched in Tigertown by the unmitigated braggadoccio of fans following the football team's beating Georgia Tech. Then, what happened? Nothing. Clemson didn't suddenly play worse. They started playing real opponents. In short order they were exposed. Now with a win at mighty Miami in overtime no less, Clemson looks poised to lock in a NIT bid.

I thought I was one of the few to recognize this phenomenon early in the season until I came across this:

"Rob Daniels, an enterprising reporter at the News & Record of Greensboro, N.C., dug a little deeper this week. He found that the Tigers will secure yet another dubious dishonor if they continue their free fall from 17-0 and fail to make the NCAA Tournament. According to Daniels' research, 30 ACC teams have started the season with a 10-0 start or better since 1979-80, when the NCAA lifted its limit on bids awarded to each conference. Of those 30 teams, just three failed to advance to the NCAAs.Take a wild guess which teams were responsible for those flameouts. Clemson (10-0 in 1994-95), Clemson (11-0 in 1985-86) and Clemson (11-0 last season)."

And you will be able to continue to add to this list for years to come because Clemson will continue to play a joke of an out of conference schedule.

USC and the NIT???

Unless USC wins the SEC tournament to earn the league’s automatic NCAA tournament bid, the Gamecocks are headed to the NIT, right?

Not so fast.

At 14-14 (and 4-11 in the SEC), USC isn’t guaranteed anything just yet, even if the Gamecocks are the two-time defending NIT champions.

First, USC isn’t going anywhere if it doesn’t finish with a winning record. The Gamecocks close out the regular season on the road against LSU.

Then comes the SEC tournament, where USC likely will take on the No. 3 seed out of the weak Western Division. Win that and the Gamecocks could face the second seed out of the East - likely Vanderbilt.

So where does that leave USC?

Coach Dave Odom says the Gamecocks likely need to win at least two more games as possibly as many as four to feel comfortable about their NIT chances. What, you might ask, has the college basketball world come to when a team with a winning record from a so-called power conference that has a winning isn’t assured of a trip to the NIT?

With the NCAA buying the NIT, the rules have changed. Last year the NIT began guaranteeing a spot to any regular-season conference champion that wasn’t selected to the NCAA tournament.

Seven teams, including Georgia Southern, fit that criteria a year ago, when the NIT field was 40 teams.

Now it’s 32. You do the math.

With the SEC getting four to six teams in the NCAA tournament, the remaining eight to six teams certainly won’t all be bound for the NIT.

In the past, Odom said he’d bet 80 to 85 percent of the teams from power conferences with winning records made the NIT field. Clearly that won’t be the case this year.