Conspiracy buffs, get to your chat rooms.
The bus that was supposed to take Clemson to the St. Pete Times Forum for Wednesday morning’s shoot-around practice got a flat tire. As a result, the Tigers arrived at the arena about 15 minutes into the one hour they are allotted to get used to the rims and environment in a new building.
Coach Oliver Purnell looked calm anyway after the shoot-around.
“What are you going to do?” Purnell said. “Don’t stress about things you can’t control.”
Purnell has endured enough mishaps to fuel talk of an anti-Clemson basketball conspiracy. Faulty clock operation gave Duke two extra seconds for a winning play against the Tigers in a 68-66 Blue Devil victory in Durham.
Three days later, Purnell wanted a traveling call against Virginia’s Sean Singletary when he crashed to the floor after grabbing a rebound. No travel was called, and the Cavaliers scored the winning basket seconds later in a 64-63 decision.
But Purnell doesn’t play the conspiracy game. He was asked if the ACC would have adjusted the clock to give Clemson more time if a bus had showed up late to pick up a different team.
“No,” he said curtly.
It was one definitive word that won’t slow the chat room talk, but should.
– Ken Tysiac
Wednesday, March 7, 2007
Continuing the Clemson Conspiracy
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4 comments:
Clemson just needs to concentrate on the now, instead of the 'then' and they should do fine in the ACC Tournament. I'm thinking if they beat Florida State on Thursday, then they should be heading to the NCAA Tournament and if they manage to beat North Carolina, then they definitely deserved the honors at a higher seed. But the key phrase for Clemson right now is: "Just Play Hard...and Harder"
Every year in college basketball, there will be numerous turning points that could have led to greater success or failure within a season. Maybe it's a missed free throw, a blown call, or someone slipping on a wet court and hurting their ankle. These things happen to every team over the course of a season. Just because several high profile ones happened to Clemson, doesn't mean that anyone is out to get them. It is a testament to Oliver Purnell that he took whose confidence was absolutely shot and kept them in the bubble run up to now. If they win today, Purnell would have at least reached the expectations that he set for this season back in October.
All you can do is play through it. If Clemson does that today, they will have shown more character than many teams in the NCAA bubble.
You must not have been following the last 50 years of ACC officiating. Clemson has been getting screwed over by the referees time and again, from Lenny Wertz, to Dick Paparo, to Mike Wood, to Zelton Steed, to Larry Rose, to Duke Edsall, to Curtis Shaw, on and on. It happened again today. The foul call by Rivers on Thornton is one of the worst I've seen EVER. The only shocker was that the little pipsqueak Mike Wood did not get the opportunity to screw us over, he got beat to the punch by his younger counterpart. That makes THREE, THREE games we have been jobbed on by ACC refs in the last 8 seconds this year (the ACC apologized for the first two)....THE REFS AND THEIR COMMUNIST BOSS SWOFFORD HAVE COST US AN NCAA BID...
OK, after watching that game today, I will admit that there is something really fishy. I have never seen so many bad calls ruin a season for a team. Of course, it would have been better if Hammonds hadn't taken his eye off the ball.
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