2009-10 ACC Previews: Clemson

LCB believes that while teams have been playing games since the start of November the real college basketball season does not begin until conference play is in full gear. Over the next couple of weeks, we will preview each ACC team by remembering some of the conference's past players that may have gone forgotten in some circles.

Season Outlook:

Who is Tom Wideman?

Google images of him, and one finds a gallery of graceful fouls and clumsy put backs. In fact, the only time Mr. Wideman is not flagrantly touching someone is when he's the only one in the picture. At times, he even appears to foul the other Clemson players, their fans, and their coaches. The man is a bumper car, a tugboat, an ox, or a moose. Take your pick from these metaphors and place it in a confined area, to make sure the maximum number of bones and china dishes lie shattered on the floor, such was the career of Tom Wideman, such is the existence of Clemson basketball.

Tom Wideman set a school record by playing in 129 straight games. This streak would make one think he's constructed out of iron, but his best season was one in which he averaged 7.4 ppg and 7.1 rpg; perhaps he was the Aluminum Man, constantly recycled and constantly crushed. After all, most streaks in Clemson basketball are tales of endless futility. The program has lost 53 straight games at North Carolina. The program hasn't finished first in the ACC regular season since 1990, and it's been 70 years since the Tigers roared the loudest at the ACC Tournament, that's correct Adolf Hitler was invading Poland the year Clemson could last call itself ACC champion. For a team that hasn't been to the Sweet Sixteen in a decade, and only past the Sweet 16 once, in 1980, the Tom Wideman's of the world are the equivalent of the Greatest Generation because Tom Wideman never took the beating that comes from wearing the purple and orange sitting down. No, Tom Wideman stood up 129 games in a row to punch, slap, and shove his way into a realm of limbo that no other ACC school can even begin to comprehend, and that area of limbo is why every year Tiger fans begin to purr when they head into ACC play with an immaculate record. Of course, that purr soon pierces the air--mmmeeeeoooowwwwww--like a tire backing over a cat's tail

Last year, the Tigers were 16-0 before finishing the regular season 7-9 in their last sixteen games, including first round losses in the ACC and NCAA Tournaments. In 2007, the team started 10-0, but finished the season 24-9. On January 9th, 2006, the Clemson Tigers were 17-0 before going 8-11 to end the season. Every year fine crystal is brought off the shelf, and every year another piece is lost on the cold linoleum floor; so what makes the 2009-10 campaign any different? Hopefully, it's the evolutionary steps the Clemson basketball player has taken to be less like Tom Wideman and more like Trevor Booker, who could be Clemson's first ACC POY since Horace Grant.

Key Players: F Trevor Booker (Sr.), G Tanner Smith (So.), G Demontez Stitt (Jr.)

Top Newcomer: a freshman class of four generically named players playing anywhere from 7 mpg to 14 mpg: Johnson, Hill, Jennings, and the other Booker

Record at Time of Posting: 12-2

Teach's Prediction: 3rd in the regular season

Langston's Prediction: 4th in the regular season

Iceman AD's Prediction: 3rd in the regular season

Key Games:

W Winthrop 102-66

L Texas A&M 69-60

W Butler 70-69

L Illinois 76-74

W South Carolina 72-61

@ Duke 1/03

UNC 1/13

@ NC State 1/16

@ GA Tech 1/19

Duke 1/23

@ VA Tech 2/06

@ Maryland 2/24

@ FSU 2/28

GA Tech 3/02

@ Wake 3/07