February 6, 2024 • 48 mins
The Tigers gear up to face down the Tar Heels in today's matchup! As always, John and Rich preview today's game, and set the scene with interviews, clips from the players, and more!
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
W E. S E F M. Greenville, Spartanburg, Andersen. Time
for the Ingles Countdown to tip OffShow, brought to you pie Ingles Markets,
Low Prices, Love the Savings,Blue Ridge Electric Cooperative, Harley Davidson
of Greenville, Greer Flooring Center,the Surgery Center at Pella McGhee, Eating
in Air and by Palmeadow State Armory. Now Here are your hosts, John
(00:25):
Alisam Richman and Weaver. Clemson Tigersback in action tonight on the hardwood,
looking to overcome what was a toughloss to Virginia this past weekend. No
time to lick your wounds here asthey've got North Carolina a tough game in
the ACC coming up. This isthe Ingles Countdown to tip Off Show.
(00:47):
I'm John Ellis. You got TreyFalco Producing and Richmond Weaver in the house
as well and rich As we getinto ACC play here, I want to
remind folks as well. We arebrought to you by our friends at Ingles
Low Prices, Love the Savings atIngles dan Markets dot Com. The Big
Day, the Big Game is justa few days away. Here stock up
on all your party needs for theweekend at Ingles Ingles Dash Markets dot Com,
(01:08):
Richmond. What can I tell you, man? It was a tough,
heartbreaking loss at the hands of atough, competitive team led by Tony
Bennett. Virginia escapes Little John thisweekend with a narrow victory. Yeah,
So what's more disappointing that the Tigerslose or the fact that we technically can't
(01:29):
say super Bowl. We have tosay the Big Game? That's right,
right, didn't play by the book. How would it be if we were
talking about the NCAA tournament You couldn'tsay March Madness, that's right. No,
NFL is a wild bunch about thatkind of stuff. Yeah, again,
frustrating. I don't know who thepolice is that monitors when you can
say super Bowl or not, orwhat context and how you're saying it in
(01:52):
a sentence. Either way, verydifficult loss for the Tigers on Saturday,
and knowing that Jack Clark had anopen look. It's a shot that you've
seen him make and for that notto go down just has to be so
frustrating for Brad Renel and all ofthe Clemson Tigers there as they found themselves
(02:15):
in a scenario that Virginia puts youin exactly the position they do every time
they limit you scoring, and thenwhen you are able to make a run,
you've had to expend so much energyin those runs. Then you're down
the stretch, it's just a challengefor you defensively not coming up with some
(02:39):
key stops and then also obviously notbeing able to hit some of the easy
shots down the stretch. But itgoes back to the first half, I
should say, where Clemson in thefirst half was five of sixteen for layups.
I'm not talking about just the field. I'm talking about when you get
(02:59):
into the advance stats and looking atjust what the Tigers missed opportunities in that
game. And you know scoring isgoing to be a premium anyway against Virginia.
So when you have those type ofshots five of sixteen from layups.
You were nine of twenty five layupsfor the game, but that first half
(03:19):
five of sixteen, and I thinkthat's what ultimately did the Tigers in.
You could say, oh, well, Jack Clark, you know you've got
to be able to hit that shot. Well, you can't just put it
all on Jack Clark, obviously.I mean, there's so many factors that
went into this game. Who knewthat Jake Groves was going to go off
for Virginia the way he did,and it was a vital part of the
success of Virginia coming off the bench. But it's typical Virginia. They put
(03:44):
you in mud, they slow thingsdown, and they did exactly that with
the Tigers there in the first half. It's what they do. They're known
for it. Coach Tony Bennett hasdone a great job over the years limiting
teams offensively on the other side,and they did just that, especially in
the first half of this game.Thirty four to twenty six lead they jump
out to in the first half ofthe game. And some of the final
(04:05):
stats here you look pg Hall averagingaround nineteen points a game, matched that
with his nineteen points. Most ofthat came from the free throw line ten
of twelve. Once again, ChaseHunter had twelve points, Joe Gerard had
fourteen he and Shefflin had thirteen.You got four guys in double digits against
a very good Virginia team, butonce again, it was limited very much
(04:27):
to the starting lineup. As thebench, they were outscored twenty one to
five in this game. Yeah,and obviously what we just talked about Jay
Groves. He had seventeen of thosetwenty one bench points for Virginia. So
this was a guy that hasn't hadsome type of explosion like that that we've
seen in the ACC. Now,he's had some other games, but it
was just the steady Eddy type ofplay from Reese Beeatman there for Virginia with
(04:53):
fourteen points. And then also JordanMiner I felt was a big part of
the second half for Virginia. Thephysical size that he had in that game
got Tigers into some foul trouble andjust created some mismatch opportunities there that the
Tigers struggled and then ultimately just notbeing able to hit some of those key
(05:14):
shots down the stretch. And thenthere were a few free throws that they
did miss. Now you look atthe Tigers from the free throw line eighteen
of twenty one and you're like,well, man, you can't really ask
for much better than that. Youonly miss three, but it was the
ones that you did miss down thestretch, and like PJ. Hall missing
a front end of a one andone, and so that's an opportunity just
(05:38):
taken away. Obviously you missed thatfree throw, but you don't even get
a chance for a second free throw. So that's why you know you missed
the front end of an one toone. It's almost even double worse because
that takes away another opportunity to makea free throw. Yeah, and look,
this is a game of sort ofruns here by both teams. Clemson
(05:59):
trail eleven with five thirty nine togo in the opening half. Before that
eight zero run closed the gap,there was a buzzer beater to go up
by eight at the break by theCalves there and the Cavs scored the first
two baskets of the second half.They went up by twelve. That was
the highest lead they had in thegame. Tigers kept fighting back in this
game. Richmond trimmed a twelve pointdeficit down to two points to fifty six,
(06:21):
fifty four, and then fifty sevento fifty six. Later they were
within a point or two there downthe stretch, and he just came down
to that very last possession. Yeah, and that very last possession. I
mean, there's so many things whatifs should Brad had called a time out
after the miss free throw, andso Clemson did a really good job of
getting the right guy to the freethrow line for Virginia, Dante Harris had
(06:45):
really not played a whole lot inthat game, So you got the guy
you wanted there. He'd only playedbasically five minutes and only had one field
goal attempt throughout the game, andthen obviously missed that free throw. And
so you can second guess all daylong should you call a timeout or not
when you have that much time leftand getting down the court. And I'm
(07:06):
okay with not calling a timeout becauseI do believe, especially with a team
like Virginia who's so good defensively,you don't want to allow them to go
ahead and get back and be ready. Okay, we're going to collectively gather
ourselves and be ready to play defense. Have them in transition, have them
(07:29):
back pedaling, have them trying tofigure out where everybody is on the court
as you're coming down the court.And so I don't have any problem with
not calling a time out now.Obviously, I think a better opportunity would
have been, could you have gottenChase Hunter to try to get to the
rim, because he's one of thebest in the ACC as far as attacking
(07:50):
the rim and getting to the rimand having an opportunity of them even potentially
drawing a foul, And I thinkthat's one of the things that Tiger fans
were hoping for. Could you atleast even get to the free throw line
in that scenario, knowing that ChaseHunter had already made all four of his
free throws and seemed to be ina good rhythm from that standpoint. But
(08:11):
give Virginia credit. Ryan Dunn,who I think is one of the most
underrated players in the ACC defensively dida great job and forced Hunter in a
situation where he didn't have a pathway, especially going to his dominant right hand,
which Chase he loves getting to hisright hand. But Done did a
(08:33):
great job being able to fend offthere. And also just Virginia the way
they used that pack line defense wherethey were going to give Clemson the outside
shot in that scenario. Now,were they going to give an outside shot
to Joe Girard of no way,not even close. But somebody like Jack
(08:54):
Clark, Yeah, they'll drop backbecause they did not want to give any
dribble penetration to Check And Virginia dida great job led by Dune there being
able to redirect him and Chase basedon the time he had to get rid
of the ball, he had tomake a move, he had to get
the offense still going to some degreeto try to get some opportunity to score.
And then, unfortunately for the Tigers, obviously, Jack Clark's three point
(09:18):
shot did not fall in. Yeah, one of the three point shots that
did not fall. For the day, Clemson shots seven of twenty from downtown.
That's around thirty five percent, andfor the game Richmond thirty five point
seven percent from the field. Andthis echoes what we talked about on this
last edition of the Eagles Countdown totip Off show Brad Burnell's frustration to a
(09:39):
certain degree. There's not much youcan do about it other than just continuing
to practice and move forward. Butwith the lack of success in terms of
shooting from the field, it seemsto be a bit of a theme here
the last couple of weeks with thisClemson team. Yeah, and you know,
when you look at it, evenlike from a perspective of PJ Hall
and I know he's come back andare come out, I should say,
and started talking about that, Hey, they feel good. All of my
(10:03):
shots when they leave my hand,I'm feeling confident, and you can see
that it doesn't look like they're badshots, and I don't think he's necessarily
taking bad shots. I know,you look at four of sixteen from the
field and one of six from threepoint line, and so you're thinking six
attempts from beyond the arc, tenattempts from inside the arc. I think
(10:24):
that's a great balance with PJ.Hall. Maybe six is a little more.
Maybe you want him in that threeto four range in terms of three
point attempts. But it was justa scenario where I think the refs were
allowing some physical play to go onthere and PJ just have one of those
games where as you know, sometimesJohn just wasn't falling for him even though
(10:48):
it felt good, And there wereseveral times I was able to after the
show on Saturday, hustled a little. John got there in time, and
actually it helped out for that halftimeshow with Don Munson and Tim Bray,
so I was actually there in personto see the game, and you could
see that it was a lot ofPj's shots and a lot of Clemson shots.
(11:13):
They were in rhythm, it waspart of the offense. They just
weren't falling and that can obviously bevery frustrating and can lead to that scenario
where the players get frustrated, thenthey start losing a little bit of confidence,
and then they start pressing, andthen as you press more, you
lose more confidence and you get morepressure on yourself. So it's a vicious
(11:35):
cycle, you know, from thatstandpoint. But ultimately it did come down
to Clemson just not able to makeenough of those early scoring opportunities in the
first half from what I saw,and again those were layups. Those were
points that against Virginia because scoring issuch at a premium, you have to
convert those you do the bench.Again, we talked about that collectively.
(11:58):
Josh Bida was two of four fromthe field, Jack Clark five, including
that last shot in the game thatfell short, and then r J.
Godfrey was of three. Collectively,that's two of twelve from the field.
That's not gonna work. You needthat depth. Although I will say Jack
Clark with a nice game on theboards. They offensively at least rebounded better
than they did in that prior gamein which Lousville almost caught them at the
(12:20):
end. But again, just scoringfrom the bench. When you look at
what Jacob Groves was able to docoming off the bench twenty seven minutes and
seventeen points. That's one of themany areas you can look at and say,
that's your margin of victory right therein this game. Oh yeah,
well, and that was one ofthe keys that this was a guy that
typically has not been able to havea performance like that, at least in
(12:41):
the ACC and going three for fourfrom beyond the arc. But Clemson did
a good job because most of hisscoring was there in the first half,
and I think that's what you know, a big part of it was for
the Tigers is that knowing that youcan at times seemed in the second have
defense. Intensity did ratchet up thereand that's what allowed them to make that
(13:05):
run, get back in the gameafter that twelve point deficit, to start
there in the second half. Andso Clemson has the ability, we know
defensively they can do that and tohold Virginia. Again, Virginia is not
going to score a lot. That'sjust not the pace that they're going to
play. But you know, froma scenario there, for the Tigers to
(13:26):
hold the team to sixty six points, I mean, that's still good defense.
Thirty four points in the first half, thirty two in the second half.
It's just Clemson with that glaring onlytwenty six points in the first half.
That's the thing that from an offensivestandpoint, you've got to have your
stars step up. And this isjust, for whatever reason, just was
(13:48):
not Clemson's afternoon there and little Johnto convert some of those big scoring opportunities.
Yeah, and give Virginia credit.Look, they've been on a six
game run. Now they're seventeen andfive, eight three in the conference.
This was a good opportunity for Clemsonto get back to five hundred and acc
play. They're four and six now, that could have been five and five.
He can you look at some ofthese games and clearly want to duke
(14:09):
that could be a seven win teamright now in the conference that in the
earros. The margins are so narrowright now in this conference, it's crazy.
And Joe Lenardi came in out withbracketology, and I love Joe Lenardi,
he's one of my guys. Hadhim on our sister station one O
four nine Fox Sports Upstate several timestalking about to bracketology, and right now
(14:31):
it's just this, I'm not sureexactly the right word, but no love
for the ACC whatsoever. As JoeLenardi yesterday with his initial bracketology that he
has after the weekend, so hestill fine tunes it a little bit,
but he has Virginia as not makingthe NCAA tournament. Wow, And I'm
(14:54):
like, what, oh boy,what are we thinking? Here? Go
again that where is the love forthe ACC or why is there not much
love for the ACC in terms ofyou know, from a national perspective,
obviously North Carolina is getting it,Duke is getting it, but they're talking
about, you know, Waite Forestis more of a bubble team than Virginia,
(15:16):
and I just don't understand that.Now. I do believe wait Forest
is one of those underrated teams thatwill definitely surprise people and can is built
to potentially they can make a runor two there in the NCAA tournament.
But for people not to be lookingat Virginia right now, I think it
is a big mistake. It getsback to what Brad Burnella talked about last
(15:39):
week after the loss to Duke,and then in the middle of preparing for
Louisville, he had some comments thatsort of reflected that narrative that he the
ACC gets disrespected to a large degree. Look at the Big twelve, the
amount of tension they get, andcertainly the SEC and some other conferences out
there, and where is the ACCand all this and you look at it.
Two teams right now. As youmentioned, they get the lion's share,
(16:00):
the attention duke in North Carolina andeverybody else's coming. Afterthought on the
national narrative, disrespect That was theword I was looking for. So they
do work, mister Ellis. Yes, sometimes it's English language, man,
I have trouble with it trying topull out the exact word that I want.
But disrespect. Yes, it's ashame that the ACC is being disrespected
(16:21):
right now. Big one tonight,big opportunity for Clemson to not only get
a big win in the ACC,but to improve their net ranking, to
improve their standing within the Joe Lonardesof the world out there. It's a
big time game between the Tigers andtar Heels. Tipping off here shortly you
get it locked into the Ingles Countdownto tip Off show, brought to you
by your friends at Ingles Low Prices, love the savings, Ingles dash Markets
(16:42):
dot Com. Much more to comehere on the Ingles Countdown to tip Off
Show ninety two point five WSC ninetytwo point five w DSc is the Upstate's
new home for the Clemson Tigers.Big tipboff cut up here surely on ninety
(17:12):
two point five WEESC, Gon Monksand Tim Burray on the call as the
tar Heels and Tigers will tangle atseven pm. You get locked into the
Engles Countdown to tip Off Show righthere on ninety two point five WeSC.
John Ellis, Richmond Weaver, TreyFalca running things here for us. Get
you ready for big ACC action.Of course, there's been a lot of
(17:33):
talk around the ACC about disrespect.As we talked about, we'll take a
deeper dive into what's going around theACC right now in terms of the standing,
some of the early mentions for Playerof the Year in the conference,
and much much more rich when youlook at what Clemson has been through here
of lately, a little more ontheir gauntlet, so to speak. There's
some tough ones ahead. We knewthey would be facing this portion of the
(17:55):
schedule, with games of course atNorth Carolina starting tonight, they go to
Syracuse coming up a few day.They've got Miami n C State, Georgia
Tech, Florida State, Pittsburgh toround out that February schedule. No easy
outs, as we talked about,and you just look back at what's been
going on since December. You lookat January, those three straight losses to
(18:15):
start the month, one of whichwas against this North Carolina team. Got
the win over Boston College double overtime, lost to Course Georgia Tech, you
win against Florida State, you losethe heartbreaker at Duke, and then you
win in Louisville. It's an upand down roller coaster type of yo yo
situation for this team. Yes,and I would imagine Brad Burnell in this
staff is just trying to stabilize things. But there's no stabilizing going on here.
(18:38):
When you're coming off of lost toVirginia, then you gotta go to
North Carolina. It's not like aget right game. This is a huge
momentum game for both teams in NorthCarolina. With what we saw of that
team this weekend against Duke. Ohboy, got a strap on your big
boy pants for this one. That'sright. And obviously Armando Baycod had a
big game against Duke and Harrison Ingramalso transfer from Stanford I think was the
(19:00):
key factor in that North Carolina winas R. J. Davis struggled a
little bit in that game. Butyes, looking at this schedule, I
mean now, I mean you talkingabout everything being compacted. We are in
February. Now, it's February sixth. We're six weeks away from having our
bracket ready to go. So thesense of urgency is here if you're a
(19:26):
Clemson Tiger basketball fan. And obviouslywe know from a coaching perspective, you
know, Brad Burnell and his staffthey understand the urgency and obviously being able
to communicate that to the players.And I don't think we have to tell
the players either. I think theyunderstand that now. Based on how the
season is going and especially how youstarted acc play, it has been a
(19:49):
struggle and it's been frustration, especiallysome of the games at home, losing
as you mentioned to Georgia Tech indouble overtime, that's a game that we
looked at and somewhat circled saying that'sa win at home. Yeah, no
doubt, and you lose that one. Now, the North Carolina game at
home, you knew that was goingto be a tough one, but yeah,
(20:10):
you're thinking, well, it isat home, so the Tigers might
be able to pull that one off, and obviously did not do that.
And then when you look at theperspective of the Virginia game, that was
another one that that was one thathey, we know Virginia is Virginia,
but that is a winnable game atLittle John Coliseum. So it just adds
(20:30):
more pressure now having to go onthe road at North Carolina, where you
know, you have not had successin the entire history of college basketball for
the Clemson Tigers there in Chapel Hill, interesting seasons so far when you look
at how they started. Of course, they had that one loss in December
by just a couple of points.Again, you count so many of these
games, so they've lost by apoint, two, three points, even
(20:52):
on the road, especially on theroad. That was a December sixteen loss
at Memphis. That was their onlyloss all the way up in Hill the
middle of December and into January wherethey ran the table basically Other than Memphis
in December, they had to winat Alabama early in the year. Of
course, they beat South Carolina.That win looks a lot better now with
that program just blooming at the momentwith La mont Paris. They want it
(21:15):
pitt, they beat TCU, theybeat some good opponents early. If you
could look at one thing, andmaybe it's not just one thing, but
one of the bigger X factors inthis season that's stifled this team a little
bit into the month of February.Is it just the fact we're an acc
plan and it's more competitive or isthere something with this team that's just a
little amiss right now? No?I yes, when you look at college
(21:37):
basketball, and we've talked about thisa couple of times, and you could
extrapolate to the NFL preseason versus regularseason, regular season versus playoffs, and
then obviously into the Super Bowl,the Big Game, whatever you want to
describe it as. But for collegebasketball, I mean, there is a
true distinction between non conference game andconference games. And as much as people
(22:03):
want to talk about non conference gamesand looking at the matchups, which I
love, I love having these bigmatchups, and it can obviously help from
a resume standpoint as you're seeing whatClemson was able to do in their non
conference schedule this year versus last year, and how the narrative was Oh,
Clemson is no question an NCAA tournamentteam because look what they've been able to
(22:26):
do in the non conference. Butnow all of a sudden, you're in
conference play and you're struggling. Andso that's why it's so important if there's
when you look at non conference versusconference, you would rather struggle in the
non conference than in the conference becauseyou're going to be judged greater on your
(22:48):
conference record, and obviously having abetter conference record puts you in a better
position to have a better seed goinginto the conference tournament. And as we've
talked about it before, John,for the ACC, if you can be
in that top four, you getthe double by and that is a huge
(23:10):
advantage in the ACC tournament. Youdon't want to be in that scenario where
you're in the bottom four and havingto play in the first early part of
the week because you're not going tobe able to go through and win five
games to win an ACC tournament.Just hasn't happened, and I don't think
it will because the conference is toodifficult. That's too much of a gauntlet
(23:33):
to ask a team to be ableto win that many number of games in
such a short period. Of time, and so therefore it is all about
conference play, and guys play differentin acc play, and that's why getting
road victories like down in Florida State, that was a huge win for Clemson
to be able to get that victory. And that's why it was even more
(23:56):
frustrating that you didn't get the winon the road against Duke, because that
was a game that I believe Clemsonplayed well enough to win that game and
showcase that they can go toe totoe with a duke even in the hostile
confines of Cameron Indoor Stadium there,and knowing that they were that close,
(24:21):
and so it's even more frustrating,and they almost let that Duke lost beat
him twice. They struggled a littlebit with Louisville there down the stretch,
obviously, but they were able tohold on and so that's even frustrating from
a perspective of then where there werethere any lingering effects of kind of the
somewhat breakdown collapse in that Louisville gamethat carried over into the Virginia game where
(24:48):
they where the Tigers struggled there inthe first half. Now, as a
coach, you've been in this professionfor a long time, not only analyzing
basketball on the radio on television,but you were a former coach and you're
come off not only the big roadloss at Duke where you lose by a
point and there's so much controversy,and you mentioned, don't let that game
beat you twice, and they nearlydid against Louisville. As you said,
(25:10):
Virginia was more of I think acase of a team that had just staunch
defense. You know what you're gettinginto with a coach that just ratcheted that
up there in terms of what TonyBennett does there. But you go back
to North Carolina. Now you're onthe road again. You've got a two
game road trip coming up between NorthCarolina and Syracuse. Again, all these
games are tough, and none ofthese are going to be sleepwalk games,
(25:33):
including the one at Georgia Tech whereyou're coming off the loss of Georgia Tech
in double overtime, and then yousaw what Georgia Tech did to this North
Carolina team just about a week agohere. But how important is it for
this team just from a confidence standpointto get a win under their belt.
I know this is not convenient withNorth Carolina on the road. But at
some point you feel like, evenwith the win against Louisville, you got
to stop the bleeding a little bit. It's been a bit of a bad
(25:55):
vibe here moving forward. Yeah,well, obviously so, and I think
there's just from a perspective of man, that's the last thing you wanted to
see on the schedule. Yes,road trip to Chapel Hill. No it's
not. You've won one time therein the entire histories of the two schools
playing basketball, and so yes,that's obviously a very difficult task. But
(26:21):
I think this is a scenario alsothat because and we'll talk more about it,
but this is an interesting concept maybenot concepts not the right word,
but just how this is playing outthat based on how the season is going
right now in the ACC very frustratingobviously, and coming off of this tough
(26:41):
loss, and you do need aget right type of game, but you
don't have that luxury. It's againstNorth Carolina on the road in Chapel Hill,
and so right now the narrative isautomatically oh wow. And I falling
into this too as a Clemson fan, but also part of the program that
(27:03):
you look at it, Oh,this is going to be very difficult.
This was the worst case scenario forClemson to come off of that loss against
Virginia. Now you need a bigvictory, you need to be able to
build some confidence, and you gotto go to Chapel Hill. Well,
here's the thing. You have shownthat you can do it. I know
(27:25):
it's only one time, but itcan be done. And this was a
Tiger team that in January of twentytwenty, right before COVID shut down the
world, basically that Clemson was downby ten points with two minutes to go
in that game and for all intensepurposes, it was over. Yeah,
that it was done, and somehowClemson was able to force overtime and then
(27:51):
win that game. And so itshows you once again that these games it's
amazing, the ultimate reality TV.Why we love it. You get to
experience, you get to see greatness, you get to see things that have
never been done before. And soknowing that there was one point that you
(28:11):
were thinking that it couldn't be doneand it was done. So now you
have to flip that switch, soto speak, and say, hey,
yes, this is not ideal,because we know it's a difficult place to
play. We know we haven't hadsuccess, but Clemson has one here before.
I know it's only one time.I'm the ultimate optimistic guy right here,
trying to speak it into existence thatClemson can go into this game with
(28:36):
positive confidence, not the scenario ofoh wow, this is going to be
a very difficult task. You know, it's going to be difficult just because
of the talented players that North Carolinahas. So just focus on what you
need to do to win the game, rather than focusing on the records,
focusing on the history, don't focuson all of that. Just focus on
(29:03):
Hey, this is just another gamein the ACC and each and every team
they have to face the same challengesas far as you have a loss,
you got to get on the road. Do you have a win, No,
you might have to still get onthe road again, or you play
these back to back games. AndClemson just has to be able to find
a way to muster up enough confidenceto be ready to take on the Tar
(29:26):
Hills tonight, no doubt about it. And I like one of the quotes
here from Tony Bennett talking about oneof our favorite players here on the show,
Ian Shefflin, who has evolved inone of the key players for Clemson
here this year, one of themost improved players we have seen. And
Tony Bennett had the following to say, quote, he looks like just that
everyday kind of guy. But hey, I liked him last year. He
knows how to play, he's crafty, he can shoot the ball, good
(29:48):
passer, but he's contentious. Hegoes on to say this lunch pale,
hard hat guy. Oh yeah,so I can see how the crowd would
certainly get behind him. The combinationwith him and PJ is tough. That's
from and Brad Brunel's does such agood job. This team is really good.
And look, that's a crucial elementobviously to tonight's game against North Carolina.
You talk about him on a baycotthere in the middle. Gotta have
(30:10):
some toughness down there in the post, and I think they've got that right
here with not only PG Hall,but Cheflin, who does all the dirty
work. My friend Tony Bennett wouldlove to have in Cheflin in his programs
because he fits so much into themold of what Virginia would want to be
able to do. And have aguy like that and the chef is a
(30:34):
big key to what Clemson can dotonight again being able to be physical's got
to stay out of foul trouble.And also you have to have the ability
to just get a little bit ofoffensive spark from somebody, and you never
know when the chef he seems tobe that guy that can get that extra
offensive rebound that you need and hemight not score it, but he gets
(30:56):
the offensive rebound and can kick itto somebody like a Joe Girard the third
who can hit a big three pointor whatever it might be. So the
chef is a big part of Clemsonsuccess. Yes, he has thirteen points
nine rebounds in the narrow loss toVirginia. They're taking on North Carolina tonight,
Clemson. That is, they're fourteenand seven right now, Clemson at
four and six in the conference,trying to scratch and claw their way back
(31:19):
to five hundred. Coming up next, a little closer look at what's going
on around the top twenty five,and then a closer look at the end
of the show in terms of thematchups between North Carolina and Clemson. We
are sponsored by Ingles Low Prices.Love the savings at Ingles dash markets dot
com. Much more of Ingles countDown to tip Off Show coming right here
on ninety two point five WeSC ninetytwo point five WDS is the Upstates new
(31:45):
home with a Clemson Tigers coming upon a seven pm tip off live from
(32:06):
the Dean Dome. Up there,you've got North Carolina hosting Clemson Don Munson
Tim Beray coming up right here courtesyof the Clemson Athletic Network, It's the
Ingles count Down to tip Off Show. In advance of that, John ellis
Richmond, we were Trey Falco inthe house as well. We are brought
to you by our friends at InglesLow Prices, Love the savings. You
got San Francisco, Kansas City comingup in a few days in the big
game. Stock up on all youneed for your weekend parties. I know
(32:29):
you're gonna have them. I knowwe're gonna have them. Low Prices,
Love the savings in Ingles, dashMarkets dot Com. And when you look
around the top twenty five right now, again, this is a Clemson focused
show, no doubt about it.But we've got to be objective and give
a hat tip to our good friendLamont Paris down there in Columbia. That
team is cooking right now. Atnineteen and three, they had the big
(32:50):
back to back wins over top tenopponents, top five opponents, if you
will, and now they challenge OldMiss tonight. They're a nineteen and three
team right now. Richmond looking reallygood, not only the SEC landscape,
but looking very good overall in termsof their tournament prospects, no question.
And they also just re entered thetop twenty five the AP and the Coaches
poll for the first time since Februaryof twenty seventeen. As the game Cocks
(33:14):
are number fifteen in the AP poleand number twenty in the Coaches poll.
And so Lamont paris what he's beenable to do is showing that when you
have the right pieces of players,and obviously he's been able to use the
transfer portal, I get that,but it's collectively coming together, and it's
(33:37):
just seeing how they've been able towin at home and on the road and
following up some of those tough victoriesagainst top five, top ten opponents and
not losing a game that they shouldwin. And that's been a big part
of South Carolina's success right now,and looking at their schedule, they do
(33:58):
have an opportunity to continue to bea team that's going to contend for an
SEC regular season title. They reallydo. I do believe they're gonna falter
somewhere down the line, but thatdoesn't mean there's still not an NCAA tournament
team. Now. When I sayfalter, I mean they'll probably lose a
game that they shouldn't in terms ofbut that's how college basketball is, yes,
(34:22):
how these conferences are. But they'realso South Carolina seven to two and
Quad one and Quad two games thisseason and have won five. I have
five wins, I should say,against teams currently ranked in the top sixty
of the NET rankings, and thatis adding obviously to their resume and one
(34:43):
of the reasons why now they aregetting national attention. So obviously a big
game tonight against Ole Miss there andColonial Life Arena Lamont Paris team the Clemson
actually beat earlier in the season,so there's also that element as well.
They're tipping off at six thirty comingup on the SEC network. Of course,
you have Clemson at number three,North Carolina tangling right here on WSC
(35:04):
at seven pm. Other games inthe top twenty five tonight number five Houston
Richmond nineteen and three. They're maintainingtheir position right now taking on a much
I guess a little bit down OklahomaState team this year ten and twelve right
now, that's a seven pm tipoff as well on ESPN. Yeah,
and Houston is a great defensive teamand they're a team that obviously people are
(35:27):
going to be talking about and canthey have an opportunity to be a number
one seed? Now, it wasa tough loss for them against Kansas,
and you love to see these bigmatchups like that, and so I think
that's going to be an issue forHouston just from an offensive standpoint. Can
they score enough? It's one thingthat you know, we talk about defense,
(35:49):
and defense can obviously the cliche it'sgoing to win you championships, and
I get all of that, butat the end of the day, also,
I mean, you have to beable to score. And you know,
I just think from her perspective thatHouston just continues to struggle from a
consistency standpoint, and you know thatI think that could play into this whole
(36:12):
scenario just how far Houston can goin the NCAA Tournament. Number eighteen Dayton
The Flyers taken on Saint Joseph tonightthat's on CBS Sports Network at eight pm,
number fourteen. Iowa State. They'resixteen and five right now. They're
traveling down to Austin to take onthe Texas Longhorns. If you can find
the Long Horn Network, go findit because that's where you can watch this
one. Yeah, that is alittle difficult to defined at times, and
(36:37):
so I do have to make acomment though about one of the games.
Yeah, it's the Baylor Iowa Stategame. Oh yeah, and this is
a game that Baylor wins seventy tosixty eight and a great game in the
Big twelve as we're talking about Bigtwelve teams right now, and I know
this is something that frustrates the actualbasketball fans, and even now I can
(37:02):
understand it too, as obviously Iam a die hard basketball guy. But
it's the end of some of thesegames that takes a long time. That
takes when you're talking the timeouts,the free throws. There might be a
review there at the end, becauseunder two minutes you can review. Thanks,
(37:24):
Right, So this Iowa State Baylorgame, and I saw this on
social media on x and they werethey broke it down the last minute in
seventeen seconds of that game, theyactually basically ran the clock real time,
(37:45):
real time. The last minute andseventeen seconds of that game took twenty two
minutes. Oh exactly. Oh,I get it. I get it that
that's frustrate basketball fans that it takesthat long. Yeah, so I understand
(38:05):
it. But that's just one ofmy little tangents. That is like when
you're driving to the beach for goingto Hilton Head. That's like when you
get on ninety five and that's thatlast leg of the trip that you're there.
Oh, but you guys know you'renot there. Come on, let's
wrap this thing up here. That'sright, that's brutal. No, you
got that big game in Texas tonight, b YU number twenty one, you
just mentioned them, sixteen and five. They're traveling Oklahoma tonight at eight pm
(38:28):
on ESPN plus number seventeen. Kentuckyfifteen and six right now taking on Vanderbilt.
That's an eight thirty tip off onSEC network and Butler traveling to number
one yukon Richmond, the number oneteam in the country right now, What
do you make of the Huskies rightnow? Looking very good with one of
these great star freshmen on their team. Now, oh, Yukon just continues
(38:50):
to be a team that Danny Hurley, when you think about, wait a
second, how did you KHN getto where they are based on obviously winning
the national champ ampionship. I getthat, but then they basically lost their
roster from that perspective, But now, I mean, it's just completely reload
for Yukon and they just continue tobe a team that is going to be
(39:14):
a national contender. Tristan Newton thereleads a team in points, rebounds,
and assist I mean, he's doingit all, So why not lean on
somebody like that? And so Ithink when you look at it from a
perspective of just what Yukon is,they epitomize Big East basketball. They really
do. And so Yukon is definitelya true national contender. For those looking
(39:37):
to stay up late tonight, you'vegot number twenty two Utah State hosting Nevada.
They're nineteen and three right now,Utah State is. You've got Texas
Tech traveling to the aforementioned Baylor andthey're two hundred million dollars extravagance stuff there
in Wayco. Yeah, both teamsat sixteen and five. That's a nine
pm tip off on ESPN and theirSan Diego States still clinging to the top
twenty five, seventeen and five takingon air Force at eight and thirteen.
(40:00):
Right now, that's a ten tothirty pm Eastern tip off. No way,
Yeah, what happened? No?And I love me some San Diego
State in Mountain West basketball, believeme, I do, but that's just
not happening now. I would haveto say the Kentucky Vanderbilt game, that
one can be interesting. And hearme out because I know Vanderbilt is struggling
(40:21):
six and fifteen this season. Iget that, but they might give Kentucky
a little bit of a run.Kentucky will win this game, but Vandy
might make it a little bit closerthan some people think, at least early
on. For whatever reason, Kentuckyjust doesn't seem to be in sync right
now. And sometimes going on theroad again against a team that, oh,
(40:44):
this should be an automatic win,sometimes you come out a little flat.
Yeah. In Kentucky, they've struggled. They've had an zero to two
week last week. You look athow many points they gave up a combine
one hundred and ninety seven points inthose two games. They're thirteenth in the
SEC and defensive efficiency. So youlook at a team like Vanderbilt, you
never know what can happen there.It's going to be interesting to watch these
(41:05):
two teams played out tonight, andof course we're gonna preview and much more
detail coming up next, the sortof matchups between Clemson and North Carolina.
And you know, I'd be remissif I didn't mention what a physical game
that was up there between North Carolinaand Duke this weekend where you had elbows
flying. Oh yeah, a lotof people on Twitter X, what are
you gonna call it? Kyle Philapowskiwas getting a lot of hate from the
(41:28):
North Carolina fans. That was aphysical game and a precursor maybe to what
you'll see tonight with Clemson North Carolinatangling with a lot of physicality on Clemson
side as well. Yeah, Ithink there's, you know, a scenario,
knowing the rivalry between Duke and NorthCarolina, it was gonna be physical
anyway. I mean, that's justthe reality of it. And so how
(41:49):
will that carry over now into thisClemson game from North Carolina's perspective, because
I think there was a lot offocus for North Carolina to really be lasered
in or dialed in for that gameagainst Duke. So maybe this is a
good opportunity for Clemson to have theopportunity of playing North Carolina after a big
(42:10):
game. And how many times havewe talked about could there be a letdown
effect from North Carolina's perspective knowing thatthey had to put so much into that
game against Duke and then now turnaround here on Tuesday night and play the
Tigers. You never know how thatmight play out. But Clemson is definitely
going to have to match their physicality. And that's why you got to love
(42:32):
that. You've got PJ. Hall, You've got Ian Shefflin, and can
you get some production off the benchfrom like an RJ. Godfrey, who
we know he's physical. I meanhis dad played in the NFL. I
mean he looks almost like a Iwouldn't say linebacker, but somebody who could
play out there on the gridiron.And so can you get some minutes from
(42:54):
those type of guys to match someof the physicality of North Carolina. Apparently
one of the accials a few weeksago had told Ian Shefflin, you should
be a linebacker too. Yeah,they pointed that out. Certainly. You
look at Clemson, You look atboth these teams who will feature in our
next segment here and match them up. There's a lot of physicality a team
that Armando Baycott said, not onlythe team, but a player said,
(43:15):
the acc runs through me. Now, that's what he said after that game
against Duke. Feeling confidence. He'sbeen there forever and he's certainly rapping up
his production as we get closer totournament time. Don't forget, You've got
the Ingles count Down, a tipoff show right here. Are good friends
at Ingles sponsor this fine show,low prices, love the savings at Ingles
dash markets dot com. Coming upnext, we'll wrap up this show with
(43:36):
a closer look at the matchups betweenNorth Carolina and Clemson. They're tipping off
at seven pm tonight right here onninety two point five WSC. Ninety two
point five w DSc is the Upstate'snew home for the Clemson Tigers. Get
(44:21):
you set for tip off coming uphere seven o'clock. You've got Don Bunson
Timbray on the call on the ClemsonAthletic Network. We are the Ingles count
Down to tip off show. That'sRichmond Weaver. I'm John Ellis. Get
you set for a big time ACCgame and a huge game for Clemson as
they're looking to stay paced in theACC race right now four and six in
(44:42):
the conference. This would be ahuge win. Of course, wins are
not easy to come by up therein Chapel Hill for this Clemson team.
We've talked about it, but herewe go down the stretch, we go
on this show and giving you apreview of what to expect against this North
Carolina team that's coming off a bigwin against Duke Richmond. Could I assume
maybe they'll be bit of a letdownfor North Carolina here after that big win
against Duke Er they just don't operatethat way. Well, I think we've
(45:06):
seen this season. I'm not certainthat they operate that way because they are
a very talented roster and Harrison Ingram, the Stanford transfer that I talked about,
seems to be a big factor inthe success for North Carolina right now
outside of RJ. Davis, whois arguably one of the best in the
country. And then when you havesomebody like Armando Baycott able to have the
(45:28):
performance like he did against Duke twentyfive points in that game. But it
was also I think that North Carolinadid a great job. They didn't turn
the ball over against Duke, andthat was a big factor in why North
Carolina was able to dominate that game. And so Clemson's going to have to
see if they can force North Carolinainto some turnovers, but also they're going
(45:50):
to have to protect the ball themselves. And knowing that Clemson has lost to
Memphis, UVA, and Duke bya combined four points, and both of
the UVA and Doo losses were byone point each. So if you win
those games, the Tigers right nowwould be tied for fifth in the ACC
instead of sitting in eighth place.So it would look completely different from Clemson
(46:15):
standpoint. So again here this isa scenario where don't look at the record.
I know the all time series isNorth Carolina leads the series one hundred
and twenty four to twenty two.Okay, I understand that. Don't focus
on that. Yes, ignore thatpart. Focus on the aspect that that
(46:36):
you can compete with North Carolina.You have the horses. You saw that
in Little John. Yes, Iknow, you end up losing by ten
points, and that was a struggleoffensively there, only scoring fifty five points.
But there are some key breakdowns inthat game also, And this is
now the opportunity, because of thesense of urgency and where we are in
the season. You've got to beable to shake all of that off a
(46:58):
Taylor Swift reference there and get intothe opportunity of winning this game. Very
nice, well done instant ratings rightthere. Yes, the Tigers shot one
of eighteen from behind the arc thelast time this team's faced. Maybe polish
that up a little bit and improvethose numbers just a bit. Because you
mentioned it doesn't matter what court you'replaying on, that arc is still the
same distance. My friend, yougot to do better than one of eighteen
(47:20):
from downtown. You definitely do.And how many times have we talked about
that. From Clemson's perspective, ifthey shoot from beyond the arc, if
they keep their number of attempts toeighteen to twenty five, that's a good
place for Clemson. When you startgetting into relying on the three point shot
and you're shooting thirty times in agame, that's not where Clemson needs to
(47:43):
live. That was an anomaly inmy from my opinion in reference to one
of eighteen, because that seems tobe the sweet spot for Clemsons. But
you have to be able to makethe shots. And so it's going to
be imperative here against North Carolina thatyou're going to have to be completely balanced,
that you're going to have to getsome stops and then on the other
(48:05):
side, you're going to have tomake some shots. And I know that's
very cliche. Basketball can be veryeasy. You just have to put the
ball in the basket more than theopposing team. I understand that. But
you've got to do the little thingsfirst and foremost before you can get there.
And you're going to have to beable to limit North Carolina of getting
points in the paint. You can'tlet Armando Baycott and Harrison Ingram try to
(48:27):
get things going on down there inthe post, right stuff, rich as
always for Trey Falco, for RichmondWeaver, I'm John Elli's stay tuned right
here. You've got tip off comingup next. Don Munson, Tim Burray,
get you kicked off with network coverageon the Clinton Athletic Network. Ready
here ninety two point five weesc Thishas been the Ingles count down to tip
Off Show brought to you by afriends at Ingles low prices, love the
savings for everybody here at WEC,Enjoy the big game tonight, and we'll
(48:52):
see you next time right here onthe Ingles Countdown to tip Off Show
W E. S E F M. Greenville, Spartanburg, Andersen. Time
for the Ingles Countdown to tip OffShow, brought to you pie Ingles Markets,
Low Prices, Love the Savings,Blue Ridge Electric Cooperative, Harley Davidson
of Greenville, Greer Flooring Center,the Surgery Center at Pella McGhee, Eating
in Air and by Palmeadow State Armory. Now Here are your hosts, John
(00:25):
Alisam Richman and Weaver. Clemson Tigersback in action tonight on the hardwood,
looking to overcome what was a toughloss to Virginia this past weekend. No
time to lick your wounds here asthey've got North Carolina a tough game in
the ACC coming up. This isthe Ingles Countdown to tip Off Show.
(00:47):
I'm John Ellis. You got TreyFalco Producing and Richmond Weaver in the house
as well and rich As we getinto ACC play here, I want to
remind folks as well. We arebrought to you by our friends at Ingles
Low Prices, Love the Savings atIngles dan Markets dot Com. The Big
Day, the Big Game is justa few days away. Here stock up
on all your party needs for theweekend at Ingles Ingles Dash Markets dot Com,
(01:08):
Richmond. What can I tell you, man? It was a tough,
heartbreaking loss at the hands of atough, competitive team led by Tony
Bennett. Virginia escapes Little John thisweekend with a narrow victory. Yeah,
So what's more disappointing that the Tigerslose or the fact that we technically can't
(01:29):
say super Bowl. We have tosay the Big Game? That's right,
right, didn't play by the book. How would it be if we were
talking about the NCAA tournament You couldn'tsay March Madness, that's right. No,
NFL is a wild bunch about thatkind of stuff. Yeah, again,
frustrating. I don't know who thepolice is that monitors when you can
say super Bowl or not, orwhat context and how you're saying it in
(01:52):
a sentence. Either way, verydifficult loss for the Tigers on Saturday,
and knowing that Jack Clark had anopen look. It's a shot that you've
seen him make and for that notto go down just has to be so
frustrating for Brad Renel and all ofthe Clemson Tigers there as they found themselves
(02:15):
in a scenario that Virginia puts youin exactly the position they do every time
they limit you scoring, and thenwhen you are able to make a run,
you've had to expend so much energyin those runs. Then you're down
the stretch, it's just a challengefor you defensively not coming up with some
(02:39):
key stops and then also obviously notbeing able to hit some of the easy
shots down the stretch. But itgoes back to the first half, I
should say, where Clemson in thefirst half was five of sixteen for layups.
I'm not talking about just the field. I'm talking about when you get
(02:59):
into the advance stats and looking atjust what the Tigers missed opportunities in that
game. And you know scoring isgoing to be a premium anyway against Virginia.
So when you have those type ofshots five of sixteen from layups.
You were nine of twenty five layupsfor the game, but that first half
(03:19):
five of sixteen, and I thinkthat's what ultimately did the Tigers in.
You could say, oh, well, Jack Clark, you know you've got
to be able to hit that shot. Well, you can't just put it
all on Jack Clark, obviously.I mean, there's so many factors that
went into this game. Who knewthat Jake Groves was going to go off
for Virginia the way he did,and it was a vital part of the
success of Virginia coming off the bench. But it's typical Virginia. They put
(03:44):
you in mud, they slow thingsdown, and they did exactly that with
the Tigers there in the first half. It's what they do. They're known
for it. Coach Tony Bennett hasdone a great job over the years limiting
teams offensively on the other side,and they did just that, especially in
the first half of this game.Thirty four to twenty six lead they jump
out to in the first half ofthe game. And some of the final
(04:05):
stats here you look pg Hall averagingaround nineteen points a game, matched that
with his nineteen points. Most ofthat came from the free throw line ten
of twelve. Once again, ChaseHunter had twelve points, Joe Gerard had
fourteen he and Shefflin had thirteen.You got four guys in double digits against
a very good Virginia team, butonce again, it was limited very much
(04:27):
to the starting lineup. As thebench, they were outscored twenty one to
five in this game. Yeah,and obviously what we just talked about Jay
Groves. He had seventeen of thosetwenty one bench points for Virginia. So
this was a guy that hasn't hadsome type of explosion like that that we've
seen in the ACC. Now,he's had some other games, but it
was just the steady Eddy type ofplay from Reese Beeatman there for Virginia with
(04:53):
fourteen points. And then also JordanMiner I felt was a big part of
the second half for Virginia. Thephysical size that he had in that game
got Tigers into some foul trouble andjust created some mismatch opportunities there that the
Tigers struggled and then ultimately just notbeing able to hit some of those key
(05:14):
shots down the stretch. And thenthere were a few free throws that they
did miss. Now you look atthe Tigers from the free throw line eighteen
of twenty one and you're like,well, man, you can't really ask
for much better than that. Youonly miss three, but it was the
ones that you did miss down thestretch, and like PJ. Hall missing
a front end of a one andone, and so that's an opportunity just
(05:38):
taken away. Obviously you missed thatfree throw, but you don't even get
a chance for a second free throw. So that's why you know you missed
the front end of an one toone. It's almost even double worse because
that takes away another opportunity to makea free throw. Yeah, and look,
this is a game of sort ofruns here by both teams. Clemson
(05:59):
trail eleven with five thirty nine togo in the opening half. Before that
eight zero run closed the gap,there was a buzzer beater to go up
by eight at the break by theCalves there and the Cavs scored the first
two baskets of the second half.They went up by twelve. That was
the highest lead they had in thegame. Tigers kept fighting back in this
game. Richmond trimmed a twelve pointdeficit down to two points to fifty six,
(06:21):
fifty four, and then fifty sevento fifty six. Later they were
within a point or two there downthe stretch, and he just came down
to that very last possession. Yeah, and that very last possession. I
mean, there's so many things whatifs should Brad had called a time out
after the miss free throw, andso Clemson did a really good job of
getting the right guy to the freethrow line for Virginia, Dante Harris had
(06:45):
really not played a whole lot inthat game, So you got the guy
you wanted there. He'd only playedbasically five minutes and only had one field
goal attempt throughout the game, andthen obviously missed that free throw. And
so you can second guess all daylong should you call a timeout or not
when you have that much time leftand getting down the court. And I'm
(07:06):
okay with not calling a timeout becauseI do believe, especially with a team
like Virginia who's so good defensively,you don't want to allow them to go
ahead and get back and be ready. Okay, we're going to collectively gather
ourselves and be ready to play defense. Have them in transition, have them
(07:29):
back pedaling, have them trying tofigure out where everybody is on the court
as you're coming down the court.And so I don't have any problem with
not calling a time out now.Obviously, I think a better opportunity would
have been, could you have gottenChase Hunter to try to get to the
rim, because he's one of thebest in the ACC as far as attacking
(07:50):
the rim and getting to the rimand having an opportunity of them even potentially
drawing a foul, And I thinkthat's one of the things that Tiger fans
were hoping for. Could you atleast even get to the free throw line
in that scenario, knowing that ChaseHunter had already made all four of his
free throws and seemed to be ina good rhythm from that standpoint. But
(08:11):
give Virginia credit. Ryan Dunn,who I think is one of the most
underrated players in the ACC defensively dida great job and forced Hunter in a
situation where he didn't have a pathway, especially going to his dominant right hand,
which Chase he loves getting to hisright hand. But Done did a
(08:33):
great job being able to fend offthere. And also just Virginia the way
they used that pack line defense wherethey were going to give Clemson the outside
shot in that scenario. Now,were they going to give an outside shot
to Joe Girard of no way,not even close. But somebody like Jack
(08:54):
Clark, Yeah, they'll drop backbecause they did not want to give any
dribble penetration to Check And Virginia dida great job led by Dune there being
able to redirect him and Chase basedon the time he had to get rid
of the ball, he had tomake a move, he had to get
the offense still going to some degreeto try to get some opportunity to score.
And then, unfortunately for the Tigers, obviously, Jack Clark's three point
(09:18):
shot did not fall in. Yeah, one of the three point shots that
did not fall. For the day, Clemson shots seven of twenty from downtown.
That's around thirty five percent, andfor the game Richmond thirty five point
seven percent from the field. Andthis echoes what we talked about on this
last edition of the Eagles Countdown totip Off show Brad Burnell's frustration to a
(09:39):
certain degree. There's not much youcan do about it other than just continuing
to practice and move forward. Butwith the lack of success in terms of
shooting from the field, it seemsto be a bit of a theme here
the last couple of weeks with thisClemson team. Yeah, and you know,
when you look at it, evenlike from a perspective of PJ Hall
and I know he's come back andare come out, I should say,
and started talking about that, Hey, they feel good. All of my
(10:03):
shots when they leave my hand,I'm feeling confident, and you can see
that it doesn't look like they're badshots, and I don't think he's necessarily
taking bad shots. I know,you look at four of sixteen from the
field and one of six from threepoint line, and so you're thinking six
attempts from beyond the arc, tenattempts from inside the arc. I think
(10:24):
that's a great balance with PJ.Hall. Maybe six is a little more.
Maybe you want him in that threeto four range in terms of three
point attempts. But it was justa scenario where I think the refs were
allowing some physical play to go onthere and PJ just have one of those
games where as you know, sometimesJohn just wasn't falling for him even though
(10:48):
it felt good, And there wereseveral times I was able to after the
show on Saturday, hustled a little. John got there in time, and
actually it helped out for that halftimeshow with Don Munson and Tim Bray,
so I was actually there in personto see the game, and you could
see that it was a lot ofPj's shots and a lot of Clemson shots.
(11:13):
They were in rhythm, it waspart of the offense. They just
weren't falling and that can obviously bevery frustrating and can lead to that scenario
where the players get frustrated, thenthey start losing a little bit of confidence,
and then they start pressing, andthen as you press more, you
lose more confidence and you get morepressure on yourself. So it's a vicious
(11:35):
cycle, you know, from thatstandpoint. But ultimately it did come down
to Clemson just not able to makeenough of those early scoring opportunities in the
first half from what I saw,and again those were layups. Those were
points that against Virginia because scoring issuch at a premium, you have to
convert those you do the bench.Again, we talked about that collectively.
(11:58):
Josh Bida was two of four fromthe field, Jack Clark five, including
that last shot in the game thatfell short, and then r J.
Godfrey was of three. Collectively,that's two of twelve from the field.
That's not gonna work. You needthat depth. Although I will say Jack
Clark with a nice game on theboards. They offensively at least rebounded better
than they did in that prior gamein which Lousville almost caught them at the
(12:20):
end. But again, just scoringfrom the bench. When you look at
what Jacob Groves was able to docoming off the bench twenty seven minutes and
seventeen points. That's one of themany areas you can look at and say,
that's your margin of victory right therein this game. Oh yeah,
well, and that was one ofthe keys that this was a guy that
typically has not been able to havea performance like that, at least in
(12:41):
the ACC and going three for fourfrom beyond the arc. But Clemson did
a good job because most of hisscoring was there in the first half,
and I think that's what you know, a big part of it was for
the Tigers is that knowing that youcan at times seemed in the second have
defense. Intensity did ratchet up thereand that's what allowed them to make that
(13:05):
run, get back in the gameafter that twelve point deficit, to start
there in the second half. Andso Clemson has the ability, we know
defensively they can do that and tohold Virginia. Again, Virginia is not
going to score a lot. That'sjust not the pace that they're going to
play. But you know, froma scenario there, for the Tigers to
(13:26):
hold the team to sixty six points, I mean, that's still good defense.
Thirty four points in the first half, thirty two in the second half.
It's just Clemson with that glaring onlytwenty six points in the first half.
That's the thing that from an offensivestandpoint, you've got to have your
stars step up. And this isjust, for whatever reason, just was
(13:48):
not Clemson's afternoon there and little Johnto convert some of those big scoring opportunities.
Yeah, and give Virginia credit.Look, they've been on a six
game run. Now they're seventeen andfive, eight three in the conference.
This was a good opportunity for Clemsonto get back to five hundred and acc
play. They're four and six now, that could have been five and five.
He can you look at some ofthese games and clearly want to duke
(14:09):
that could be a seven win teamright now in the conference that in the
earros. The margins are so narrowright now in this conference, it's crazy.
And Joe Lenardi came in out withbracketology, and I love Joe Lenardi,
he's one of my guys. Hadhim on our sister station one O
four nine Fox Sports Upstate several timestalking about to bracketology, and right now
(14:31):
it's just this, I'm not sureexactly the right word, but no love
for the ACC whatsoever. As JoeLenardi yesterday with his initial bracketology that he
has after the weekend, so hestill fine tunes it a little bit,
but he has Virginia as not makingthe NCAA tournament. Wow, And I'm
(14:54):
like, what, oh boy,what are we thinking? Here? Go
again that where is the love forthe ACC or why is there not much
love for the ACC in terms ofyou know, from a national perspective,
obviously North Carolina is getting it,Duke is getting it, but they're talking
about, you know, Waite Forestis more of a bubble team than Virginia,
(15:16):
and I just don't understand that.Now. I do believe wait Forest
is one of those underrated teams thatwill definitely surprise people and can is built
to potentially they can make a runor two there in the NCAA tournament.
But for people not to be lookingat Virginia right now, I think it
is a big mistake. It getsback to what Brad Burnella talked about last
(15:39):
week after the loss to Duke,and then in the middle of preparing for
Louisville, he had some comments thatsort of reflected that narrative that he the
ACC gets disrespected to a large degree. Look at the Big twelve, the
amount of tension they get, andcertainly the SEC and some other conferences out
there, and where is the ACCand all this and you look at it.
Two teams right now. As youmentioned, they get the lion's share,
(16:00):
the attention duke in North Carolina andeverybody else's coming. Afterthought on the
national narrative, disrespect That was theword I was looking for. So they
do work, mister Ellis. Yes, sometimes it's English language, man,
I have trouble with it trying topull out the exact word that I want.
But disrespect. Yes, it's ashame that the ACC is being disrespected
(16:21):
right now. Big one tonight,big opportunity for Clemson to not only get
a big win in the ACC,but to improve their net ranking, to
improve their standing within the Joe Lonardesof the world out there. It's a
big time game between the Tigers andtar Heels. Tipping off here shortly you
get it locked into the Ingles Countdownto tip Off show, brought to you
by your friends at Ingles Low Prices, love the savings, Ingles dash Markets
(16:42):
dot Com. Much more to comehere on the Ingles Countdown to tip Off
Show ninety two point five WSC ninetytwo point five w DSc is the Upstate's
new home for the Clemson Tigers.Big tipboff cut up here surely on ninety
(17:12):
two point five WEESC, Gon Monksand Tim Burray on the call as the
tar Heels and Tigers will tangle atseven pm. You get locked into the
Engles Countdown to tip Off Show righthere on ninety two point five WeSC.
John Ellis, Richmond Weaver, TreyFalca running things here for us. Get
you ready for big ACC action.Of course, there's been a lot of
(17:33):
talk around the ACC about disrespect.As we talked about, we'll take a
deeper dive into what's going around theACC right now in terms of the standing,
some of the early mentions for Playerof the Year in the conference,
and much much more rich when youlook at what Clemson has been through here
of lately, a little more ontheir gauntlet, so to speak. There's
some tough ones ahead. We knewthey would be facing this portion of the
(17:55):
schedule, with games of course atNorth Carolina starting tonight, they go to
Syracuse coming up a few day.They've got Miami n C State, Georgia
Tech, Florida State, Pittsburgh toround out that February schedule. No easy
outs, as we talked about,and you just look back at what's been
going on since December. You lookat January, those three straight losses to
(18:15):
start the month, one of whichwas against this North Carolina team. Got
the win over Boston College double overtime, lost to Course Georgia Tech, you
win against Florida State, you losethe heartbreaker at Duke, and then you
win in Louisville. It's an upand down roller coaster type of yo yo
situation for this team. Yes,and I would imagine Brad Burnell in this
staff is just trying to stabilize things. But there's no stabilizing going on here.
(18:38):
When you're coming off of lost toVirginia, then you gotta go to
North Carolina. It's not like aget right game. This is a huge
momentum game for both teams in NorthCarolina. With what we saw of that
team this weekend against Duke. Ohboy, got a strap on your big
boy pants for this one. That'sright. And obviously Armando Baycod had a
big game against Duke and Harrison Ingramalso transfer from Stanford I think was the
(19:00):
key factor in that North Carolina winas R. J. Davis struggled a
little bit in that game. Butyes, looking at this schedule, I
mean now, I mean you talkingabout everything being compacted. We are in
February. Now, it's February sixth. We're six weeks away from having our
bracket ready to go. So thesense of urgency is here if you're a
(19:26):
Clemson Tiger basketball fan. And obviouslywe know from a coaching perspective, you
know, Brad Burnell and his staffthey understand the urgency and obviously being able
to communicate that to the players.And I don't think we have to tell
the players either. I think theyunderstand that now. Based on how the
season is going and especially how youstarted acc play, it has been a
(19:49):
struggle and it's been frustration, especiallysome of the games at home, losing
as you mentioned to Georgia Tech indouble overtime, that's a game that we
looked at and somewhat circled saying that'sa win at home. Yeah, no
doubt, and you lose that one. Now, the North Carolina game at
home, you knew that was goingto be a tough one, but yeah,
(20:10):
you're thinking, well, it isat home, so the Tigers might
be able to pull that one off, and obviously did not do that.
And then when you look at theperspective of the Virginia game, that was
another one that that was one thathey, we know Virginia is Virginia,
but that is a winnable game atLittle John Coliseum. So it just adds
(20:30):
more pressure now having to go onthe road at North Carolina, where you
know, you have not had successin the entire history of college basketball for
the Clemson Tigers there in Chapel Hill, interesting seasons so far when you look
at how they started. Of course, they had that one loss in December
by just a couple of points.Again, you count so many of these
games, so they've lost by apoint, two, three points, even
(20:52):
on the road, especially on theroad. That was a December sixteen loss
at Memphis. That was their onlyloss all the way up in Hill the
middle of December and into January wherethey ran the table basically Other than Memphis
in December, they had to winat Alabama early in the year. Of
course, they beat South Carolina.That win looks a lot better now with
that program just blooming at the momentwith La mont Paris. They want it
(21:15):
pitt, they beat TCU, theybeat some good opponents early. If you
could look at one thing, andmaybe it's not just one thing, but
one of the bigger X factors inthis season that's stifled this team a little
bit into the month of February.Is it just the fact we're an acc
plan and it's more competitive or isthere something with this team that's just a
little amiss right now? No?I yes, when you look at college
(21:37):
basketball, and we've talked about thisa couple of times, and you could
extrapolate to the NFL preseason versus regularseason, regular season versus playoffs, and
then obviously into the Super Bowl,the Big Game, whatever you want to
describe it as. But for collegebasketball, I mean, there is a
true distinction between non conference game andconference games. And as much as people
(22:03):
want to talk about non conference gamesand looking at the matchups, which I
love, I love having these bigmatchups, and it can obviously help from
a resume standpoint as you're seeing whatClemson was able to do in their non
conference schedule this year versus last year, and how the narrative was Oh,
Clemson is no question an NCAA tournamentteam because look what they've been able to
(22:26):
do in the non conference. Butnow all of a sudden, you're in
conference play and you're struggling. Andso that's why it's so important if there's
when you look at non conference versusconference, you would rather struggle in the
non conference than in the conference becauseyou're going to be judged greater on your
(22:48):
conference record, and obviously having abetter conference record puts you in a better
position to have a better seed goinginto the conference tournament. And as we've
talked about it before, John,for the ACC, if you can be
in that top four, you getthe double by and that is a huge
(23:10):
advantage in the ACC tournament. Youdon't want to be in that scenario where
you're in the bottom four and havingto play in the first early part of
the week because you're not going tobe able to go through and win five
games to win an ACC tournament.Just hasn't happened, and I don't think
it will because the conference is toodifficult. That's too much of a gauntlet
(23:33):
to ask a team to be ableto win that many number of games in
such a short period. Of time, and so therefore it is all about
conference play, and guys play differentin acc play, and that's why getting
road victories like down in Florida State, that was a huge win for Clemson
to be able to get that victory. And that's why it was even more
(23:56):
frustrating that you didn't get the winon the road against Duke, because that
was a game that I believe Clemsonplayed well enough to win that game and
showcase that they can go toe totoe with a duke even in the hostile
confines of Cameron Indoor Stadium there,and knowing that they were that close,
(24:21):
and so it's even more frustrating,and they almost let that Duke lost beat
him twice. They struggled a littlebit with Louisville there down the stretch,
obviously, but they were able tohold on and so that's even frustrating from
a perspective of then where there werethere any lingering effects of kind of the
somewhat breakdown collapse in that Louisville gamethat carried over into the Virginia game where
(24:48):
they where the Tigers struggled there inthe first half. Now, as a
coach, you've been in this professionfor a long time, not only analyzing
basketball on the radio on television,but you were a former coach and you're
come off not only the big roadloss at Duke where you lose by a
point and there's so much controversy,and you mentioned, don't let that game
beat you twice, and they nearlydid against Louisville. As you said,
(25:10):
Virginia was more of I think acase of a team that had just staunch
defense. You know what you're gettinginto with a coach that just ratcheted that
up there in terms of what TonyBennett does there. But you go back
to North Carolina. Now you're onthe road again. You've got a two
game road trip coming up between NorthCarolina and Syracuse. Again, all these
games are tough, and none ofthese are going to be sleepwalk games,
(25:33):
including the one at Georgia Tech whereyou're coming off the loss of Georgia Tech
in double overtime, and then yousaw what Georgia Tech did to this North
Carolina team just about a week agohere. But how important is it for
this team just from a confidence standpointto get a win under their belt.
I know this is not convenient withNorth Carolina on the road. But at
some point you feel like, evenwith the win against Louisville, you got
to stop the bleeding a little bit. It's been a bit of a bad
(25:55):
vibe here moving forward. Yeah,well, obviously so, and I think
there's just from a perspective of man, that's the last thing you wanted to
see on the schedule. Yes,road trip to Chapel Hill. No it's
not. You've won one time therein the entire histories of the two schools
playing basketball, and so yes,that's obviously a very difficult task. But
(26:21):
I think this is a scenario alsothat because and we'll talk more about it,
but this is an interesting concept maybenot concepts not the right word,
but just how this is playing outthat based on how the season is going
right now in the ACC very frustratingobviously, and coming off of this tough
(26:41):
loss, and you do need aget right type of game, but you
don't have that luxury. It's againstNorth Carolina on the road in Chapel Hill,
and so right now the narrative isautomatically oh wow. And I falling
into this too as a Clemson fan, but also part of the program that
(27:03):
you look at it, Oh,this is going to be very difficult.
This was the worst case scenario forClemson to come off of that loss against
Virginia. Now you need a bigvictory, you need to be able to
build some confidence, and you gotto go to Chapel Hill. Well,
here's the thing. You have shownthat you can do it. I know
(27:25):
it's only one time, but itcan be done. And this was a
Tiger team that in January of twentytwenty, right before COVID shut down the
world, basically that Clemson was downby ten points with two minutes to go
in that game and for all intensepurposes, it was over. Yeah,
that it was done, and somehowClemson was able to force overtime and then
(27:51):
win that game. And so itshows you once again that these games it's
amazing, the ultimate reality TV.Why we love it. You get to
experience, you get to see greatness, you get to see things that have
never been done before. And soknowing that there was one point that you
(28:11):
were thinking that it couldn't be doneand it was done. So now you
have to flip that switch, soto speak, and say, hey,
yes, this is not ideal,because we know it's a difficult place to
play. We know we haven't hadsuccess, but Clemson has one here before.
I know it's only one time.I'm the ultimate optimistic guy right here,
trying to speak it into existence thatClemson can go into this game with
(28:36):
positive confidence, not the scenario ofoh wow, this is going to be
a very difficult task. You know, it's going to be difficult just because
of the talented players that North Carolinahas. So just focus on what you
need to do to win the game, rather than focusing on the records,
focusing on the history, don't focuson all of that. Just focus on
(29:03):
Hey, this is just another gamein the ACC and each and every team
they have to face the same challengesas far as you have a loss,
you got to get on the road. Do you have a win, No,
you might have to still get onthe road again, or you play
these back to back games. AndClemson just has to be able to find
a way to muster up enough confidenceto be ready to take on the Tar
(29:26):
Hills tonight, no doubt about it. And I like one of the quotes
here from Tony Bennett talking about oneof our favorite players here on the show,
Ian Shefflin, who has evolved inone of the key players for Clemson
here this year, one of themost improved players we have seen. And
Tony Bennett had the following to say, quote, he looks like just that
everyday kind of guy. But hey, I liked him last year. He
knows how to play, he's crafty, he can shoot the ball, good
(29:48):
passer, but he's contentious. Hegoes on to say this lunch pale,
hard hat guy. Oh yeah,so I can see how the crowd would
certainly get behind him. The combinationwith him and PJ is tough. That's
from and Brad Brunel's does such agood job. This team is really good.
And look, that's a crucial elementobviously to tonight's game against North Carolina.
You talk about him on a baycotthere in the middle. Gotta have
(30:10):
some toughness down there in the post, and I think they've got that right
here with not only PG Hall,but Cheflin, who does all the dirty
work. My friend Tony Bennett wouldlove to have in Cheflin in his programs
because he fits so much into themold of what Virginia would want to be
able to do. And have aguy like that and the chef is a
(30:34):
big key to what Clemson can dotonight again being able to be physical's got
to stay out of foul trouble.And also you have to have the ability
to just get a little bit ofoffensive spark from somebody, and you never
know when the chef he seems tobe that guy that can get that extra
offensive rebound that you need and hemight not score it, but he gets
(30:56):
the offensive rebound and can kick itto somebody like a Joe Girard the third
who can hit a big three pointor whatever it might be. So the
chef is a big part of Clemsonsuccess. Yes, he has thirteen points
nine rebounds in the narrow loss toVirginia. They're taking on North Carolina tonight,
Clemson. That is, they're fourteenand seven right now, Clemson at
four and six in the conference,trying to scratch and claw their way back
(31:19):
to five hundred. Coming up next, a little closer look at what's going
on around the top twenty five,and then a closer look at the end
of the show in terms of thematchups between North Carolina and Clemson. We
are sponsored by Ingles Low Prices.Love the savings at Ingles dash markets dot
com. Much more of Ingles countDown to tip Off Show coming right here
on ninety two point five WeSC ninetytwo point five WDS is the Upstates new
(31:45):
home with a Clemson Tigers coming upon a seven pm tip off live from
(32:06):
the Dean Dome. Up there,you've got North Carolina hosting Clemson Don Munson
Tim Beray coming up right here courtesyof the Clemson Athletic Network, It's the
Ingles count Down to tip Off Show. In advance of that, John ellis
Richmond, we were Trey Falco inthe house as well. We are brought
to you by our friends at InglesLow Prices, Love the savings. You
got San Francisco, Kansas City comingup in a few days in the big
game. Stock up on all youneed for your weekend parties. I know
(32:29):
you're gonna have them. I knowwe're gonna have them. Low Prices,
Love the savings in Ingles, dashMarkets dot Com. And when you look
around the top twenty five right now, again, this is a Clemson focused
show, no doubt about it.But we've got to be objective and give
a hat tip to our good friendLamont Paris down there in Columbia. That
team is cooking right now. Atnineteen and three, they had the big
(32:50):
back to back wins over top tenopponents, top five opponents, if you
will, and now they challenge OldMiss tonight. They're a nineteen and three
team right now. Richmond looking reallygood, not only the SEC landscape,
but looking very good overall in termsof their tournament prospects, no question.
And they also just re entered thetop twenty five the AP and the Coaches
poll for the first time since Februaryof twenty seventeen. As the game Cocks
(33:14):
are number fifteen in the AP poleand number twenty in the Coaches poll.
And so Lamont paris what he's beenable to do is showing that when you
have the right pieces of players,and obviously he's been able to use the
transfer portal, I get that,but it's collectively coming together, and it's
(33:37):
just seeing how they've been able towin at home and on the road and
following up some of those tough victoriesagainst top five, top ten opponents and
not losing a game that they shouldwin. And that's been a big part
of South Carolina's success right now,and looking at their schedule, they do
(33:58):
have an opportunity to continue to bea team that's going to contend for an
SEC regular season title. They reallydo. I do believe they're gonna falter
somewhere down the line, but thatdoesn't mean there's still not an NCAA tournament
team. Now. When I sayfalter, I mean they'll probably lose a
game that they shouldn't in terms ofbut that's how college basketball is, yes,
(34:22):
how these conferences are. But they'realso South Carolina seven to two and
Quad one and Quad two games thisseason and have won five. I have
five wins, I should say,against teams currently ranked in the top sixty
of the NET rankings, and thatis adding obviously to their resume and one
(34:43):
of the reasons why now they aregetting national attention. So obviously a big
game tonight against Ole Miss there andColonial Life Arena Lamont Paris team the Clemson
actually beat earlier in the season,so there's also that element as well.
They're tipping off at six thirty comingup on the SEC network. Of course,
you have Clemson at number three,North Carolina tangling right here on WSC
(35:04):
at seven pm. Other games inthe top twenty five tonight number five Houston
Richmond nineteen and three. They're maintainingtheir position right now taking on a much
I guess a little bit down OklahomaState team this year ten and twelve right
now, that's a seven pm tipoff as well on ESPN. Yeah,
and Houston is a great defensive teamand they're a team that obviously people are
(35:27):
going to be talking about and canthey have an opportunity to be a number
one seed? Now, it wasa tough loss for them against Kansas,
and you love to see these bigmatchups like that, and so I think
that's going to be an issue forHouston just from an offensive standpoint. Can
they score enough? It's one thingthat you know, we talk about defense,
(35:49):
and defense can obviously the cliche it'sgoing to win you championships, and
I get all of that, butat the end of the day, also,
I mean, you have to beable to score. And you know,
I just think from her perspective thatHouston just continues to struggle from a
consistency standpoint, and you know thatI think that could play into this whole
(36:12):
scenario just how far Houston can goin the NCAA Tournament. Number eighteen Dayton
The Flyers taken on Saint Joseph tonightthat's on CBS Sports Network at eight pm,
number fourteen. Iowa State. They'resixteen and five right now. They're
traveling down to Austin to take onthe Texas Longhorns. If you can find
the Long Horn Network, go findit because that's where you can watch this
one. Yeah, that is alittle difficult to defined at times, and
(36:37):
so I do have to make acomment though about one of the games.
Yeah, it's the Baylor Iowa Stategame. Oh yeah, and this is
a game that Baylor wins seventy tosixty eight and a great game in the
Big twelve as we're talking about Bigtwelve teams right now, and I know
this is something that frustrates the actualbasketball fans, and even now I can
(37:02):
understand it too, as obviously Iam a die hard basketball guy. But
it's the end of some of thesegames that takes a long time. That
takes when you're talking the timeouts,the free throws. There might be a
review there at the end, becauseunder two minutes you can review. Thanks,
(37:24):
Right, So this Iowa State Baylorgame, and I saw this on
social media on x and they werethey broke it down the last minute in
seventeen seconds of that game, theyactually basically ran the clock real time,
(37:45):
real time. The last minute andseventeen seconds of that game took twenty two
minutes. Oh exactly. Oh,I get it. I get it that
that's frustrate basketball fans that it takesthat long. Yeah, so I understand
(38:05):
it. But that's just one ofmy little tangents. That is like when
you're driving to the beach for goingto Hilton Head. That's like when you
get on ninety five and that's thatlast leg of the trip that you're there.
Oh, but you guys know you'renot there. Come on, let's
wrap this thing up here. That'sright, that's brutal. No, you
got that big game in Texas tonight, b YU number twenty one, you
just mentioned them, sixteen and five. They're traveling Oklahoma tonight at eight pm
(38:28):
on ESPN plus number seventeen. Kentuckyfifteen and six right now taking on Vanderbilt.
That's an eight thirty tip off onSEC network and Butler traveling to number
one yukon Richmond, the number oneteam in the country right now, What
do you make of the Huskies rightnow? Looking very good with one of
these great star freshmen on their team. Now, oh, Yukon just continues
(38:50):
to be a team that Danny Hurley, when you think about, wait a
second, how did you KHN getto where they are based on obviously winning
the national champ ampionship. I getthat, but then they basically lost their
roster from that perspective, But now, I mean, it's just completely reload
for Yukon and they just continue tobe a team that is going to be
(39:14):
a national contender. Tristan Newton thereleads a team in points, rebounds,
and assist I mean, he's doingit all, So why not lean on
somebody like that? And so Ithink when you look at it from a
perspective of just what Yukon is,they epitomize Big East basketball. They really
do. And so Yukon is definitelya true national contender. For those looking
(39:37):
to stay up late tonight, you'vegot number twenty two Utah State hosting Nevada.
They're nineteen and three right now,Utah State is. You've got Texas
Tech traveling to the aforementioned Baylor andthey're two hundred million dollars extravagance stuff there
in Wayco. Yeah, both teamsat sixteen and five. That's a nine
pm tip off on ESPN and theirSan Diego States still clinging to the top
twenty five, seventeen and five takingon air Force at eight and thirteen.
(40:00):
Right now, that's a ten tothirty pm Eastern tip off. No way,
Yeah, what happened? No?And I love me some San Diego
State in Mountain West basketball, believeme, I do, but that's just
not happening now. I would haveto say the Kentucky Vanderbilt game, that
one can be interesting. And hearme out because I know Vanderbilt is struggling
(40:21):
six and fifteen this season. Iget that, but they might give Kentucky
a little bit of a run.Kentucky will win this game, but Vandy
might make it a little bit closerthan some people think, at least early
on. For whatever reason, Kentuckyjust doesn't seem to be in sync right
now. And sometimes going on theroad again against a team that, oh,
(40:44):
this should be an automatic win,sometimes you come out a little flat.
Yeah. In Kentucky, they've struggled. They've had an zero to two
week last week. You look athow many points they gave up a combine
one hundred and ninety seven points inthose two games. They're thirteenth in the
SEC and defensive efficiency. So youlook at a team like Vanderbilt, you
never know what can happen there.It's going to be interesting to watch these
(41:05):
two teams played out tonight, andof course we're gonna preview and much more
detail coming up next, the sortof matchups between Clemson and North Carolina.
And you know, I'd be remissif I didn't mention what a physical game
that was up there between North Carolinaand Duke this weekend where you had elbows
flying. Oh yeah, a lotof people on Twitter X, what are
you gonna call it? Kyle Philapowskiwas getting a lot of hate from the
(41:28):
North Carolina fans. That was aphysical game and a precursor maybe to what
you'll see tonight with Clemson North Carolinatangling with a lot of physicality on Clemson
side as well. Yeah, Ithink there's, you know, a scenario,
knowing the rivalry between Duke and NorthCarolina, it was gonna be physical
anyway. I mean, that's justthe reality of it. And so how
(41:49):
will that carry over now into thisClemson game from North Carolina's perspective, because
I think there was a lot offocus for North Carolina to really be lasered
in or dialed in for that gameagainst Duke. So maybe this is a
good opportunity for Clemson to have theopportunity of playing North Carolina after a big
(42:10):
game. And how many times havewe talked about could there be a letdown
effect from North Carolina's perspective knowing thatthey had to put so much into that
game against Duke and then now turnaround here on Tuesday night and play the
Tigers. You never know how thatmight play out. But Clemson is definitely
going to have to match their physicality. And that's why you got to love
(42:32):
that. You've got PJ. Hall, You've got Ian Shefflin, and can
you get some production off the benchfrom like an RJ. Godfrey, who
we know he's physical. I meanhis dad played in the NFL. I
mean he looks almost like a Iwouldn't say linebacker, but somebody who could
play out there on the gridiron.And so can you get some minutes from
(42:54):
those type of guys to match someof the physicality of North Carolina. Apparently
one of the accials a few weeksago had told Ian Shefflin, you should
be a linebacker too. Yeah,they pointed that out. Certainly. You
look at Clemson, You look atboth these teams who will feature in our
next segment here and match them up. There's a lot of physicality a team
that Armando Baycott said, not onlythe team, but a player said,
(43:15):
the acc runs through me. Now, that's what he said after that game
against Duke. Feeling confidence. He'sbeen there forever and he's certainly rapping up
his production as we get closer totournament time. Don't forget, You've got
the Ingles count Down, a tipoff show right here. Are good friends
at Ingles sponsor this fine show,low prices, love the savings at Ingles
dash markets dot com. Coming upnext, we'll wrap up this show with
(43:36):
a closer look at the matchups betweenNorth Carolina and Clemson. They're tipping off
at seven pm tonight right here onninety two point five WSC. Ninety two
point five w DSc is the Upstate'snew home for the Clemson Tigers. Get
(44:21):
you set for tip off coming uphere seven o'clock. You've got Don Bunson
Timbray on the call on the ClemsonAthletic Network. We are the Ingles count
Down to tip off show. That'sRichmond Weaver. I'm John Ellis. Get
you set for a big time ACCgame and a huge game for Clemson as
they're looking to stay paced in theACC race right now four and six in
(44:42):
the conference. This would be ahuge win. Of course, wins are
not easy to come by up therein Chapel Hill for this Clemson team.
We've talked about it, but herewe go down the stretch, we go
on this show and giving you apreview of what to expect against this North
Carolina team that's coming off a bigwin against Duke Richmond. Could I assume
maybe they'll be bit of a letdownfor North Carolina here after that big win
against Duke Er they just don't operatethat way. Well, I think we've
(45:06):
seen this season. I'm not certainthat they operate that way because they are
a very talented roster and Harrison Ingram, the Stanford transfer that I talked about,
seems to be a big factor inthe success for North Carolina right now
outside of RJ. Davis, whois arguably one of the best in the
country. And then when you havesomebody like Armando Baycott able to have the
(45:28):
performance like he did against Duke twentyfive points in that game. But it
was also I think that North Carolinadid a great job. They didn't turn
the ball over against Duke, andthat was a big factor in why North
Carolina was able to dominate that game. And so Clemson's going to have to
see if they can force North Carolinainto some turnovers, but also they're going
(45:50):
to have to protect the ball themselves. And knowing that Clemson has lost to
Memphis, UVA, and Duke bya combined four points, and both of
the UVA and Doo losses were byone point each. So if you win
those games, the Tigers right nowwould be tied for fifth in the ACC
instead of sitting in eighth place.So it would look completely different from Clemson
(46:15):
standpoint. So again here this isa scenario where don't look at the record.
I know the all time series isNorth Carolina leads the series one hundred
and twenty four to twenty two.Okay, I understand that. Don't focus
on that. Yes, ignore thatpart. Focus on the aspect that that
(46:36):
you can compete with North Carolina.You have the horses. You saw that
in Little John. Yes, Iknow, you end up losing by ten
points, and that was a struggleoffensively there, only scoring fifty five points.
But there are some key breakdowns inthat game also, And this is
now the opportunity, because of thesense of urgency and where we are in
the season. You've got to beable to shake all of that off a
(46:58):
Taylor Swift reference there and get intothe opportunity of winning this game. Very
nice, well done instant ratings rightthere. Yes, the Tigers shot one
of eighteen from behind the arc thelast time this team's faced. Maybe polish
that up a little bit and improvethose numbers just a bit. Because you
mentioned it doesn't matter what court you'replaying on, that arc is still the
same distance. My friend, yougot to do better than one of eighteen
(47:20):
from downtown. You definitely do.And how many times have we talked about
that. From Clemson's perspective, ifthey shoot from beyond the arc, if
they keep their number of attempts toeighteen to twenty five, that's a good
place for Clemson. When you startgetting into relying on the three point shot
and you're shooting thirty times in agame, that's not where Clemson needs to
(47:43):
live. That was an anomaly inmy from my opinion in reference to one
of eighteen, because that seems tobe the sweet spot for Clemsons. But
you have to be able to makethe shots. And so it's going to
be imperative here against North Carolina thatyou're going to have to be completely balanced,
that you're going to have to getsome stops and then on the other
(48:05):
side, you're going to have tomake some shots. And I know that's
very cliche. Basketball can be veryeasy. You just have to put the
ball in the basket more than theopposing team. I understand that. But
you've got to do the little thingsfirst and foremost before you can get there.
And you're going to have to beable to limit North Carolina of getting
points in the paint. You can'tlet Armando Baycott and Harrison Ingram try to
(48:27):
get things going on down there inthe post, right stuff, rich as
always for Trey Falco, for RichmondWeaver, I'm John Elli's stay tuned right
here. You've got tip off comingup next. Don Munson, Tim Burray,
get you kicked off with network coverageon the Clinton Athletic Network. Ready
here ninety two point five weesc Thishas been the Ingles count down to tip
Off Show brought to you by afriends at Ingles low prices, love the
savings for everybody here at WEC,Enjoy the big game tonight, and we'll
(48:52):
see you next time right here onthe Ingles Countdown to tip Off Show
Popular Podcasts
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Therapy Gecko
An unlicensed lizard psychologist travels the universe talking to strangers about absolutely nothing. TO CALL THE GECKO: follow me on https://www.twitch.tv/lyleforever to get a notification for when I am taking calls. I am usually live Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays but lately a lot of other times too. I am a gecko.
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.