Monday March 19, 2007

Pitching; NIT; Spring Break; Football's Visits; Vitale

Pitching Solid Throughout Weekend
The Tigers needed the pitching to staff to come up big this weekend and that is exactly what happened in the sweep of Duke. The Blue Devils came into the weekend with a 17-4 mark and some think this is not your typical Duke team. The Tigers out hit Duke as witnessed by their .297 batting average this weekend compared to the Devils .214.

Right-hander P.J. Zocchi got things rolling Friday night with a seven inning performance that included just three hits and eight strikeouts. Ryan Hinson and D.J. Mitchell combined to hold Duke to two runs Saturday afternoon. On Sunday, five Clemson relievers went seven scoreless innings in the win.

For the week the staff had a 2.25 ERA and had 33 strikeouts and just 13 walks. I could be wrong but I think the Tigers pitching and defense will have to continue to carry this team throughout most of this campaign.

There was good news from the offense as well as Addison Johnson’s bat continued to come alive as he went 6-11 during the ACC opening series.

The Tigers also increased their ACC home winning streak to 21 (dating back to 2005) and their overall ACC winning streak to 16 (dating back to 2006).

But perhaps the best news is that Taylor Harbin’s wrist was not broken and he returned to play an inning on Sunday.

This week the Tigers go on the road Tuesday to take on Western Carolina in Cullowhee, NC and head to College park, MD for a three game weekend set against Maryland starting Friday.

The ACC Atlantic Division has Clemson and FSU tied at 3-0 atop the division but the Seminoles are 23-0 overall. Boston College is a surprise at 4-2 so far in the league. NC State and Maryland are 3-3 and Wake Forest dropped to 2-4 after this weekend.

The Coastal Division is led by North Carolina’s 4-2 with Virginia, Georgia Tech and surprising Virginia Tech at 3-3. Another surprise is that Miami is just 2-4 in the ACC. Duke fell to 0-6 after the Tigers swept them this weekend.

Spring Break
Clemson’s baseball and basketball teams are in action this week but those are the only men’s teams in action this week as the university is on spring break.

NIT
Ole Miss comes to town tonight and I am looking forward to seeing round two of the NIT. Last week I told you how I was not excited about the opening round of the tournament but the farther you go the more excited I get about this tourney.

Ole Miss is an SEC opponent and Clemson would have a chance to go 4-0 against the SEC.

If the Tigers win they could face Syracuse in Clemson for a right to go to the NIT final four. I guess I could get really excited about Jim Boeheim bringing his boys into Littlejohn.

Bowden’s Plans
On Friday’s radio show we asked Tommy Bowden about how he plans on spending this week and he said some interesting things. Bowden said he is giving his staff some time off this week. He said they needed it and most really had had little time off. He has to go to a couple of IPTAY speaking engagements and he also planned on visiting a spring practice of another school.

I like the idea of sharing information among schools but I think it kind of contradicts a little of the competitive nature of the sport.

It seems like these guys try to find a way to out scheme each other every single week but when you share so much information with so many schools there seems to be few secrets anymore.

I am not sure when this practice started but I cannot imagine Vince Lombardi or Bear Bryant welcoming in our staffs on a regular basis. I may be wrong but I don’t remember it happening that way. I think they have had coaching clinics for a long time but I don’t remember hearing coach Howard taking his staff to Ole Miss to visit with Coach Vaught’s staff. If it did please someone e-mail me and correct me.

This idea started in my lifetime and it used to happen less frequently even just a few short years ago. Today staffs will go visit several colleges and even more NFL teams in an attempt to gain more knowledge about their schemes in order to help their own programs.

Maybe IBM and Coke do this but I was not aware of it. I know many companies send their employees to seminars but I am not sure they send them to those in the same industry. Again maybe I am wrong.

Also, I am not sure other sports do it like football. I have not heard of baseball coaches going to other programs to study them. Maybe the game is not complicated or maybe we are over complicating football. Do basketball coaches go off and study other programs at this rate?

I know athletic directors and fund raisers go to other schools to study their facilities and fund raising efforts. Maby this will become even more prevalent in the future.

I am sure some of you will say I need to study other blogs and other radio shows to get ideas. Maybe I need to go to Hawaii this summer to study sports talk shows in the paradise.

Closing Thought
I know some will have to wait until Thursday to see the NCAA Sweet 16 but in case you forgot ESPN is forcing women’s basketball down our throats this week as well. Maybe they can move Vitale to the women’s game and make sure I kill two birds with one stone.

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