BC at Clemson: The trend is not our friend

The Eagles have seven games to go in the regular season, and despite a few embarrassing losses as of late (broken up by the win against Virginia Tech), Joe Lunardi has still kept us in the NCAA Tournament picture as a 10-seed. That won’t hold up, however, unless the Eagles can close relatively strong. Five of those last seven are against teams in the RPI Top 100, and tonight’s game against the Clemson Tigers is one of them.

To say Boston College’s success at Clemson has been non-existent would be an apt description. The Eagles have played four games down there at Littlejohn and lost every last one big. See for yourself:

2003: Lose by 10
2007: Lose by 20
2008: Lose by 22
2010: Lose by 16

So how can Boston College overcome their obvious deficiencies at Clemson, and how does this year’s Clemson team compare to all of those that wiped the floor with the Eagles? Well, unfortunately, I should mention that the 2007 team that lost by 20 was an NCAA Tournament team with Tyrese Rice and Jared Dudley on it (it was also BC’s first game after a certain player was kicked off the team). Clemson was ranked at the time of that game but ended up in the NIT that season. That goes to show that even good BC teams have gagged at Littlejohn.

One name is notably absent from Clemson’s roster this year: Trevor Booker, now playing for Washington in the NBA. They still have his younger brother Devin, who is picking up some of the slack, but Trevor was the leading scorer in the last meeting at Littlejohn, so I’m not quite sad to see him go. Clemson’s leading player now is Demontez Stitt, leading the team in PPG (13.4) and APG (3.4)*. I’ve watched little of Clemson’s play so far this season, but it certainly seems like much of their success this year has run through him. Another familiar face will be Jerai Grant, who is averaging 12.7 PPG in an average of 27 playing minutes per game.

This Clemson team averaged 73.4 points per game last season, with Trevor Booker averaging over 15 of them; now, they sit at 68.4 PPG, which dropped them from the 4th-best scoring offense in the ACC to the 11th. It shouldn’t be surprising, then, that their defense has been good this year: they, not Florida State, are #1 in the conference with only 59.6 points allowed per game. Boston College’s, on the other hand, is not very good at all, though they played well against the Hokies on Saturday.

You could say that this Brad Brownell Year 1 Clemson team isn’t as good as the Oliver Purnell teams we saw in the past, though in my opinion, Brownell will be a solid coach for the Tigers. Clemson isn’t quite in as decent a position for March as the Eagles are, however: while BC is hanging on for dear life as a double-digit seed, the Tigers’ unimpressive RPI of 72 and even less impressive SOS of 115 – along with only one quality win (Florida State) – has kept them on the wrong side of the bubble. Clemson needs this game for a little more legitimacy, while BC needs this game to keep themselves on-track and improve their shaky résumé situation.

We are not favored in this one, however, nor should we be given the Eagles’ history at Clemson. As of lunchtime on Tuesday, the Eagles are +8.5 points. If the game was at BC, I suspect that spread would be a lot closer to even, but it’s at BC’s house of horrors.

ESPNU is going to make you wait until 9pm for this one, so plan accordingly.

*Previous stats I had come across were incorrect; the error has been fixed.