Gather the women and children and head for high ground.
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The Apocalypse must be at hand.
First, Wake Forest won the Atlantic Coast Conference in football and played in the Orange Bowl. Now the only undefeated team left in Division I basketball is … Clemson?
“They’re a very good team,” said Georgia Tech coach Paul Hewitt, whose team lost last weekend at Clemson (17-0, 3-0 ACC).
Clemson hasn’t been to the NCAA tournament since 1998, former coach Rick Barnes’ final season. The 17th-ranked Tigers have the ACC’s lowest career winning percentage in conference games and overall.
Coach Oliver Purnell appeared to be leaving a better program to coach Clemson in 2003, when he replaced Larry Shyatt. Purnell had directed Dayton to four straight seasons of 21 wins or more, with two NCAA tournament appearances.
But Purnell said Clemson’s administration demonstrated a commitment to succeed in basketball.
“It was at the bottom, and there was no way to go but up,” said Purnell, whose Tigers face Maryland on Saturday. “We’ve been getting better every year, and that was our thought: to get better every year.
“Our primary goal this year was to get to the NCAA tournament. Now we feel like we’re competing for the ACC title.”
Clemson’s 17-0 start ties the school record for consecutive victories, matching the start of the 1986-87 team. The deep, tough-minded, experienced bunch has been winning with defense, rebounding and teamwork. Charlotte native K.C. Rivers, the Tigers’ leading scorer at 14.9 points per game, doesn’t even start.
Clemson is shooting just 33 percent from three-point range. But the Tigers lead the ACC in offensive rebounds and rank second in the league in steals and turnover margin.
They have a gifted perimeter defender in 6-foot-9-inch junior James Mays and experienced guards in senior Vernon Hamilton and junior Cliff Hammonds. And Purnell has been clever enough with X’s and O’s to draw up a game-winning, length-of-the-court play for the closing seconds of wins against Georgia Tech and Florida State.
“Every once in a while you get a team that has good chemistry and plays to their strengths instead of their weaknesses,” Florida State coach Leonard Hamilton said. “I think Clemson is doing a very good job of that.”
Mays said spirited crowds for recent games at Littlejohn Coliseum demonstrate that the community will embrace winning basketball at a “football school.”