#54 Pomeroy  Virginia Tech: @ #79 Pomeroy Clemson: 

Virginia Tech men’s basketball opens a brand-spankin’ new era this Tuesday night over in the New River Valley.

The Hokies also open NC2A, D-1, and inter-conference play with Atlantic side Clemson. Both teams are in flux and frankly, this one may only be code for: …which one is actually less fluxed up. Clemson has had a turbulent off-season and departed three real-live talents and some bench love in addition to that. V.P.I. is no longer buzzing as a veteran Coaches Young(er) regime now holds O&M (hard) court. Tho’ you still wanna know who is gonna win in the one, hole. Read on, to find… out!

Clemson Head Coach: Bradley Robert Brownell: age=51, 336–212 (.613) overall,
169–127 (.571) at Clemson.
$2,500,000.oo

Baller Brownell played high school basketball at William Henry Harrison High School (Evansville Indiana) with current Saint Louis University assistant coach and Indiana University legend Calbert Cheaney. Backcourt baller Brownell balled and graduated from DePauw University in 1991, he earned three letters at DePauw University, a Division III school in Greencastle, Ind. He ranks seventh in school history with 332 career assists. He led the Tigers in dimes three straight seasons, while also leading DePauw in steals as a junior in 1989-90. Then Brownell.edu completed his degree at the University of Indianapolis in 1994. Thereafter Brownell immediately went into apprenticeship (i.e. assistant) coaching after graduation.

Coach Brownell was named the U.N.C. Wilmington head coach in 2002, after having won a master’s degree and having been a U.N.C.-W. an assistant coach from 1991 to 2002. Brownell’s U.n.c.-Wil’ teams made the big dance 50% of the time.

After that, he went to Wright State and amassed nothing less than a 21-win season before eventually snagging the Clemson job -in something of a surprising hire- in 2010.

At Clemson Brownell went dancing his very first season though he has only made the N.I.T. twice in the other seven years down in South Carolina. Coach Brownell teams have won six conference championships and he has won two conference coach of the year award’s himself. All of which were mid-major caliber and therefore all of which were prior to his power conference admission at Clemson. Ergo, therefore, to wit, some would say that Brad is sitting on something of at least a warm seat at the sporting moment. Coach Brownell has already spawned four D-1 coaching tree mid-major disciples, and his teams come with a defensive first reputation.

Daddy Brownell and his wife, Paula, have two daughters,
Abby (18), a student at Clemson; and Kate (16).

Clemson at a glance:

• 24th in scoring D.
• 28th in defensive FG percentage allowed.
• 36th in swats.
• 70th in rebounding margin.
• 263rd fewest 3-point attempts.
• 274th in assists per game.

Returning Starters=1

Clemson Strengths:

• Honestly? I found Clemson a bit thin -if not waning- here. This is not the typically downright solid, enemy of fun and hard to beat Clemson squad of yore. At least not yet, as they have seen seven starters and nearly as many benchers depart in the last two seasons combined. And this has been one of the more reliably hard to beat A.c.c. teams for several seasons running— to Brad/Clemson’s credit. Bradley does a lot with mediums or less, it’s just that now he has fewer mediums if you will.
• One #25, and the sophomoric Aamir Simms is a 6′7″, 248 lb. former string-bean P/F or S/F ‘tweener who somehow gave back an inch and found a staggering 45 pounds. since inking with Clemson! The tag here reads that Simms is a springy internal baller who can defense and rebound and finish close on the ring (rulebook for: rim). That being said, in spite of his seeming lack of offensive polish (9.3 ppg, 4.5 rpg with 34% deep); Lindy’s did rate Simms the alpha recruit in Clemson’s recruiting class two years ago and that does not suck. However, Simms is yet another Commonwealth (Palmyra, Va.) escapee; who sure (now) looks the physical part on film. Aamir was the no.89 baller outta high school per Rivals; and penultimate Va. H.S. baller two seasons ago; who won two Va. state titles in three years. And did I mention the sinew gain yet? As this kid (now) looks like a mini-me LeBron; or at least a Baltic Avenue one. As you’d have to think that A.Simms continues his upward mobility off of respectable and actually improving numbers last year.

  

• Al-Amir Dawes was supposed to be your Lead-G via design and is now your One or Pt.Guard per Trapp-door backcourt madness. A.A.D. was an A.A.U. star and the book reads entry-level well enough here.  For a scoring-G at 6′ 2″, and 180 nugget or rookie year voting lbs. Al-Amir is a Newark, Nj. northerner with a tag for being a pick-n-roll Ace while picking up a **** (or 4-star) national ranking good for #95th in America per ESPN.com. Dawes had a good although not over the top all-around high school stat line and he is really gonna have to come up offensively quick and provide more A.c.c. help A.S.A.P. than most had hoped here. Although 43% last season would seem to suggest that he has range and can shoot.
• 6′5″, 197 lb. sophomoric John Newman III is a Wing with a rep’ for soaring type of dunking. J.New’ is said to be a throwback mid-range guy who can get stops as a defensive ace goes to boot. Now mix in 2.1 ppg on 33% long and enjoy the open-court show when #15 breaks windmill dunk from the hipster, free (i.e. he young Kobe dunks from the hip)! And oh “yes”, the no.42 ESPN peg and a threepeat in state titles do, not, suck. As Newman III had so many individual accolades/awards that I got tired of adding them up. (20-something additively when I stopped, counting; literally). BONUS points for a really big-ass A.b.a. Virginia Squires era looking ‘fro are hereby awarded here.
• Tulsa grad’-transfer Curren Scott is a legit 3-point ringer from deep. Gotta get a hand in his face from deep. 6′4″, 2o5 lbs. worth of highly experienced 10.4 ppg on 44% downtown does not hurt. Neither does 84% on 15′ set-shots with 10 unguarded seconds to shoot as Curren could very well lead Clemson in Free-Throwing this year. Although he is gonna be asked to flat out score as opposed to just spot-up and shoot with this much attrition down in South Carolina.
• As rare off-season ½-full or good Tiger tales went… Clemson did surprise and wound up being crowned as the visiting World University Games this summer over in Naples Italy. Where they did gain that bouns 10 days worth of pre-season highly credible prep’. Additionally, Khavon Moore (6′8″, 217 lb., second-season) springy Swing (apparently) was declared eligible recently and this will not injure anything as this kid was ESPN’s no.44 ranked prospect two years ago. As Moore has more or less been dinged and/or dented his entire colligate career thus far. Having logged precisely 120 more P.T. (playing time) minutes than you and I combined. As the Tx.Tech transferring Moore plays both ends of the court and he plays them with a high degree of versatility. What with a pretty fully packed scholastic stat line as ppg, rpg, apg and swipes/swats all go.

Clemson Weaknesses:

• Individually speaking… the Tigers have caught nobody by the tail in the A.c.c. returning Top-10 of ballers for: scoring, rebounding, passing, 3-pointing, and defending. Not, one.
• Clyde Trapp 6′4″, 196 lb. Jr. and rather animated sideline showman extraordinaire. As “all the world’s a stage” and Trapp plays many roles here. As an athletic combo-G who nets you 6.8 ppg with 3.3 caroms and a couple of dimes (1.7 apg) dropped. This with 33% when dialing long-distance and adding more and more distance to the same (length on his J). Trapp does enjoy an AAAA So.Carolina state championship bling though he had more of a distributing scholastic rep’ and a tag for stepping it up in his bigger H.S. games. (UPDATE: blown off-season A.c.l.; may St.Nikhon bless!)
• Sprechen sie dunk, or Wiesbaden, Jerry native, and 6′10″, 2o9 lb. r-Sr. year P/F and UNC-Ashville transfer baller Jonathan Baehre was done in last season for the duration due to CU.edu “eligibility” concerns. Likewise done were his shot-blocking (1.9 bpg) his 7.4 ppg and his 5.6 rpg in low-post relief. Which were at least possible to start this season. Sans a stunning 35 lb. off-season weight-cut; which I am gonna have to presume to be a typo— or, and St.Nikhon bless here to: UPDATE: poor Jon’ also blew out his A.c.l. at the five-spot!
• “Your honor your Honor” need not apply here as Nick Honor has not called: CU.edu (clearinghouse) “next”. Or anything else, as the half-pint (5′10″, 2o5 lb., Soph.) Pt.Guard lit it A-10 for Fordham last season at virtually 16 ppg on 38% beyond the arc and this is no small sit for an already hurting Tiger team, let me tell you.
• So, there are/were a lotta penciled in production/relief that just got 100% erased for Bradball to start the season.
• ^that^ plus 52 ppg and virtually 20 boards just left the 2019 expiring eligibility building.

Tiger Bench: (depth=??? maybe 1-2 once A.c.c. play really begins; maybe…)

Trey Jemison is a legit Five or true-C, at: 7′, and 256 lbs. of sophomore-season paint-sized bulk. Though Trey currently fields a rep’ as a rim-protector and glass-swiper and not a whole lot else. As 33% shooting on a square-foot basis modestly good for .4 ppg thus far that needs some tradecraft love. That plus a year dropped to a knee-surgery (St.Nikon bless some more) and you have a kid who is off-schedule in terms of his hoopology development. Tho’ you also have a kid who was: a four-star prospect coming up scholastically, as TeeJay was ranked No. 1 in the state of Alabama and No. 12 in the country at Center, according to ESPN.com. As the body looks most wiling, strong, fit/trim looking real-deal Five with an 82″ wingspan. Plus Mr. Jemison knocked down a shiny 3.75 GPA as a member of the National Honor Society. CU.edu props on dat! Tho’ the athlete in “student-athlete” really does need to take the proverbial: “next step(s)” here.

Paul Grinde is a whopping 6′10″, 300 lb. (listed weight) roster member who is not listed on every single roster I visited. This makes one wonder if he is really (still) listed @Clemson, Sc. or not?

Paul is a Va.Beach escapee who -in addition to being one of the few human-beings even pastier than me; as the only place Paul, Yeti’s and I can hide is in the… snow- Paul is an extremely rarified D-III (Vassar) transfer big-man who put up 14.1 ppg, 6.7 rpg, on 56% overall and a nifty to the point of surprising 49% 3-ball vs. lowercase competitive teams. How well this all translates for the pretty dang round looking though obviously skillful Grinde in All Competitive Conference terms remains to be seen/proven.

Though either way, he and Tery conspire to give Clemson a considerable big-man edge downstairs in the paint.

Illation, conclusion(s) and OPT digits:

Number of Tigers who could growl @Tech=4.

the takeaway:
The takeaway here is… gonna be a minute or three before this Hokie O takes off.

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Our handy-dandy friend the so-called Forum Guide of Graham Houston fame is on the premature for this one— although it surely will field some mad March 4th, 2020 A.D., game.

The annualized year-to-date vitals say… check back in a fortnight after a few accrue.

The most recent 5-game metrics say that… see above…

The optics:

The pet terms I am getting that best describe Clemson hoops heading into this 2019-2020 season and Atlantic Coast Conference opener are: “uncertainty”, “volatile” and “unknown”.

And frankly speaking, you could probably/nearly opine the same things for Mike Young’s debut or kickoff hardwood contest down in the Tigers’ den. And yet you Hurrying Hokie fans really do need to throw the Jamerson word of: “patience” in here as well.

As the healthy version of this Clemson club mighta actually snuck up on going .5oo in the All Coaching Conference with some health and truly taking care of homecourt business. As Clemson -and prolly Miami as well- has been the pointy-elbowed team that nobody wants to have to: “check” in pick-up hoops terms for years. Not a great basketball squad tho’ a mini-me post-season quality basketball program that is just downright no fun to play and often rather hard to beat.

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And yet, the healthy version of Clemson is hurtfully long-gone… as is the 3-consecutive year N.c.2.a. buzzword run of hoops in the 24060.

The call:

My call is a mindlessly simple one… and until prove otherwise by some heretofore unseen offensive acumen? Eye am merely gonna call for two words week-in and week-out: “Low” as in “Scoring”. Bet the under on points and the over on turnovers here folks… as scoring could very well be at a premium early this campaign for recently big-bad now 5-point betting underdog VeeTee.

As methinks -which is actually to say me fears- that it is gonna take a season or three to retool this inherited Buzzketball roster into the (heady/thoughtful) Players Only club that is a thinking man’s Mike Young stylized offensive set(s).

–oOo–

To put that another and more direct way… beyond Landy Nolley attempting to operate as a Tennessee Avenue man’s Pt.Forward… who would Mike Young have really been systemic hawt-to-trot to import or transfer into his pet off-side movement and self-decision-making offensive sets 239-miles down in Wofford?

Meaning: this one could very well be a A.c.c. Tourney day-one avoidance 40-minute derby.

As mefears there are gonna be some real live growing, adjusting and retooling pains here gents. Clemson prolly feels somewhat the same and this all conspires to tell me that this one is a race to double-nickels or a Smoky and the Bandit type contest.

First, one to 55, wins. And don’t die of shock if that is the first one to fiddy at that.
(so take the home team as they win 70% of the A.c.c. time anywho…)

(79% confidence interval)

Virginia Tech=58, Clemson=68

“LETS GO!”

“Hokies!”

 bourbonstreet**