The rest of the regular season

[Bob Green]

We are 2-3 over the last five games with losses at Wake, at Clemson, and home against UNC. With seven games left in the regular season, crunch time has arrived. While we would all love to enter the ACC tournament riding a seven game win streak, one or two more losses down the stretch are probable. Here are some thoughts on how I would like to see us finish:

- Win the games we are suppose to win. We need to defeat BC, SJU, MD, and VT on the road. These are teams that we should beat and we need to take care of business. The conference games will be tough as BC is playing good basketball and they have Tyrese Rice who will give us fits with his speed, Maryland will be fired up for revenge after the beatdown we handed them in Cameron, and VT is always tough in Blacksburg. St. John's should be an easy win with emphasis on "should be" as nothing is guaranteed. We cannot afford to lose any of these games.

- Take care of business at home. Our last two home games are against WFU on 2/11 and FSU on 3/03. Both these games are winnable and we need to win them. At a bare minimum, we must finish 1-1 at home. If we happen to lose one of the four games "we are suppose to win" then it becomes imperative to finish 2-0 at home.

- Ruin Senior Night for the Tar Heels. It would be nice to finish the regular season on a high note by paying back UNC, and hey, it's Duke-Carolina so anything is possible. The team taking care of business in the six games prior to the UNC rematch is more important right now. The rematch will have to wait its turn.

I really believe a strong 5-2 finish to the season to finish at 25-6 is an achievable goal. The team has looked very good at times this year and just needs to find themselves offensively to prevent going into those occasional funks. Jon Scheyer seems to have broken through his slump and Singler looked as strong in the UNC game as he did earlier in the season. Gerald Henderson continues to play extremely good basketball as well. It is important to set ourselves up for post season success by finishing the regular season strong so we need the other five players in our eight man rotation to continue to find ways to support the core three. A 6-1 or 5-2 finish is what I'm looking for.

[arnie]

We are 2-3 over the last five games with losses at Wake, at Clemson, and home against UNC. With seven games left in the regular season, crunch time has arrived. While we would all love to enter the ACC tournament riding a seven game win streak, one or two more losses down the stretch are probable. Here are some thoughts on how I would like to see us finish:

- Win the games we are suppose to win. We need to defeat BC, SJU, MD, and VT on the road. These are teams that we should beat and we need to take care of business. The conference games will be tough as BC is playing good basketball and they have Tyrese Rice who will give us fits with his speed, Maryland will be fired up for revenge after the beatdown we handed them in Cameron, and VT is always tough in Blacksburg. St. John's should be an easy win with emphasis on "should be" as nothing is guaranteed. We cannot afford to lose any of these games.

- Take care of business at home. Our last two home games are against WFU on 2/11 and FSU on 3/03. Both these games are winnable and we need to win them. At a bare minimum, we must finish 1-1 at home. If we happen to lose one of the four games "we are suppose to win" then it becomes imperative to finish 2-0 at home.

- Ruin Senior Night for the Tar Heels. It would be nice to finish the regular season on a high note by paying back UNC, and hey, it's Duke-Carolina so anything is possible. The team taking care of business in the six games prior to the UNC rematch is more important right now. The rematch will have to wait its turn.

I really believe a strong 5-2 finish to the season to finish at 25-6 is an achievable goal. The team has looked very good at times this year and just needs to find themselves offensively to prevent going into those occasional funks. Jon Scheyer seems to have broken through his slump and Singler looked as strong in the UNC game as he did earlier in the season. Gerald Henderson continues to play extremely good basketball as well. It is important to set ourselves up for post season success by finishing the regular season strong so we need the other five players in our eight man rotation to continue to find ways to support the core three. A 6-1 or 5-2 finish is what I'm looking for.


The remaining schedule is brutal - I think 4-3 is more realistic. But let's face it - getting past the 1st weekend of the tourney this year is paramount.

[Matches]

5-2 seems like a reasonable goal. That would leave us 11-5 in ACC play in all likelihood, and probably assure we do not play on Thursday.

4-3 wouldn't be a disaster though. The remaining schedule is brutal.

[KyDevilinIL]

25-6 is a legitimate goal and would be an impressive achievement. Funny how much better 25-6 looks than 24-7, but I'd be fine with either.

The rest of this season will be a phenomenally tough stretch for the guys, but if they consistently put forth an effort like they did last night, I have plenty of faith in our chances through March.

I don't think anyone in the country was beating UNC last night, especially during their second half. We were a few missed shots from being right there, though. And there weren't but a few teams in the country that were going to beat us for the majority of last night's game, so I feel good about that.

[DukieInBrasil]

this team is starting to show the same symptoms as other recent teams. They got off to a smoking-hot start in the OOC, including some big-time wins. Somewhere around the middle of the year they start to show signs that maybe they aren´t as good as that first burst indicated, which for this season is happening now. Will this team follow the same path that recent teams have?, which would basically be self-implosion and not living up to the stir they created by starting so hot.
They are giving every indication that this is the case. I hope not but the following symptoms need immediate curing if they are to avoid losing early in both tourneys:
PG play - We need real PG play and neither Paulus nor Smith are giving it to us. Both play well occasionally and they might even both play well for the rest of the year, but if they don´t do things that PGs do, like creating offense and defending the opposing PG with vigor, then Duke will not go very far.
Inside play - After a very promising start our frontcourt has totally disappeared. Neither Z nor LT consistently give us a solid presence in the paint. Miles plays so seldom that he is almost not worth menitioning. Kyle has had a strong season, but has struggled alot lately, minus the UNC game in which he played pretty well.
In my view, which may be contrary to the CW, we need better PG play more than we need the resurgence from our post. But in fact, they may be related. If our PG play can be creative and break down defenses lots of scoring opportunities open up for the post. The post is rebounding ok on a per-minute basis, but not providing any threat offensively. Our PGs are scoring pretty well but are not a threat to create offense for others.
It would be great if we could turn both of those trends positive, and if the boys do this could be a team that actuallyu goes somewhere in the tourneys. If not, it´ll be more of the same that we´ve seen recently.
From what i´ve seen lately i´ll predict that we go 4-3 in the regular season, 2-1 in the ACC tourney and 2-1 in the NCAA tourney. Which all-in-all is not bad, better than we´ve done recently, but short of what this team should be able to accomplish.

[jv001]

We are 2-3 over the last five games with losses at Wake, at Clemson, and home against UNC. With seven games left in the regular season, crunch time has arrived. While we would all love to enter the ACC tournament riding a seven game win streak, one or two more losses down the stretch are probable. Here are some thoughts on how I would like to see us finish:

- Win the games we are suppose to win. We need to defeat BC, SJU, MD, and VT on the road. These are teams that we should beat and we need to take care of business. The conference games will be tough as BC is playing good basketball and they have Tyrese Rice who will give us fits with his speed, Maryland will be fired up for revenge after the beatdown we handed them in Cameron, and VT is always tough in Blacksburg. St. John's should be an easy win with emphasis on "should be" as nothing is guaranteed. We cannot afford to lose any of these games.

- Take care of business at home. Our last two home games are against WFU on 2/11 and FSU on 3/03. Both these games are winnable and we need to win them. At a bare minimum, we must finish 1-1 at home. If we happen to lose one of the four games "we are suppose to win" then it becomes imperative to finish 2-0 at home.

- Ruin Senior Night for the Tar Heels. It would be nice to finish the regular season on a high note by paying back UNC, and hey, it's Duke-Carolina so anything is possible. The team taking care of business in the six games prior to the UNC rematch is more important right now. The rematch will have to wait its turn.

I really believe a strong 5-2 finish to the season to finish at 25-6 is an achievable goal. The team has looked very good at times this year and just needs to find themselves offensively to prevent going into those occasional funks. Jon Scheyer seems to have broken through his slump and Singler looked as strong in the UNC game as he did earlier in the season. Gerald Henderson continues to play extremely good basketball as well. It is important to set ourselves up for post season success by finishing the regular season strong so we need the other five players in our eight man rotation to continue to find ways to support the core three. A 6-1 or 5-2 finish is what I'm looking for.

I just posted in another thread that we need to go atleast 5-2 with a win over Wake so that we can play in Greeensboro in the NCAA tourney. With 5 games on the road it will be hard even though the Wake game is in CIS. I hope Jon has turned the corner in his shooting slump even though he was only 6 for 15 against unc. I firmly believe it will come down to how well Nolan and Greg perform in these last few games. It looks like we are back to a 7 man rotation again and I hope this works. Go Duke!

[Fish80]

I just posted in another thread that we need to go atleast 5-2 with a win over Wake so that we can play in Greeensboro in the NCAA tourney. With 5 games on the road it will be hard even though the Wake game is in CIS. I hope Jon has turned the corner in his shooting slump even though he was only 6 for 15 against unc. I firmly believe it will come down to how well Nolan and Greg perform in these last few games. It looks like we are back to a 7 man rotation again and I hope this works. Go Duke!

I don't think that we are down to a 7 man rotation. Generally, we're playing at least 8 guys significant minutes: Gerald, Jon, Kyle, Nolan, Brian, Greg, Dave, and Lance.

In this game, Brian played 9 minutes. The 7 others played > 20 minutes.

In a very tight game versus Miami, 10 guys played.

Virgina and Clemson were both blow outs in opposite directions, but in those games more than 10 guys played.

[Onlyduke]

I hate what the ACC expansion has done to ACC basketball. There is no uniformity in the schedules for the schools. We have such a tough schedule next to Carolina. Dang it!

[RelativeWays]

I won't call the first half of the ACC season a disaster, but it definitely fell short of acceptable when you consider we lost every marquee game we played and the Clemson game was an utter embarrassment.
What do I want for the second half? I want the team to remove this albatross from their neck that seems to be weighing them down. K has said he doesn't want this team to be burdened by the success or expectations of past Duke teams, he wanted them to be as good as they could be and to have fun. I don't think the team has had any fun since the UMD game and there are times where they play a bit to tentative and unsure, like they're scared to make a mistake, and because of that, they do make a mistake. I think Kyle and G are being worn down carrying the scoring burden for this team, and you can see its effect on Kyle. I want the team to be like "ok, we've lost to UNC, Wake, and we were destroyed by Clemson. We survived Miami, State and GT. The next stretch can be tough, but lets have some fun, play hard but enjoy it." Anyone here can remember how the 07 team just stopped having any sort of fun and were weighed down by the close losses and not living up to the typical expectations of a Duke team. Maybe its just me, but that season was just no fun to watch, even the 96 and 97 seasons were more fun, even though they weren't typical Duke. I can see this team slip into that same mindset easily and that will be disasterous, it will mean another early ACC and NCAA tourney exit 100% for sure. Instead, I hope the team plays hard, but loose on offense, and focused and tight on D. And have fun, its a game for chrissakes!

[Biscuit]

I hate what the ACC expansion has done to ACC basketball. There is no uniformity in the schedules for the schools. We have such a tough schedule next to Carolina. Dang it!

That's only somewhat true. You get Wake, Va Tech and Florida State twice, we get Miami and B.C. twice. That's really the only difference when it comes to the tougher games. Both teams play Clemson only once, although you did get them on the road. The bigger difference is the timing- Duke's February schedule is much tougher than its January schedule.

Also, I used to think like you about the expansion. But recently I've been changing my mind. Virginia Tech, B.C. and Miami have all brought a lot to the table. Of the six teams over .500 in ACC play, three of them are expansion teams. And the atmosphere at the arenas in Blacksburg and Chestnut Hill is a lot more "ACC-ish" than, say, Tallahassee.

[jv001]

I don't think that we are down to a 7 man rotation. Generally, we're playing at least 8 guys significant minutes: Gerald, Jon, Kyle, Nolan, Brian, Greg, Dave, and Lance.

In this game, Brian played 9 minutes. The 7 others played > 20 minutes.

In a very tight game versus Miami, 10 guys played.

Virgina and Clemson were both blow outs in opposite directions, but in those games more than 10 guys played.

I did not include Zoubs because he rarely plays much in the 2nd half. I think you would agree that the top 4 teams in the conference are:
unc
Duke
Wake
Clemson
We lost to the other 3 teams. We have a chance for payback against Wake and unc, but not Clemson. That may be good since we played like a high school team against them. All 3 have good guard play and solid inside play. We will need mins from our 8 players in the first half and the second half. Go Duke!

[CDu]

That's only somewhat true. You get Wake, Va Tech and Florida State twice, we get Miami and B.C. twice. That's really the only difference when it comes to the tougher games. Both teams play Clemson only once, although you did get them on the road. The bigger difference is the timing- Duke's February schedule is much tougher than its January schedule.

Well, what you just described is a clearly more difficult schedule for Duke:

Wake twice > BC twice
Va Tech twice > Miami twice
FSU twice > NCSU twice
@Clemson > Clemson at home

At every step on that list, it's a more difficult schedule for us.

[MulletMan]

I think we win out. There I said it.

[Diddy]

Well, what you just described is a clearly more difficult schedule for Duke:

Wake twice > BC twice
Va Tech twice > Miami twice
FSU twice > NCSU twice
@Clemson > Clemson at home

At every step on that list, it's a more difficult schedule for us.

I conced every pt but the VT - Miami. I think Miami is a more talented team this year. VT has had a nice run, but over an easier sched that Miami. McClinton is special so he cancels out Rice (perhaps exceeds him), but McClintin has better help. But, if Miami is harder, it is not by much and is probably closer to a push.

But everything else is harder for Duke.

[Biscuit]

I conced every pt but the VT - Miami. I think Miami is a more talented team this year. VT has had a nice run, but over an easier sched that Miami. McClinton is special so he cancels out Rice (perhaps exceeds him), but McClintin has better help. But, if Miami is harder, it is not by much and is probably closer to a push.

But everything else is harder for Duke.

Exactly. I'd actually say without question that Miami is a tougher draw than VT.

And "everything else" isn't really that much, was my point. And not to put too fine a point on it, but they way you played against Clemson, you would have lost to them anywhere, and the way we played, we would have beaten them anywhere. So really, you're just talking about the fact that you have to play Wake twice. I'll admit that's a tough break, but it hardly means you're running the gauntlet while UNC is waltzing with cupcakes.

No thoughts on my comments about coming around to this expansion thing thanks to the quality basketball and atmostpheres we're getting from VT, BC and Miami?

[Onlyduke]

VT and BC always seem to have a hoodlum or two on their teams!

[InaudibleWords]

I agree with most of what people are saying but I like to generalize even further into "don't lose twice to the same team." Of course, that makes our schedule significantly tougher than most because we play so many quality teams multiple times...

Needless to say, I know we're up to the challenge!

[-jk]

I think we win out. There I said it.

Channeling your inner Ozzie?

-jk

[CDu]

I conced every pt but the VT - Miami. I think Miami is a more talented team this year. VT has had a nice run, but over an easier sched that Miami. McClinton is special so he cancels out Rice (perhaps exceeds him), but McClintin has better help. But, if Miami is harder, it is not by much and is probably closer to a push.

But everything else is harder for Duke.

Fair enough. Then replace VT with FSU, and VT is still better than NCSU. I can't believe anyone would rationally argue that the two schedules are similar in difficulty. Ours is CLEARLY more difficult.

[Biscuit]

Fair enough. Then replace VT with FSU, and VT is still better than NCSU. I can't believe anyone would rationally argue that the two schedules are similar in difficulty. Ours is CLEARLY more difficult.

There's a huge difference between being "clearly more difficult" and being substantially more difficult.

I totally agree that Duke will play a tougher ACC schedule this year that UNC. But really, it comes down to (a) an extra game against Wake, and (b) having to play Clemson on the road instead of at home. Hardly grounds for gnashing of teeth and rending of garments. Especially since, as I mentioned, they way UNC played against Clemson they would have beaten them anywhere, and the way Duke played against Clemson they would have lost to them anywhere.

Plus I bet most UNC fans and players would love to get another shot at Wake at home. I know I would. Wanna trade?

[CDu]

Exactly. I'd actually say without question that Miami is a tougher draw than VT.

And "everything else" isn't really that much, was my point. And not to put too fine a point on it, but they way you played against Clemson, you would have lost to them anywhere, and the way we played, we would have beaten them anywhere. So really, you're just talking about the fact that you have to play Wake twice. I'll admit that's a tough break, but it hardly means you're running the gauntlet while UNC is waltzing with cupcakes.

No thoughts on my comments about coming around to this expansion thing thanks to the quality basketball and atmostpheres we're getting from VT, BC and Miami?

What in the world are you talking about? Because we would have lost anywhere to Clemson means that the location doesn't add to the difficulty? That's crazy talk.

You seem to be trying to combine two arguments. Our schedule is more difficult, and easily so. We also happen to be less likely to do as well as UNC against a similar schedule. The two are separate points. To write off the relative difficulty of the schedules simply because Duke isn't as good is poor logic.

[CDu]

There's a huge difference between being "clearly more difficult" and being substantially more difficult.

I totally agree that Duke will play a tougher ACC schedule this year that UNC. But really, it comes down to (a) an extra game against Wake, and (b) having to play Clemson on the road instead of at home. Hardly grounds for gnashing of teeth and rending of garments. Especially since, as I mentioned, they way UNC played against Clemson they would have beaten them anywhere, and the way Duke played against Clemson they would have lost to them anywhere.

Plus I bet most UNC fans and players would love to get another shot at Wake at home. I know I would. Wanna trade?

There's only so much difference that can be had. Aside from playing Clemson twice to your once, this is about as unbalanced as it gets. And it is both clearly and substantially different.

[Biscuit]

There's only so much difference that can be had. Aside from playing Clemson twice to your once, this is about as unbalanced as it gets. And it is both clearly and substantially different.

I agree- in fact, that's kinda my point: there's only so much difference that can be had. If you think an extra game at home against Wake, and a road game at Clemson instead of a home game, is cause for protest and lamentation and pleas to the heavens, have at it.

I think the better argument is that Duke's schedule is so heavily weighted at the back end, which is really tough for both seeding and momentum going into March. You may have to listen to more empty rhetoric about another "February collapse," but if you do lose more than 2 games out of the next seven, the huge swing in your schedule is as much the reason as anything else. If I were a Duke fan, I'd think that to be the worse crime.

[gumbomoop]

I agree- in fact, that's kinda my point: there's only so much difference that can be had. If you think an extra game at home against Wake, and a road game at Clemson instead of a home game, is cause for protest and lamentation and pleas to the heavens, have at it.

I think the better argument is that Duke's schedule is so heavily weighted at the back end, which is really tough for both seeding and momentum going into March. You may have to listen to more empty rhetoric about another "February collapse," but if you do lose more than 2 games out of the next seven, the huge swing in your schedule is as much the reason as anything else. If I were a Duke fan, I'd think that to be the worse crime.

Biscuit, you're an informed, reasonable poster, usually, but not on all points this time. (1) It's nonsense to say that Duke would have played the same--god-awfully--at home against Clemson. (2) I don't doubt that you'd love to have another shot at Wake, but, alas, the unbalanced jumble deprives you of this test. (3) You--not to mention others who disagree with you--miss the "other end" of the unbalanced mess: two of your home/away opponents this year are...... NC St. and UVa. That makes you almost as lucky as Clemson, 2 of whose home/away opponents are UVa and GTech, and none of whose h/a opponents is Duke or UNC. Again, I can just hear Clemson fans say, "Man, I wish we had another shot at the Heels in Littlejohn, and as for those Dukies, geez, why don't we get a chance to lay another whuppin' on them?" But all things considered, I'm guessing they, not to mention Coach Purnell, will also be satisfied to get at the Heels and/or Blue Devils in the ACC tourney, for which they'll prepare by playing UVa and GTech.

You're quite right about the unfortunate back-loaded schedule for Duke, and the key there is that we play vitriolic-revenge-minded Md and VaTech on the road (to say nothing of the superb-when-inspired Heels). But, too, part of this back-loadedness involves "unbalanced" games that UNC doesn't face this season: at BC and home to Wake. (I know, you want another shot at both. Fine, you play at BC and we'll travel to Charlottesville. And please loan us Ed Davis for the Wake game.)

K was right when he said last night's Heels were the team, or a reasonable facsimile thereof, that folks predicted would go undefeated. And that's really impressive, given Ginyard's absence. You got a sorta cockeyed argument in your several posts on this thread. But you also got the best team, and sometimes the best team wins it all.

[Biscuit]

Biscuit, you're an informed, reasonable poster, usually, but not on all points this time. (1) It's nonsense to say that Duke would have played the same--god-awfully--at home against Clemson. (2) I don't doubt that you'd love to have another shot at Wake, but, alas, the unbalanced jumble deprives you of this test. (3) You--not to mention others who disagree with you--miss the "other end" of the unbalanced mess: two of your home/away opponents this year are...... NC St. and UVa. That makes you almost as lucky as Clemson, 2 of whose home/away opponents are UVa and GTech, and none of whose h/a opponents is Duke or UNC. Again, I can just hear Clemson fans say, "Man, I wish we had another shot at the Heels in Littlejohn, and as for those Dukies, geez, why don't we get a chance to lay another whuppin' on them?" But all things considered, I'm guessing they, not to mention Coach Purnell, will also be satisfied to get at the Heels and/or Blue Devils in the ACC tourney, for which they'll prepare by playing UVa and GTech.

You're quite right about the unfortunate back-loaded schedule for Duke, and the key there is that we play vitriolic-revenge-minded Md and VaTech on the road (to say nothing of the superb-when-inspired Heels). But, too, part of this back-loadedness involves "unbalanced" games that UNC doesn't face this season: at BC and home to Wake. (I know, you want another shot at both. Fine, you play at BC and we'll travel to Charlottesville. And please loan us Ed Davis for the Wake game.)

K was right when he said last night's Heels were the team, or a reasonable facsimile thereof, that folks predicted would go undefeated. And that's really impressive, given Ginyard's absence. You got a sorta cockeyed argument in your several posts on this thread. But you also got the best team, and sometimes the best team wins it all.

Fair enough. I don't think what I said about Clemson was nonsense, though. The stat guys and Vegas guys usually build in about 4 points for home court. Obviously you can't apply that across the board and every situation is unique but I do think what I was saying about the results of the teams' Clemson games has some merit. Plus that home game for us means another road game somewhere else.

Our ACC schedule is the easier one, no question about that. But I don't think it's a significant difference. I remember looking at the upcoming games for both teams around Jan. 1 and thinking that we were getting screwed and Duke was catching a break. Obviously I hadn't looked ahead to late February at the time. I guess I'm saying the imbalance probably seems worse than it actually is to you all right now, since you're in the teeth of it at the moment.

[RelativeWays]

Sometimes it depends on matchups. We fared better against VT and FSU (@ FSU) than we did against Miami or State. FSU will be a tough fight at Cameron, so will VT at Blacksburg but I'm really glad we do not have to go to Raleigh or Miami for return dates. Those might go badly for us if the 1st game is any indication.

[patentgeek]

That's only somewhat true. You get Wake, Va Tech and Florida State twice, we get Miami and B.C. twice. That's really the only difference when it comes to the tougher games. Both teams play Clemson only once, although you did get them on the road. The bigger difference is the timing- Duke's February schedule is much tougher than its January schedule.

Also, I used to think like you about the expansion. But recently I've been changing my mind. Virginia Tech, B.C. and Miami have all brought a lot to the table. Of the six teams over .500 in ACC play, three of them are expansion teams. And the atmosphere at the arenas in Blacksburg and Chestnut Hill is a lot more "ACC-ish" than, say, Tallahassee.

Biscuit: I don't know if anyone has already pointed this out, but the imbalance is actually worse than you suggest, because UNC doesn't play BC twice as you stated - they play UVA twice instead. So in addition to playing Duke twice, UNC plays MD, UVA, NCSU and Miami twice, whereas Duke plays MD twice (a wash), Wake twice (better than any of UVA, NCSU or Miami), FSU twice (certainly better than either NCSU or UVA) and VT twice. That's a pretty significant imbalance.

[Wander]

Neither Duke nor UNC can ever complain about having the hardest conference schedule, because they both avoid playing one of the top ACC teams entirely.

[bird]

Duke plays Wake twice; UNC plays Wake once.

Duke played Clemson away; UNC played at home.

UNC plays VA twice; Duke plays them once.

I would say that UNC's advantage in the loss column is at the very minimum
one game and likely two. That's the difference between regular season champs and "first loser" or even third place.

Thank you expansion.

[Klemnop]

I'd just like to poke my head out here for a second and thank everyone for not talking about Clemson. Folks in the upstate of SC are perfectly happy for the Tigers to be a completely anonymous 10-0 at this point. This actually qualifies as progress at Clemson because for the first time in my entire lifetime as a Tiger fan I'm not hearing anyone say, "Well, Clemson is 10-0...but look at that cupcake schedule they've played." Not that the schedule has been great - but good enough to shed the perception that the record is entirely inflated. I'm guessing the fact that Oliver Purnell has established himself has helped deflect some of that type of criticism.

Not that I think it will matter much in the grand scheme of the conference championship but I'd also like to thank the ACC for the 2008-2009 schedule while I've got the opportunity. After 20 years of taking what appeared to me (as a biased Clemson fan) as the short end of the conference scheduling stick the Tigers are going to go through this year's conference slate with an embarassingly favorable schedule:

@ UNC - NO home and home; vs. Duke - NO home and home; @Miami - NO home and home

If you're keeping track on your personal scorecard, that's a total of three games against what are, arguably, the three best conference opponents the Tigers could face. Perhaps Wake is in that conversation too...but even there the Tigers don't have to travel to LJVM until the final conference game of the season - by which time they will have had ample chance to move themselves firmly into NCAA position.

By the time the Tigers have to travel to Tally to play FSU on 2/28 I see an outstanding chance that they're 10-3 in conference. Assuming even some slippage they should easily be 8-5 - with a home game against UVa sandwiched in between road trips to FSU and Wake.

Toss in a good raod win @ Ill. and a neutral-court win over Temple along with two more SEC games (@So.Carolina and vs. Alabama) and it would appear to me that the Tigers have an excellent shot at a Top 4 NCAA seed.

It is simply amazing how far things have come under OP. Indescribable. And the most amazing thing, I say again, is that nobody is even noticing. Which is just fine with me.

Settling the argument: Clemson has the easiest schedule this year. No contest. And what I haven't heard a single Duke fan mention today (likely because it hasn't occurred to anyone yet) is that the only team, aside from Carolina, that controls its own destiny is Clemson. Win out - and the Tigers finish 2nd in conference. Period.

It's an interesting two week stretch for Clemson. They'll play four games in which they are favorites. @UVa, vs. MD, @GaTech, vs. VaTech. They have little, if anything, to gain from each individual game except for another peg in the W column. The games won't help their RPI or NCAA selection profile. It's time for them to hunker down and do what good teams do - win the games they're supposed to win.

If that happens then the key game of Duke's ACC season may turn out to be Clemson @ FSU. That game could easily decide the 2-5 order of finish in the conference - assuming that Duke takes care of FSU in Cameron and holds the tie-break over the Noles.

In the end I don't know how much it all matters. Some team named VaTech or Miami or FSU or, god forbid, Wake Forest is going to end up as the #7 seed. The ACC is deep. I don't see much separation between the teams that are likely to finish between #5 and #8. So the goal would seem to be to try to avoid having to play Carolina until Sunday, if at all possible. Meaning you just don't want to finish #4 or #5.