Re: Why cant we just appreciate our MBB season?

Orange Blooded [4596]

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Posts: 3361

Joined: 8/14/01

Mar 8, 2024, 9:13 AM [ in reply to Re: Why cant we just appreciate our MBB season? ]

No it's not that at all.

It's things like:

The ACC is not the conference in basketball that it was. It no longer has HOF coaches on the sidelines, no more Dean Smith, or Roy Williams, or Coach K, or Jim Boeheim.

The league has expanded, and teams are playing unbalanced schedules that often result in playing the best teams only once (since the historic best teams are NOT in our rivalry pod).

We've seen some historically bad UNC and Duke teams over the last few years, and still lost most of the games to them.

Brownell now has the 2nd-longest tenure as an ACC head coach (Tony Bennett has 1 more year in the league than Brownell does). Two of the 3 teams above us in the ACC standings today have coaches with less than 3 years head coaching experience and who had NEVER been a HC before taking over their teams.

Since Brownell started as HC at Clemson, the ACC regular season championship has been won by North Carolina(6), Miami, Virginia(5), Florida State, and Duke. Clemson has never won the ACC regular season championship under Brownell, whose best finish has been T3, twice in 13 completed seasons. The average finish in those 13 complete seasons is 7th place.

Since Brownell started as HC at Clemson, the ACC Tournament has been won by Duke(4), Miami, FSU, Virginia(2), Notre Dame, North Carolina, Georgia Tech, Virginia Tech, and been canceled once. Fully half the league has won the ACCT at least once in Brownell's 14 years. Clemson has never even played in the ACCT title game under Brownell. Notre Dame won the ACCT title in their 2nd year as an ACC participant.

Georgia Tech has since fired the HC that took them to the ACCT title. Since Brownell started as HC at Clemson, SCAR made the Final Four once, and has since fired the HC that took them there.

Since Brownell has been HC at Clemson, Clemson has fired 2 baseball coaches for lackluster results. Under one of the fired coaches, Jack Leggett, the had Tigers reached the College World Series six times. As of the end of the 2012 season, he had a career record of 1,224–694–1, with seven conference tournament titles and 23 NCAA tournament appearances. He was named Atlantic Coast Conference Baseball Coach of the year in 1994, 1995 and 2006. In 1994, his team won 57 games, a record for the second most single-season wins in ACC history (behind the record 60 wins set by the 1991 Clemson team). When his team won "only" 32 games, he was fired. The first-year baseball coach won the ACC tournament and took the team to an NCAA regional.

Since Brownell has been HC at Clemson, Clemson has fired 3 women's baseball coaches for lackluster results.

To your point, though, since Brownell has been HC at Clemson, Clemson has won 2 National Championships in football, and played for 2 more titles; made it to the CFP Playoffs 6 times. But Clemson has also won two National Championships in men's soccer during Brownell's tenure. The Tigers first fielded a softball team in the COVID-19 pandemic-shortened 2020 season. In each of their full seasons, the Tigers have made the NCAA Tournament, and reached the Super Regional twice.

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I for one do appreciate the success of our basketball team, and other sports as well. We old timers look at Clemson sports from a different perspective compared to younger fans. Understandably.

We remember the days of yore when a 10 win basketball season was considered special. Many years we were in single digits and were the doormats of the ACC. Then came Tates Locke, Tree Rollins, Skip Wise, Stan Rome, Greg Coles, Van Gregg, and the rest in the 70’s. Suddenly, we were challenging for the conference title. In fact, in my senior year, we played at Maryland in the final game of the 1975 season. Winner would be conference champion. We lost 70-64. We beat Duke in the opening round of the ACCT, then lost a close one to UNC. Exciting times!

In football, we won the inaugural Bluebonnet Bowl in 1959, but then we suffered through season after season of football drought never going to another bowl game for almost 20 years. Finally we had an undefeated home season in 1974. We beat Georgia and Georgia Tech that year, then destroyed UNC but they got a bowl bid over us. Just another reason to hate them.

I remember celebrating our success with friends that year on Johnstone D5 and I made the comment that maybe we can win the national championship one day. I was roundly mocked (you know who you were).

The next year, expectations were high. But we suffered through a 2-9 season. Still, Clemson led the ACC in attendance. I was in graduate school at UT Knoxville but drove to every home game myself.

Younger fans have mostly seen the recent success. I understand why it would be disappointing when we only win 9 or 10 games in football and have only won the conference championship once in the last three years when they have been used to so much more. Or when we win 21 games and counting in basketball but could have won a few more.

But for an old timer like me, who has seen darker days, it’s hard to get too upset. I have just learned to enjoy what we have and certainly hope for even more.

Why cant we just appreciate our MBB season?