Clemson Men’s Basketball to Play Host to Charlotte Wednesday Night

Jan. 8, 2008

Clemson is coming off a 90-88 overtime loss to #1 ranked North Carolina. Clemson lost that game but improved from 19th to 18th in the AP poll. It was the first time since January of 1996 that Clemson lost a game and went up in the AP poll.

Clemson lost to #1 ranked North Carolina in its last game even though the Tigers trailed for just 13 seconds in the second half. Clemson had a 27-6 advantage in points off turnovers in the game.

Charlotte Head Coach Bobby Lutz was an assistant coach at Clemson under Cliff Ellis for the 1984-85 and 1985-86 seasons.

Clemson will be the fourth ACC team Charlotte has played this season. The 49ers beat Wake Forest and lost to Georgia Tech and Maryland.

This is the first meeting between Clemson and Charltote since the 1993-94 season. Sharone Wright scored 24 points to lead Clemson to a 67-63 win that year.

Over the last four games K.C. Rivers has made 29-47 shots from the field, a .617 percentage. he has just one turnover in his last 94 minutes and has averaged 18.5 points per game over his last four games. He scored a season high 24 points against North Carolina.

Forward Raymond Sykes is 14 for his last 16 from the field. David Potter is 8 for his last 13. Terrence Oglesby has made 23 of his last 25 free throws.

Clemson guard Cliff Hammonds has had at least one steal in every game this year and is third in the ACC in steals per game. Hammonds needs just four assists against Charlotte to reach 400 for his career. He leads the ACC in assist/trnover ratio.

Clemson has lost just two games this year and the two teams who have defeated Clemson are a combined 28-0. North Carolina is 15-0 and Mississippi is 13-0.

Clemson has two starters from the Charlotte area, leading scorer K.C Rivers is a native of Charlotte who played at Independence High School, and point guard Demontez Stitt is from Mathews, NC and Butler HS.

Cliff Hammonds has 214 career three-point goals, and needs just one in Wednesday’s game to move past Will Solomon for second place in school history. Terrell McIntyre (1995-99) is Clemson’s all-time leader with 259 three-point goals in his career. He has made at least one three-point basket in each of Clemson’s last 41 games dating to last year.

Clemson is one of five schools ranked in the top 25 in both football and basketball. The others are Kansas, Tennessee, Texas and Wisconsin.

Clemson is 12-1 against non-conference teams this year and has a 26-1 record in regular season play against non-ACC teams the last two years. The Tigers are 36-2 under Oliver Purnell in home non-conference games.

Clemson has been ranked in the top 25 eight straight weeks.