Clemson Moves Up in AP Top 20

Jan. 7, 2008

Despite suffering a two-point loss in overtime to North Carolina, Clemson moved up from 19th to 18th in the Associated Press college basketball poll this week. Clemson has a 12-2 ledger entering this week’s play. The Tigers remained 19th in the ESPN/USA Today Coach’s poll.

The Tigers will face Charlotte on Wednesday evening at 7:30 PM and Florida State at 7:00 PM on Saturday night at Littlejohn Coliseum. Neither game will be televised.

This week marked the first time since January 23, 1996 that Clemson suffered a loss during a week then improved in the AP poll. That week in 1996 Clemson lost to Florida State in Tallahassee on a Wednesday night, then defeated a sixth ranked Wake Forest team and All-American Tim Duncan on Sunday afternoon to move from 19th to 18th in the ranking, the same move Clemson made this week after beating Alabama in Tuscaloosa and losing at home to number-one North Carolina.

Overall, this is the seventh time in history that Clemson has moved up in the poll during a week in which it lost a game.

Clemson has now been ranked in the top 25 of both polls for eight consecutive weeks, tied for the fourth longest streak in school history. Clemson was also ranked for eight straight weeks last year when it started 17-0. The record is a 30-poll streak between the preseason poll of the 1996-97 season and the January 18, 1998 polls. Clemson was ranked in all 19 polls in 1996-97, the only season in history in which Clemson was ranked in every poll.