Men’s Basketball Travels to College Park Tuesday to Take On Maryland

Feb. 21, 2005

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Clemson won the first meeting with Maryland, an 88-73 victoryat Littlejohn Coliseum on Feb. 1. Clemson will be attempting torecord a regular season sweep against the Terps for the first timethe 1996-97 season. That year Clemson won both regular season gamesunder Rick Barnes, but Maryland won the meeting during the ACCTournament. Clemson had a pair of 20-point scorers in the firstmeeting against Maryland as Sharrod Ford scored a career high tying25 points and Shawan Robinson added 22. Clemson shot 50 percentfrom the field in the game, Clemson’s best field goal shooting gameagainst an ACC opponent this year. Clemson has two players on itsroster from the Maryland area. Senior center Sharrod Ford is fromSuitland and freshman forward Cheyenne Moore is from Baltimore.Ford went over the 700 mark in terms of career rebounding in theloss at North Carolina. He now has 702 for his career and needsjust six to move into ninth place on the all-time Clemson list.Ford has played some of his best basketball on the road this year.He has scored in double figures in every road game this year and 13of 14 over the last two years. Clemson is 2-6 on the opponent’shome court this year. Seven of the eight games have been decided bynine points or less. Clemson freshman Cliff Hammonds has scored indouble figures in six of his last seven games and has a 10.2average of the season, second best among ACC freshmen. Maryland hasbeen known for its pressure defense over the years, but Clemson hasrecorded 253 steals so far this year, ninth in the nation on a pergame basis. Nine different Tigers have at least 18 steals thisyear. No Clemson team has ever had nine different players record 20steals in a season. This will be a homecoming of sorts for twoClemson coaches. Both Oliver Purnell and Ron Bradley were assistantcoaches at Maryland during the 1980s. Purnell was an assistant withthe Terps under Lefty Driesell and Bob Wade between 1985-86 and1987- 88. Bradley was on the Maryland staff from 1981- 1990 invarious capacities. He was a full-time assistant from 1983-89. SamPerry scored 14 points in 23 minutes in the first meeting againstMaryland. That is Perry’s only double figure scoring game againstan ACC team this year. In fact, Perry has just 32 points in ACCgames so far this year and 14 came in that one game againstMaryland. Clemson reserve center Akin Akingbala has made 15 of hislast 23 shots from the field.