OUR LEAGUE: Purnell quietly builds a program at Clemson

Scattershooting around the ACC, while wondering if Virginia can avoid the several minute scoring lapses against Carolina tonight, the kinds of lapses that have cost them in several games this season…

Mr. Overlooked

It is my humble opinion that Clemson’s Oliver Purnell might be the most underrated head coach in college basketball.

In a league chock-full of Hall of Fame coaches, Purnell has worked wonders at a place where basketball hasn’t exactly flourished over the past 50 years.

The Tigers are a perfect 16-0 and ranked No. 10 nationally. They don’t play again until Saturday when they host No. 2 Wake Forest, another unbeaten team. You think Littlejohn Coliseum will be rocking?

Four days later, Purnell takes his Tigers to Chapel Hill where Clemson is 0 for forever, having never won a single basketball game in Dean Smith’s town.

Purnell is making all of the right moves with substitutions, mixing up pressures, and playing smaller this year than in the past. His ability to evaluate players that fit into his system has been uncanny, tapping the likes of freshmen Andre Young, Tanner Smith and fueling the improvement of Raymond Sykes, Jerai Grant and Dennis Stitt.

Watch out America. We don’t believe this Clemson team will fold over the course of the ACC season like some have in the past, especially after watching the Tigers cut Alabama to ribbons (87-61) recently.

We’re No. 2

Was that Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski complaining to media in the Triangle the other day that they collectively ignored the fact that the Blue Devils were ranked No. 2 in the ESPN/USA Today poll?

Seems the Duke coach was miffed that everyone overlooked his team’s rise to No. 2 in the polls, while all the focus was turned to then-No. 1 North Carolina’s upset loss to visiting Boston College.

“I don’t think [the ranking] was even mentioned in the newspapers here that we were No. 2 in the polls,” Coach K said. “In fact, I know it wasn’t mentioned, so I guess no one cares.”

Krzyzewski made sure that he pointed out that during his reign in Durham that Duke has been ranked in the top five of the nation’s polls about 50 percent of the time and has been No. 1 in about 20 percent of all those polls.

“That’s pretty good,” Coach K said. “I know it’s not that big here, but it’s pretty damn good. So when this group makes No. 2, it’s a new group, and they should be celebrated for doing something good. I’m sorry it doesn’t happen very much. It’s sad.”

Stat of the week

Only two other freshmen in Wahoo history have gotten off to faster scoring starts than current Cavalier Sylven Landesberg.

The McDonald’s All-American from New York has scored 240 points in his first 13 games for Virginia, ranking behind only Jeff Lamp’s (1977-78) freshman start of 245 points in his first 13, and Chris Williams’ (1998-99) 256 points in his first 13 outings.

Quote of the week

Maryland guard Greivis Vasquez let it all hang out after the Terps defeated Georgia Tech last Saturday at College Park. He was upset with Maryland fans that have criticized the team.

In the final minutes of the game, he placed his index finger over his lips, shushing the fans at Comcast Center so that he could tell them what he really thought. Later he explained:

“I don’t want people to come over to me that don’t believe in what I do and what I’m trying to do for the team. ... We’re 12-3. We were 9-5 last year at this time. What the hell were they thinking? It’s a completely different team. If they don’t want to believe in us, they can get the hell out.”

Hear it for the boys

Two of our favorite people were promoted to head coaching jobs in the past few days: Frank Spaziani and Jim Caldwell.

“Spaz,” as he was referred to while on George Welsh’s staff at Virginia, was always a fun guy to be around. When Boston College athletic director Gene DeFilippo fired Jeff Jagodzinski and said he wanted to hire someone that wanted to be at BC for a long time, we knew Spaziani was his man.

The two have been very close over the years, ever since another former UVa assistant, Tom O’Brien, hired Spaz out of the Canadian Football League to become BC’s running backs coach, then elevated him to defensive coordinator. Spaz elected to stay at Chestnut Hill rather than follow O’Brien to N.C. State.

Now, Spaz isn’t a quote machine, but he did sum up his feelings pretty well about the BC job.

“I wanted to be a head coach, but I wanted to be a head coach at Boston College ... I didn’t want to be a head coach just to be a head coach. Obviously this is something I want to have happened and I’m overjoyed with it.”

When O’Brien heard about the promotion, he said: “I’m a BC fan and I will be every game, except when they play us.”

Caldwell was one of the hardest-working coaches in ACC history, but he couldn’t get Wake Forest’s program turned around. The hours the man logged were legendary.

He used to be my golfing partner at several ACC outings and was a much better football coach than he was a golfer.

Now Caldwell is head coach of the Indianapolis Colts, having served under Tony Dungy for the past eight years.

He hasn’t lost his sense of humor. Introduced as the Colts’ 17th head coach on Tuesday, Caldwell stated:

“I have one goal today and that’s just to make sure my first press conference isn’t immortalized in one of those beer commercials.”

Good one.

Off target

Just how bad is Georgia Tech’s free-throw shooting?

The Yellow Jackets entered last night’s loss to Duke ranked 325th out of 330 Division I teams in foul shooting: 219 of 372, a percentage of 58.9.

We all know how bad Clemson has been for the past few seasons in shooting free throws, but even if the Tigers (the ACC’s second-worst in free throws) remain at their current clip of 67.8 percent, then Georgia Tech would have to make its next 102 free throws attempts to not rank last in the league.

Hokie in a slump

Virginia Tech desperately needs big sophomore forward Jeff Allen to step up his game.

While his overall points and rebounding averages aren’t bad at 12.9 and 8.7, respectively, he has been disappointing in the Hokies’ two ACC games (Duke and UVa). He didn’t make a shot from the field against the Cavaliers and finished with three points, while he managed nine against the Blue Devils in a 1 of 4 performance (he is 1 of 11 from the field against league competititon).

Tech’s A.D. Vassallo realizes that without the big man picking up the pace, it may be difficult for the Hokies to make much noise.

“We’re hoping he wakes up,” Vassallo said. “I’m not trying to call him out, but we need him. Hopefully he makes it soon because once the league is started, it’s going to be tough. If we want to be the best team that we can be, we’ve got to get Jeff going.”

Book it

Clemson’s Trevor Booker was a bit envious when he heard observers compare N.C. State forward Brandon Costner to Miami Heat player Michael Beasley.

“Hey, I want them to start comparing me to somebody,” Booker said. “So, I just try to take it to them.”

Booker did just that against Costner and the Wolfpack the other day when he scored a game-high 23 points and collected six blocks. Costner? He his only three shots (took nine) and finished with nine points and had five turnovers.

There’s not a lot of guys in the ACC who can guard Booker, especially when he gets physical. He’s almost impossible to stop when that happens.

Free throws

Virginia Tech’s Malcolm Delaney has a string of 20 straight games with double-figure scoring, but that pales in comparison to Carolina’s Hansbrough, who enters tonight’s Virginia game with a 52-game double-figure scoring streak. ... Hansbrough, by the way, has moved into seventh place on the ACC’s career scoring list, just behind Duke’s Christian Laettner and Virginia’s Bryant Stith. ... Interestingly, UVa ranks fifth in the ACC in average attendance so far this season with 10,557 per game, behind UNC, Maryland, N.C. State and Duke, in that order. We’re assuming that at least in UVa’s case, those numbers are from tickets sold and not actual attendance. ... Carolina quarterback Cameron Sexton told Tar Heels coaches this week that he will leave the program in May and could possibly transfer to a Division II school so that he can play his final year elsewhere. ... Maryland could have set a new record last week for its longest winning streak against in-state opponents, which is 35 games (a mark that was snapped in 1989 by Coppin State). But the Terps lost to Morgan State, 66-65, tying the streak with 35 wins.