As anyone who scouts for an NBA team will tell you, a highlight of our scouting season is our annual trip – no make that trips – to the lovely Clemson campus just 15 miles north of the Georgia line and a hundred or so miles east of Atlanta. They have one of the nicest facilities, the Littlejohn Coliseum, in the Atlantic Coast Conference, which a couple of years gone by was refurbished first rate. Capacity-wise it falls far short of the Dean E. Smith Center (dubbed the Dean Dome), the home court of the North Carolina Tar Heels, which seats 21,750; the RBC Center in Raleigh, home of the Wolfpack, which holds 19,722; and the Comcast Center in College Park where the Terrapins play. But this edifice is most always filled and that is good enough for the folk in these parts who love their basketball almost as much as they do their football.

Gone are the days when future NBA stalwarts like Tree Rollins, Larry Nance (a three-time NBA All-Star), Horace Grant (four NBA rings), Dale Davis, Chris Whitney and Greg Buckner suited up here. But who can argue with last year’s 19-13 record and a trip to the NIT.

Through the years Littlejohn has been the scene of a number of shocking upsets by Tiger fives over opponents ranked in the Top 10. Since 1971, 21 teams favored heavily and ranked among the top ten prior to their appearance here have fallen. Duke and North Carolina each suffered six losses when ranked as a top team and Maryland lost four times. The last “biggie” came in the 2000-2001 season, a 75-65 defeat when the Tarheels were ranked #1. And Clemson has upset at least one highly ranked team numerous times during the last 19 years dating back to a 96-94 overtime victory over eighth ranked N.C. State during the 1986-87 season.

The venerable Oliver Purnell, elected last March as the president of the National Association of Basketball Coaches, came back in 2003 and has done an admirable job. His teams play hard and this year kicked off the season with eight straight wins. He also served as an assistant coach on the U.S. Olympic team in 2004 when they won the bronze medal in Greece.

His associate head coach is Ron Bradley, an outstanding teacher of the game, who was head man at Radford from 1991-2002 and won numerous Big South titles at that school. Ron played college ball at Eastern Nazerene in Boston for his father Carroll. There he scored 2,649 points and averaged 24.8 ppg. The NAIA selected him as an All-American. He was drafted by the New Jersey Nets in the ABA Draft of 1972. I always felt he was one of the greatest scorers of that era even though he played for a small school.

Frank Smith is in his fourth season here, and Shaka Smart returns to Clemson for his first season as a coach. He spent 2003 here as director of basketball operations.

A lot of special attention that usually is related to Clemson’s vast variety of college sports is due to its publicity department. The legendary Bob Bradley was the SID here for many years and he established one of the finest sports information departments in the country. Tim Bourret, who is also an associated athletic director, moved up to replace him. He makes every trip here as pleasant as possible, as did the late Mr. Bradley.

But on to this season.

The players each year may be different but the results and the style of play are the same since Oliver came over from a highly successful career as head man of the Dayton Flyers. They attack the opponent up top usually utilizing a full-court press and they attack the backboards. They are not afraid to take the three even though there have been games when that shot should have stayed at home. It ain’t pretty, but it works.

They played Furman recently, winning by only nine points in what could be called the first real test for either team. Furman had beaten two Division II teams rather handily, and while hard fought, it was not a classic example of how to play the game. But it is still early.

Furman is a mid-major and some people would say a ready-made opponent. Well last week Furman beat SEC stalwart Vanderbilt their homecourt, ironic since the new Furman coach was a long-time assistant for the Commodores.

Those who see Clemson as we do are always amazed at the interchangeable parts of their game year in and year out. They have small guards who can press all night and usually defend bigger people, even forwards. They have big guards who bell-up to small forwards and small guards. And they have threes who can defend twos. Add a junior power forward named James Mays and at home at least, they are tough to beat.

It’s a great place to watch hoops.

Next time, our first weekly ratings. For now it’s North Carolina numero uno, but expect weekly changes.