Basketball: Tigers Face Alabama To Open '08

by TigerNet Staff - Mon Dec 31 19:56:43 GMT-04:00 2007

- Tuesday's game pitting Clemson and Alabama will be the seventh meeting on the hardwood for the two schools. The series is tied at 3-3, with Clemson holding a 1-0 record in Tuscaloosa.

- The last time these two schools met was in the championship game of the 1989 San Juan Shootout. The Crimson Tide won a defensive contest, 57-48, over the Tigers, who went on to win the ACC regular season title that season. Both Clemson and Alabama advanced to the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Tournament that season.

- Clemson was ranked in last week's national polls for the sixth straight week. It marks the second straight season Oliver Purnell's team has been nationally-ranked for a period of six weeks or longer. Clemson was nationally ranked for eight consecutive weeks last season while getting off to an NCAA-best 17-0 start.

- Clemson held a +29 rebound margin in the win over Samford last Saturday. It was the largest differential for the Tigers since the 1988-89 team outrebounded Wagner by 30.

- Clemson enters Tuesday's contest with Alabama having won six of its last seven games against teams from the Southeastern conference. The Tigers were 4-0 last season versus the SEC, and are 2-1 this year with wins over Mississippi State and South Carolina. Oliver Purnell owns a career 9-4 record versus teams from the SEC as Clemson's head coach.

- K.C. Rivers recorded a "triple leadership" in the win over Samford. The Charlotte, NC native led the Tigers with 17 points, seven rebounds, and five assists. He shared team-high honors for both rebounds and assists.

- Raymond Sykes has made 70 percent of his field goal attempts (23-for-33) over Clemson's last five games. Included in his hot shooting streak was an 8-8 performance versus Ole Miss. Sykes made 12 consecutive field goals from the end of the DePaul game through the first half of the Samford game.

- Demontez Stitt ranks fifth in the ACC in free throw shooting. The freshman from Matthews, NC has made 36-for-41 from the charity stripe for an accuracy mark of 87.8 percent. He has made his last 13 attempts from the free throw line entering Tuesday's game with Alabama.

- Cliff Hammonds has 212 career three-point goals, and needs just two in Tuesday's game to tie 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.

- Hammonds has made at least one three-point basket in each of Clemson's last 39 games dating to last year.

- Hammonds leads the ACC in assist-to-turnover ratio with a 3.64 figure. He ranks third in school history in the category and has 19 assists compared to only three turnovers in the last four games.