BASKETBALL AND COWGIRLS

Ahh, the first Clemson basketball post on DFIG. Expect many more of these as the season goes on. At the first sign of a downfall (probably in middle or late February), expect to see me jump off the bandwagon and do a barrel roll so as to avoid being skinned up too badly by the untamed earth. Until then, enjoy.

Last night, Clemson didn't let the ACC down in the ACC/Big Ten Challenge by crushing Minnesota's bones and making eggnog out of their innards beating them by a score of 90 - 68. This bumps our squad up to an 8-0 record for the year and another great start to the season. Let's just hope James Mays can stay in school and OP can keep it together.

An impressive bullet point in the game was that our bench outscored their bench 40 - 5. Another very impressive note is that K.C. Rivers came off the bench and rattled off 22 points draining five shots from beyond the arc and going a prefect 5-5 in free throws. I'm so glad that K.C. is showing signs of life and I hope he keeps it up when we go into conference play. The sophomore is really starting to stand out and could help fill the gap and step up next year to take the place of Vernon Hamilton.

K.C. Rivers... Mere mortal or 3-point machine???

Something the Tiger's do need to step up is the field goal percentage. Last night we only had 46.5% shooting from the field. Our free throw percentage did seem to be improved at 66.7% but both of those numbers are terrible if we want to have a good season in conference this year. To counter this point, the Tigers created 24... yes, count em again... 24 turnovers. I don't know if that's just our awesome defense or Minnesota's terrible offense. It's still early though and pending we don't lose to South Carolina or a very good Wofford team, we could hope to be the proud owners of a perfect record going into conference play.

The next game on the schedule is at South Carolina this Sunday at 1pm EST which you should be able to catch on FSN. After that we have Wofford at home next Tuesday at 7:30pm EST. If you're in the area, you should try and catch it seeing as our home attendance this year in basketball is comparable to that of attendance at a Wake Forest... or even worse... Duke football game.

Let's just hope for once we don't get out hopes up. A friend on The Rant (whose handle happens to be "PissedOffMoFo") told me "Dan Scott will tell us that Clemson's basketball team is poised to do something special this season. And when they trip and fall, we'll be told that our expectations are too high and how dare anyone expect a team to win." My response to this: "EXACTLY. F*ck the homers and f*ck Dan Scott and his big ol' cheeseburger belly. He's too fat to even be on radio... which is sad. His show gets interupted by his throat fat putting a slow strangle-hold on his trachea causing him to breathe every so heavily."

"This is Dan Scott.... *gaaaasp* And you're listening to... *gasp* Cruise Control here on the Drive... *gaasp* *gulp* *lick* 104.9.... (Takes a large bite out of double quarter pounder."

To get that mental image of Dan Scott's morbidly obese, tomato shaped body out of your head, I would like to state that I am very appreciative that the Rally Cats decided to go with a cowgirl theme at the Appalachian State game last week.

I've said it before and I'll say it many more times to come... Thank god for Rally Cats.