02/05/07 - Persevering Through Tough Times …

It has been a very difficult stretch since the last time I checked in on the blog. We had 2 tough losses to Duke and Virginia and then suffered another setback to Georgia Tech on Saturday. Nobody said that getting to the NCAA Tournament would be easy. In order to do special things as a team, you must persevere through tough times. I feel that this team has a strong resolve and will respond well on Wednesday night against Florida State.

We must continue to push forward as a team and program in spite of the recent setbacks. We have put in too much hard work and effort as a team and staff to take our foot off the gas now. We still have 7 ACC games remaining, and we have put ourselves in position to reach our goal of making the NCAA tournament where we will have a chance to do special things.

I want to take a minute to commend our players for their off the court effort during the Fall semester. We recorded the highest GPA in the history of the program for the fall semester. Our players worked very hard and took a focused approach to their academics last semester. When we arrived at Clemson, we spoke about changing the overall culture of our program, and this is one of the main areas where change was needed. We will continue to work hard in this area.  We graduated all 3 seniors last season and we are on pace to graduate both of our seniors this season. All of this is possible through the hard work of Vickery Hall and our academic advisor Melvin Robinson as well as my staff. They have all been tremendous assets in helping us reach this record.

-- Coach P