More Than Pride On Line for Clemson in ACC Tournament
The Clemson Baseball program is on the verge of turning in its worst season in more than six decades.
The Tigers begin the ACC Tournament sitting two games below .500 at 24-26 and the last time Clemson finished a season with a losing record was 1957, the season before Bill Wilhelm took over as head coach.
After being swept at home by Duke over the weekend, Monte Lee's team heads to Charlotte on a four-game losing streak. The Tigers finished up the regular season by losing eight of their final ten games.
"Really tough way to end the regular season," Lee said on Saturday. "Just frustrating to be as close as we have been on many, many occasions this year to come up short. But just got to get ready for the ACC tournament now."
Clemson came into the final series of the regular season with their postseason hopes very much alive, but after being swept by the Blue Devils, will now need a deep run this weekend to rekindle any hope of making it into a regional.
The ACC Baseball Championship will feature a pool-play format, leading into a four-team, single-elimination bracket to determine the league champion. Each team in the four pools will play one game against each of the other two opponents in its pool.
The four teams with the best records within their respective pools will advance to Saturday's semifinals, with the winners playing on Sunday in the ACC Championship Game. If the teams are tied at the completion of pool play, the team with the highest seed in the respective pool will advance.
Clemson enters as the No. 11 seed in Pool B along with No. 7 seed Louisville and No. 2 seed Georgia Tech. The Tigers are set to face the Cardinals at 11 a.m. on Tuesday and the Yellow Jackets at 7 p.m. on Wednesday.
LHP Keyshawn Askew will get the start for Clemson against Louisville, a team the Tigers swept at home during the regular season. RHP Caleb Corbett will get the nod for the Cardinals.
The team will needs wins in each game to not only possibly avoid finishing the season with a losing record but to also keep any hope of making the postseason alive. The last time the program failed to make it into a regional was 2008 and this would mark just the second time since 1986 that the Tigers failed to make it into postseason play.
For Clemson to have some success this week, Lee says his team will need to be better at getting those timely hits, something the team has struggled with much of the season. The head coach would also like to see his bullpen be more effective than it's been over the final few weeks of the season.
"I think we've got to be better in the back half of the game," Lee said. "I think that we haven't been able to finish games out when it comes to pitching and defense. Need to be a little bit better there. And when we get opportunities to score with runners on base, maybe a little better with runners in scoring position."
Regional Sports Networks from across the conference footprint and across the nation will carry all 12 games on Tuesday through Friday. Saturday’s semifinal games will be carried by the ACC Network, and Sunday’s noon championship game will be televised nationally by ESPN2. All games will also be available on the ACC Network Extra.