Most satisfying victory?
If Clemson’s 1-0 chokehold of Stanford on Sunday wasn’t the most satisfying victory this season, then it’d have to be the win over UNC. Either way – watching the Cardinal resolve themselves to whining, groveling and crying because they couldn’t do anything was quite enjoyable.
Now, second-seeded Clemson (13-2-3) turns their attention to No. 11 seed Cal (8-7-2) in the ACC Semifinals at 8 p.m. in Cary, N.C. The Golden Bears have dispatched of (6) UNC 2-1 and (3) Duke 2-0 to make the Cinderella run to Cary.
More on them in a moment.
It’s a shame that Ransford Gyan could only get credited with an assist on Alex Meinhard’s 10th goal of the season. What a remarkable run. And not to discredit Meinhard at all here, heckuva a finish with the ball right under you. Quick feet, beautiful goal.
Stanford had no answer for Gyan in the first game back in September either and just resorted to fouling him. This time around, I guess you can’t foul what you can’t catch.
Clemson outshot Stanford 13-7 on the game – which only tells a fraction of the way Clemson controlled the game. Four of Stanford’s shots came in the opening 11-minutes, 37-seconds. They had a drought of 25-minutes, 55-seconds of no shots in the first half.
It took them over 14 minutes to register their first shot in the second half and their last shot came with 16-minutes, 51-seconds left in the game.
How mad were they? Twenty-four fouls mad. Two yellow cards – including one dark yellow - mad.
Speaking of whatever dafuq a dark yellow card is. Fletcher Bank, buddy, buckle in for Prick of the Game.
First off,
your haircut is stupid. Secondly, I know you had to deal with Remi Okunlola, Wahabu Musah and other players that showed your ineptness as a defender that you had to resort to committing six fouls.
The foul on Okunlola that earned your dark yellow card should have gotten you tossed. As the worship leader of your local FCA, I figure that you’d have a little more patience. You've lost your mind this year in two games at Clemson. He's studying to be a surgeon or something (honestly, impressive but I still don't like you), but what will he do to the body in font of him if that is his composure? Bed-side manner? Isn't his dumb face bad enough? Get me out of this hospital.
In three games against Clemson, because of your porous defense you’ve committed 12 fouls (that were called - ref in first matchup this year saved your ass) and, in the two games this season, received two yellow cards. Good riddance, prick.
On one of Gyan’s masterful runs, Bank was trying to grab him, but was too slow and our Ghanian Messi just outpaced him easily with the ball. I think it’s fair to say that over the last month or so, Gyan has found his groove.
It took him a minute to get going with only one point over the first 10 games. In the last eight, he has three goals and four assists, while playing less than 65 minutes in five of those games.
Gyan originally hails from Sunyani, Ghana, but went to St. Benedict’s Prep School in New Jersey, where he was the two-time National Gatorade Player of the Year. He was the No.3 player in the country according to prepsoccer.com – Dylan Borso (2g, 3a) at Wake Forest and Jackson Delkus (3g, 1a) at St. Louis were ahead of him. Obviously, prepsoccer.com is some hack website to have Gyan that low…
Listed at 5-4, Gyan has been taking a beating when teams can catch him – it’s really the only defense for him. His center of gravity prevents you from getting him off the ball and the link above shows his speed. It took some games this year, but Gyan – and his teammates – have finally figured out how to link up.
And that’s a main reason Clemson is 8-0-1 in its last nine games.
So, onto the Cal Bears. Their season took a seismic shift when 2023 Pac-12 Defensive Player of the Year Wyatt Meyer made his season debut against Pitt on October 11. Not only did they hand Pitt their first loss of the season that night in a 1-0 victory, they are 3-1 in the ACC since then with wins over Stanford, UNC and Duke.
Before Meyer made his return, they were 0-3-2 in the conference and giving up two goals a game. Since then, 2-1-0 with two shutouts. The lone blemish being a 2-0 loss to Notre Dame.
How has Cal turned their season around? They’ve been out shot 88-72 since the Pitt game and their shot accuracy in those seven games is .347 – which would rank 203rd out of 205 teams in the country. While they’ve held opponents to a .375 shot accuracy, that’s still a higher number that should – in theory – lead to more goals.
Well, Cal keeper Marco Brougher has a .800 save percentage in the ACC games since the Pitt game. That number would be tied for 14th in the country.
So, it’s partly because Brougher – had a .685 save percentage in the previous 10 games prior to Pitt – has been standing on his head somewhat, but also they’ve been able to get into a low-to-mid-block and will just frustrate the opponent for the remainder of the game.
After going down 2-0 to Cal, Duke resorted to taking many shots from outside the box – which the Bears happily obliged to. However, where Cal gets you in these moments is the counter attack – and they can be punishing with 6-foot, 4-inch redshirt senior Nonso Adimabua up top.
He’s fast, physical and forces you to respect the counter. If we push too many forward, he can make us pay despite only having four goals and two assists on the season.
Arik Duncan leads the Bears with 12 points – five goals, two assists – and Malcolm Zalayet as 10 points on three goals and four assists.
A big key will be scoring first, in my opinion (why doesn't everyone just score first?). Force them out of what they want to do. They start with a 3-5-2 formation, so the chess match will be interesting to see if Noonan counters that with our own 3-5-2, or tries to get numbers on their back line with a 3-4-3 or the 4-3-3 we deployed against Stanford.
Clemson has played Cal three times before, with a 1-1-1 record. Clemson won the last matchup back in 2001.
So, about that RPI (it’s dumb)… the Tigers are currently 14th, but will be playing a Cal team that has the 14th best SOS in the country. While it might not help our own SOS, it will help our Opponent Strength of Schedule. Our OSS is currently 26th.
Riddle me this: Penn is 13-2-1 with the 98th SOS and 24th OSS, Clemson is 13-2-3 with 80th SOS and 26th SOS.. Penn is 5th in RPI, Clemson is 14th. While the committee leans heavily on RPI, one would think that we’d be top 8 at the moment, which gets you at least two home games in the NCAA tournament. And we've won our last two titles being an 8th and 9th seed.
The Clemson-Cal winner will take on the (5) Wake-(9) UVA winner at noon on Sunday in the ACC Final – a spot Clemson has been in four out of the last five years.
Go Tigers! Beat Cal!
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