By Will Vandervort (Contact / Staff Bio)
March 21, 2008 - 12:17 a.m. EST

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Rex Brown

Clemson's Sam Perry, left, and Cliff Hammonds take a break during the Tigers' practice Thursday at the St. Pete Times Forum in Tampa, Fla. The Tigers open NCAA Tournament play tonight at 9:50 p.m. against Villanova.

TAMPA, Fla. — Tigers are known as one of the best and most ferocious hunters on the planet, and most of the time, like most predators, their best catch comes under the evening sky.

That’s definitely been the case so far this season for the Clemson Tigers. It appears these Tigers like to eat who’s ever on the basketball court when there is a game scheduled after 8 p.m.

Five times this season, Clemson (24-9) has laced up the sneakers for a late tip and all five times it has come out victorious, including last week’s 82-48 rout of Boston College in the ACC Tournament. That first-round game started after 9:30 p.m.

Clemson will open up first-round action tonight in the NCAA’s Midwest Regional at 9:50 p.m. or later against Villanova from the St. Pete Times Forum in Tampa, Fla.

“It doesn’t bother us,” Clemson forward James Mays said Thursday.

Obviously not. In the Tigers’ five late-night wins this year – Mississippi State, Purdue, Boston College (twice) and Georgia Tech – they have won by an average of 15.2 points.

“I don’t think we’ve played a game this late at night, but we just got to accept it and get ready to play because this is what was dealt,” Mays said.

Clemson will deal with it by starting its day a little later than usual. Usually, the Tigers will get up, have breakfast and then go to their shoot-around, but head coach Oliver Purnell says the shoot-around will come first today.

“We just move everything back two hours to an hour and half, sleep a little later, breakfast is a little later and you just go from there,” he said. “We have a shoot-around at about 10:20, which is perfect so we will get up, go right to shoot-around, come back for breakfast and then kind of start our normal day.

“We would not normally get up that late, but we will just get up a little bit later.”

Work’em up. Though most of the eight teams working out at Thursday’s practice inside the St. Pete Times Forum basically treated the 40-minute session as a shoot-around, Clemson took advantage of the extra time away from the media and the hoopla surrounding the tournament to get a solid practice in.

The Tigers worked on their full-court press while rotating starters and reserves in and out, while also working on their half-court sets in full-court action. Center Trevor Booker was even forced to run after making a bad play.

Purnell perhaps used the extra time also because he wasn’t overly excited about his squad’s morning practice before leaving Clemson on Wednesday. In fact, he threw them out of practice Wednesday morning for the first time this season, and then made them get dressed and attend a very intense workout Wednesday afternoon in Tampa because of it.

The Tigers were originally scheduled to take Wednesday afternoon off.

“Two things,” Purnell said. “We definitely needed to get their attention, but we needed the practice. In the morning, I wasn’t happy with the practice so I kicked them out of practice and I knew we could come down here and practice and that’s what we did.

“We sent them a message loud and clear that we’re going to be ready.”

That message was to wake his team up because “it is one and done now,” he added. “Or it’s one and advance. I wanted to make sure they understood that.”

Getting in the action. Clemson had Thursday’s first-round games going on several different television screens in their locker room prior to practice. Purnell said he encouraged his team to watch as many games as possible so they could see the intensity and the magnitude of what makes the NCAA Tournament special.

“They need to understand that everyone is honored to be here and everyone here expects to advance so they have to lay it all out on the floor,” the Clemson coach said. “For them to see it, and that’s why I like playing on Fridays so they can see just that and see how the tournament is, take in the tournament flavor and just get into the spirit of things.”

No nerves. Clemson and Villanova both said there is no real advantage for the Wildcats in the regional matchup when it comes to experience. This is Villanova’s fourth straight appearance in the tournament under head coach Jary Wright, while the Tigers are making their first trip to the Big Dance in 10 years.

“I don’t think we’re concerned about a lack of experience in the NCAA Tournament because throughout the course of the season we’ve played tournament-worthy teams and teams that are in the tournament,” Clemson guard Cliff Hammonds said. “We’ve proven well against those teams.

“We’ve been in tournament atmospheres and in tournament situations, late-game situations where the score is tied or it’s a close game.”

The Tigers like to believe last year’s run in the NIT, in which they advanced to the championship game, has them prepped for success in the NCAA.

“We are just as experienced as any team in the country because of that experience from last year’s NIT,” Hammonds said.