Hammonds Named to Academic Team

Senior captain earns third All-ACC Academic honor of his career.

The Atlantic Coast Conference announced the league's All-Academic team for men's basketball Friday. Clemson captain Cliff Hammonds was honored for the third time in his career. He is the seventh student-athlete from Clemson to be named to the league's all-academic team at least three times in a career. Former teammate Shawan Robinson was a four-time selection, one of only a handful in ACC history.

To be eligible for consideration, a student-athlete must have earned a 3.00 grade point average for the previous semester and maintained a 3.00 cumulative average during his academic career.

Other three-time selections to the ACC All-Academic team from Clemson are Randy Mahaffey (1965-67), Bobby Conrad (1978-80), Marc Campbell (1982-84), Mike Eppley (1982-84), and Tom Wideman (1997-99).

Hammonds posted a perfect 4.0 GPA in the fall semester as a double major in architecture and psychology. He is on track to graduate in May and will be the first scholarship men's basketball player on record to earn a degree in architecture. Hammonds carries over a 3.2 career GPA and was recently named to CoSIDA's Academic All-District III team. Hammonds is also a recipient of the ACC's Weaver-James-Corrigan postgraduate scholarship, one of three student-athletes from Clemson to earn the honor.

Hammonds has been steady on the court as well. He is averaging 12.0 points, 4.2 rebounds, and 3.9 assists per game for Oliver Purnell's 21-8 club. Hammonds is shooting 50 percent from the field in league play, one of only two guards in the ACC that can make that claim. He has started the most games overall (128) and most consecutive games (125) in school history, which includes Thursday night's start at Georgia Tech despite a broken right wrist.

He ranks in the top 10 in Clemson history in minutes played (4,122), three-point goals (240), steals (216), steals per game (1.67), assists (452), and assist-to-turnover ratio (1.97). Hammonds ranks second in the ACC this season in assist-to-turnover ratio (2.24) and third in steals per game (1.97).

2008 All-ACC Academic Men's Basketball Team
Gary Clark, Wake Forest Fr. Undeclared
Cliff Hammonds, Clemson Sr. Architecture and Psychology
Ben McCauley, NC State Jr.. Sport Management
Jack McClinton, Miami Jr. Sport Administration
Jerome Meyinsse, Virginia So. Undeclared
Greg Paulus, Duke Jr. Political Science
Matt Zitani, Florida State Gr. Sports Administration
Brian Zoubek, Duke So. Undeclared