Off season worries are starting to turn into real fears in Clemson as the basketball team starts to break into the ACC portion of their schedule. The walls of Littlejohn aren’t falling down, but something is definitely amiss on the Tiger hard court.

They’ve taken care of business with most teams on their OOC schedule thus far. They’ve also clumsily stumbled through a few victories as well as been embarrassed on several occasions. One major hang up that has been plaguing Clemson this season is the lack of intensity that the Tigers have carried with them in recent seasons past.

The torch bearer of intensity for Clemson the past few years has traditionally been Trevor Booker. His recent quietness in the paint could be seen as the reason for the down play of the rest of the team. In this, his final season, he’s seen his numbers drop in average over what’s supposed to be the easier part of the year. He’s playing with reservation and it’s affecting just about everybody around him. Now, the reason of this post isn’t to bash him or make a scape goatout of him, but rather it’s just to point out what many Clemson fans having been noticing lately: Booker is not playing with the passion and focus as he has in years past to this point of the 2009/2010 campaign.

It seems as if he’s trying to adopt a more NBA-like attitude in his approach to playing the game. Trevor still plays well on defense, but his aggression has disappeared. His fouls troubles have pretty much gone away as well as a result of his new adopted passive style of play. This isn’t necessarily good news for Clemson fans.

Booker has seen as many minutes per game (about 29) as he did last year (about 30) and has been in possession of the ball throughout the game more now – averaging 24.9% of the total team possession – than at any other point in his career. Booker’s rebounds per game (8.667), field goal percentages (52.4%), and blocked shots per game (1.2) have all dropped down from his numbers last year of 9.719 RPG, 57.1%, and 1.969 BPG respectively.

There are some bright spots as Booker’s assists are up and his fouls are down, but these figures have seen almost negligible change from last year.

That’s not to say that Trevor Booker is slacking off, but rather that he hasn’t played up to the huge and demanding expectations after a standout performance in the 2008/2009 season. Booker is still putting up great numbers and showing great leadership on and off of the court. Despite not playing as well as he has in the past, the Union High School product has been named to the Wooden Award Midseason Top 30 Watch List. He hasn’t involved himself with any off campus drama or mixed words with the media. He’s done what has been asked of him day in and day out. Hopefully he’ll get a chance to show more of his former self when the Tigers go up against Boston College tomorrow at 4pm. Facing off against the ACC’s smallest team will give Booker the much needed opportunity to remind ACC opponents of how dominant “Big Book” can be.