By Bill Koch
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Born in Maryland and educated in Virginia, Oliver Purnell feels right at home coaching in the Atlantic Coast Conference.

"It's kind of like going back to my basketball roots," said Purnell, in his first season at Clemson after nine at Dayton.

But he had to return to Southwest Ohio to reacquaint himself with true college basketball fans.

Despite his respect for the ACC, Purnell, who brings his Clemson Tigers (4-3) to Fifth Third Arena for an 8:05 p.m. game today against the 16th-ranked Cincinnati Bearcats (4-0), understands that he left behind some pretty fertile college basketball ground.

It might not be Tobacco Road, but the basketball played along I-75 and the fervor it produces isn't too shabby.

"Right now there's no comparison (with Clemson)," Purnell said. "With Dayton and Cincinnati and Xavier, you're talking sellout games most of the time. We've got to get this thing up and running. I think we're going to have the same type of situation. We don't have anywhere near the fan base we had at Dayton, but that certainly will come."

The last time Purnell saw UC coach Bob Huggins and his team, he walked off the University of Dayton Arena floor with a 75-69 win, his first win in six tries against the Bearcats. That was last November. The Flyers would go on to finish 24-6, with a No. 16 ranking in the final Associated Press poll and a berth in the NCAA Tournament.

It was Purnell's best UD team and was the culmination of a rebuilding program that began in 1994 after Jim O'Brien left him with a team that had won a total of 10 games the two previous seasons.

Now he embarks on another rebuilding project at Clemson, but without some of the advantages he had at Dayton, where basketball is king.

Clemson is a football school. There are no built-in sellout basketball crowds as there were at Dayton - unless Duke comes to town - no strong tradition to fall back on. In many ways, Purnell is starting from scratch to build a basketball identity for a football school in a league known for its basketball.

And he has to compete with some of the most successful basketball programs in the country.

He inherits three full-time starters and one part-time starter from a team that beat UC 58-51 last season and finished 15-13, but only 5-11 in the rugged ACC.

"You've got to change the mindset of the current players," Purnell said. "They've got to understand our way of doing things. We have to become a team that plays extremely hard, believes in defense and rebounding. Those are the type of unselfish, team-oriented things you need to do to be successful. Not everyone wants to buy into that."

Purnell says leaving Dayton was difficult, but he takes solace from the fact he left the program in much better shape than he found it.

The Flyers are 8-0 under first-year coach Brian Gregory and ranked 24th nationally.

"I felt if I was going to leave; it was a good time," Purnell said. "I felt good that we left the program in good shape."

E-mail bkoch@enquirer.com