CLEMSON — K.C. Rivers was as blunt as he could be.

Clemson’s 2007-08 men’s basketball season was impressive. The Tigers made their first NCAA Tournament in a decade, and the program’s first ACC Tournament title game appearance since 1962, going 24-10 before an NCAA first-round loss to Villanova.

But last year is so over.

This a new year, Rivers said, and last year doesn’t mean much now.

“Last year is last year,” the Tigers’ senior guard said Tuesday. “That was a great run, and kudos for it. But this is a different year. What we did last year, that’s placed in a bag, and that’s called the past.”

Coach Oliver Purnell has his group focused squarely on the present. Clemson wants to surpass last season’s accomplishments, but Purnell knows the Tigers have a long climb just to get back to that level – much less soar past it.

“One of our goals is to be better than we were last year,” Purnell said at the team’s annual media day and golf outing at the Madren Center. “That’s something we’ve been able to accomplish every year since we’ve been here, and we want to make next year no exception to that. What that means is being above the second or third-best team in the ACC. That means not just participating in the national tournament but going deep in the national tournament with a chance to win it.

“That’s a tall order, as we all know, given the level we play in, the league we play in and the non-conference schedule, and on and on, but those are our goals, we feel our program has progressed to the point where those are reasonable goals. We’re looking to go above and beyond those goals.”

Doing so means replacing the core of last season’s team – graduated seniors Cliff Hammonds, James Mays and Sam Perry. They leave behind a major leadership and defensive void which must be filled by both returnees and newcomers.

Mays served as the point of Clemson’s full-court press, while Perry was a solid defender with a knack for clutch plays at the biggest moments. And Purnell calls Hammonds “the best leader/student athlete I’ve ever been around,” a shutdown defender who took on every opponent’s top guard.

“Leadership and defense, we can’t expect one guy to step up and get that done,” Purnell said. “We’ve got to do it as a group. On paper, offensively, we think we can be better without question, but defense is the big question.”

Purnell said he still expects to play a pressing, running style, and thinks up-tempo offense will be a strength with Rivers and sophomore guards Demontez Stitt and Terrence Oglesby returning.

How similar will the defense look compared to past teams? That’ll be determined by preseason practice, which kicks off Oct. 17.

“The way we press, how much we press will be shaped over the next few weeks,” Purnell said. “That doesn’t mean it’ll be shaped solely. It may be that we decide to do something now as we build toward something else and get better as the year goes on.”

Rivers, Stitt and junior forward Trevor Booker are penciled in as starters, while senior Raymond Sykes will likely join Booker down low. Oglesby will likely start as the shooting guard with Stitt at point. Junior David Potter will also be counted upon for solid contributions at both ends of the floor.

Right now, though, the Tigers are far from a finished product – something Purnell carefully emphasized Tuesday.

“We’re a long way from being in the NCAA Tournament,” he said. “We’ve got to build a team that is capable night-in, night-out of being successful. That’s how you get to the NCAA Tournament. We’ve got to be very careful that we don’t make any assumptions. That’d be foolish.”