Clemson vs. Presbyterian Post-Game Coaches’ Quotes

Nov. 14, 2009

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Clemson Head Coach Oliver Purnell

On the team’s performance: “I thought we needed to play tonight. It was important that we got some experience playing against a zone because we’ll see it a lot this year. We made a couple of threes early and got a little bit three-happy. So we had a rule in the second half that the ball had to touch the post. After that, we started to shoot it a little better. I was happy with our pressure. There were a lot of steals and a lot of turnovers.”

On the shooting performance: “If we continue to take high percentage threes, we should make those shots. We don’t have the range we did last year. Most of those shots are coming at the line. But we still have guys that can hit that shot.”

On the importance of getting the ball inside: “We want some balance. When you do that, you’re thinking team. Tonight, we could get the three at any time since they were in a zone. We shot it better in the second half simply by letting the ball touch the post.”

On the impact of Bryan Narcisse: “That’s one of the things we talked about. We wanted to go out there and have fun. Narcisse is a bundle of energy. He made some outstanding plays out there tonight.”

Presbyterian Head Coach Gregg Nibert

Overall Thoughts: “Coming into this game we wanted to be able to take care of the ball, but their press is tough and they were able to score off of turnovers. They did a tremendous job with the pressure. They just keep coming at you. Oliver Purnell has done a great job here with this program. We made them miss four shots in the beginning, but they got the offensive rebounds. Then they came out in the second half strong and it became a blowout.”

On Clemson’s Three-Point Shooting: “I know that K.C. and Terrence were great shooters, but they have Noel, Tanner Smith, David Potter, and Andre Young that can all shoot threes. We couldn’t stop everything and we were hoping they would miss some of those threes. Their season is very bright.”

On the Season Ahead: “We red-shirted three of our guys so that we can have them for the next two years. If we had them it probably would have been a little different. This is a marathon and not a sprint. These freshmen are going to learn a lot this season.”