Clemson vs. Duke Postgame Quotes

March 3, 2011

Recap |  Box Score |  AP Photo Gallery  |  Photo Gallery 

Clemson Head Coach Brad Brownell

On missed shots from three and around the basket: “You want both. Certainly ones around the basket we have to finish better and you just have to make more of those, and we didn’t quite get that done.”

On playing full-court man defense the whole game: “We full-court man just about every game, and it’s not always trapping or anything like that. We aren’t really trapping very much, but we picked up full-court to try and put some pressure on teams and to try and play aggressively.”

On forcing a season-high 20 turnovers for Duke: “We have done a decent job this year of creating some turnovers; unfortunately we needed more points off turnovers. We had 19, which is pretty good. Like I said I am very pleased with our defensive effort; we played as well defensively as we could play in this game, but you’ve got to make shots to win.”

On overcoming a point deficit: “I thought we showed good poise and resiliency, and we were down in the first half, you know teter-tottering there a little bit. We could have been knocked out early and everyone was kind of expecting that, I think, and we battled right back. Then in the second half, we got down eight and we came right back again. We might have ran out of gas a little bit too. Demontez Stitt had 36 minutes, and Andre Young had 35, and that’s hard when Demontez is not feeling very well and he wasn’t 100 percent out there tonight, but he gave us everything he had.”

On the team being able to hang in against opponents: “If you have followed our team, we have done this every night. The one thing I can say about our team is that since the conference started, we haven’t had a bad night, ever. Every game has been if you follow our team, with three minutes to go, we got a chance to win. We have lost a lot of road games close – this one was 11 and Carolina was 10 – but both games felt like we were in the game, late in the game. Our team has shown great resiliency. I hear a lot about other teams having eight scholarships; we’ve had nine scholarships all year. We’ve had guys leave and some are playing with a new coach. I don’t think enough has been made of what my guys have been able to accomplish and overcome: a new system, new coaching, nine scholarship players, practicing against coaches, walk-ons, students, managers, grabbing a football player. This is the first time I have ever mentioned it, so damnit I want someone to write something about how hard our team played. I’m tired of reading about everybody else in the league.”

On how much he pays attention to the NCAA selection news: “I haven’t paid much attention to the last week. Last week, certainly I paid attention because of how close we are and where we are. You know it’s just like I told our team, our guys are down because they came here wanting to win, but anybody that’s on a selection committee that watched our game tonight would think we look like a team that could be in the tournament. We know we have work to do. We can’t feel sorry for ourselves. We’ve got to bounce back in the next 48 hours to play a very motivated Virginia Tech team.”