Clemson vs. Florida State Post-Game Quotes

Jan. 29, 2011

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Clemson Head Coach Brad Brownell

Overall Thoughts: “That was a terrific performance by our guys. I thought our energy level was as good as it’s been all year for forty minutes. We knew we were going to have to play outstanding defense because Florida State is very difficult to score against. It helped us that we got off to a good start. I think we showed maturity and growth as a team being able to weather a couple of offensive lulls of our own to stick to it for forty minutes of outstanding defense.”

On the defensive performance: “We’ve played well defensively against some other teams, but not through the whole forty minutes like this. It helped a little bit that Singleton got in some foul trouble early. We did a lot of really good things defensively. We were active, we contested shots, and we did a reasonable job keeping them off the glass. It was a very strong defensive performance.”

On the team’s blistering start: “It really helped that we got off to a great start. We were making some shots and things were looking good. Devin (Booker) got open and hit a couple of threes, and then we got a transition basket that got the crowd going. Then reality set in and we didn’t make as many.”

On Jerai Grant’s impact: “We’ve seen some things from Jerai this year that you maybe didn’t see in the past, especially the high-level play at the end of the game when he swept it from the high post and finished with a dunk. It’s exciting as a coach to watch players do something new after you work with them on it in practice.”

Florida State Head Coach Leonard Hamilton

Overall Thoughts: “Clemson immediately got us on our heels. They came out red hot in the first half and we could never really recover. They just applied the defensive pressure in the beginning and that really bothered us. When we couldn’t handle the pressure, we started shooting the ball a lot quicker than we normally do. We didn’t respond to their really consistent defensive effort; and that’s to their credit. Coach (Brad) Brownell has done a really good job preparing this team for this game and we came in and didn’t respond to the adversity they created for us in the first half.

“Most of the time, we find ways to bounce back; we make a couple of shots and get our confidence up. We did that at the end of the first half, but we turned the ball over in two of the first possessions of the second half and they scored on both possessions. We never seemed to be able to get back to that level of confidence we need to play well.

“You have to give their effort and preparation a lot of credit. You never like to take losses, but there are moral victories and I guess there are also moral losses. Hopefully, we’ll learn from this. I really believe that life on the road in the ACC this year will be a lot of these types of games. You have a lot of teams that feel like they have a chance in terms of talent and all the teams are very well coached. This loss might serve to teach us a very valuable lesson.

“Obviously, we’re a much better basketball team than we showed today. Our lack of sound play today has to be attributed to Clemson’s constant defensive pressure. They were so much more physical than us on the inside and that bothered us.”

On Chris Singleton in foul trouble: “That wasn’t why we were losing. We’re talented enough that we should be able to absorb someone being in foul trouble. If he had been out there executing the way he had been executing, it wouldn’t have made much difference. We’re talented enough where if we’re executing the way we’ve been doing all year, we should have been ok.”

On ACC home court advantage: “I don’t think going on the road in the ACC is any more of a challenge than it has been in the past couple of years. The way people have handed you your hat and showed you the door when you play on the road has been pretty consistent this year. Hopefully we can hand out some of those gifts when people come to visit us in the next couple of weeks.”