Clemson vs. Georgia State Postgame Coaches’ Quotes

Clemson Head Coach Brad Brownell

Overall thoughts:“Good win tonight. Georgia State is a highly talented team that can pass it and shoot it and it’s hard to beat them. I thought we did some good things offensively against the zone and had a pretty good mix. Certainly K.J. (McDaniels) was fantastic tonight; Damarcus (Harrison) and (Jordan) Roper were good sidekicks, especially with Landry (Nnoko) in foul trouble and not having him for most of the first half. But this was a good win against a team that is talented and used to winning.”On McDaniels setting the tone with an early three-pointer:“Our guys were ready to play. We had a good practice yesterday and had good meetings so our guys were definitely excited about this opportunity and prepared the right way for it. These mid-major teams that win regular season championships are good programs and they have good coaches and the biggest thing is they have confidence because they’re used to winning. So, when they come into these arenas they’re ready to play.”On the health of Jaron Blossomgame:“I’m not sure yet. We’re optimistic that nothing is wrong. I know it scared him so we’re going to x-ray him and hope his ok.”On the play of Damarcus Harrison:“He’s just gotten some confidence. He still has to play consistently well, and he’s a guy that we expect to play at a high level. But when he’s going, he’s a good player. He is someone who can do a lot of different things for us. He’s not great at any one thing, but he can do everything pretty well and I thought he played well tonight with a lot of confidence.”On the play of the offense:“We did a good job against all that zone. It’s 40 minutes and it always changes. As the game went on I thought we made adjustments and played well. When you look at our stats, we had a pretty efficient game.”Georgia State Head Coach Ron Hunter

Overall thoughts: “First I want to say how proud I am of these guys sitting here, Devonta White and Manny Atkins. We all walked into this thing together about two and a half years ago. Manny was the first guy we brought in and D-White was here already, and we said we wanted to win championships and change the culture here. These guys helped me do that. I am forever indebted to them. This university is too, and I’m really proud. We lost to a very good basketball team tonight but we fought and played hard. They made a couple runs like I thought they would do. We showed that we can play with people and give a lot of credit to Clemson.”On the technical foul toward the end of the game:“You’ll have to talk to the referees to learn what that was about. I questioned a call because I thought it was goaltending so I slapped my hands to say that I thought it slapped against the boards. He thought that I was mocking him. I thought he pinned the ball against the backboard, which would be goaltending. They only made one free throw out of it but they were already in the bonus. I don’t know if it rattled us and I don’t know if it really got them going, but they made some free throws. One play here, one play there.”I thought we got a little fatigued. I told our staff I thought we were getting a little fatigued. We just played the other night. I was using timeouts more to rest than to strategize. These guys played an overtime game the other so I was using timeouts to give them rest.”On motivating his team:“We’re playing in the NIT, against Clemson, an ACC school, so I didn’t have any trouble motivating them. We had two goals at the beginning of the year. One was to win the conference championship and we did. The second was to make postseason play and we did that, too. You shouldn’t have to motivate to come into this facility. I was absolutely stunned to walk out on that court and see how many Georgia State people had come. My first game at Georgia State there weren’t even that many people at Georgia State! I’m so proud of our university. To see our fans and our band and our cheerleaders, students who were on spring break to make the trip down? That was motivation enough.”On the gameplan to limit K.J. McDaniels:“We didn’t have a lot of time heading into this. We didn’t even practice before the game. Shootaround was the first chance we had to practice. So we really didn’t have much time to gameplan. He’s a really good player. I’d be shocked to see Clemson not in the finals. Clemson’s a very good team and it’s going to be hard to beat them, especially if they’re playing here. Our job was to keep bodies around him if we could. He’s a really good player who, what I love about him, is he doesn’t force anything. If he couldn’t get off a good shot he went to the glass. Our gameplan was just to keep doing what we were doing. We didn’t really have a chance to prepare for him like we usually would.”