Clemson vs. Maryland Postgame Quotes

Jan. 31, 2010

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Clemson Head Coach Oliver Purnell

Overall Thoughts: “I’m happy with the win; it’s a big one for us. I thought our team did a good job adjusting tonight. If we continue to rebound and defend like that we’ll be awfully good. We have to be a better defensive team than we had been coming into tonight. We held them to 23 points in the first half and came up with the big plays in the second half to preserve the win.”

On satisfaction of the win: “It’s a very satisfying win because we haven’t been doing very well lately. I’m glad the team responded and was able to regroup at the end. It’s big because now we have a week before we play again. We have a chance to go up to Blacksburg and if we could somehow come out with a win, that would be an even bigger boost for us because we get three home games in a row after that.”

On Maryland’s Greivis Vasquez: “We did an excellent job on him. Our guys took the challenge to guard him. He’s an excellent player. We knew we had to stop him to win the game.”

On the play of Andre Young: “I thought he played an excellent game, much better than the other night against Boston College. He really was in attack mode all night. I thought at the end of the game, he certainly got a little bit tired. That can happen when you’re playing 36, 37 or 39 minutes. But with the steals and timely shots, I thought he was a big part of the win tonight.”

Maryland Head Coach Gary Williams

Overall Thoughts: “Clemson’s defense was good tonight. We just got outrebounded. Neither team shot the ball well and offensive rebounding was a factor. They turned the ball over less than we did. Clemson just played hard and rallied without (Demontez) Stitt. We did some good things, such as guarding Trevor Booker, but then he hit that big three.”

On the turnovers: “It was a physical game. They did a good job of banging us around and we didn’t handle that well. We have to learn from this game.”

On what can be taken from the loss: “I think the one thing we can take from this is that we didn’t shoot well and were still able to hang in the game. Clemson just out-hustled us and that gave them the edge.”

On how they guarded Vazquez: “Clemson played him physical tonight. He has had to deal with that before and handled it well, but he struggled tonight.”

On Clemson’s pressure: “They did a good job pressing. Our offense didn’t handle it very well in the first half and we didn’t attack the pressure hard enough. We take a lot of pride in our press and we didn’t handle theirs well tonight.”

On the play of freshman Jordan Williams: “He played a great game tonight and really kept us in the first half. I don’t know where we would have been without him. It was a positive game for him.”

On Clemson’s Trevor Booker: “We guarded him well but then he hit that big three and that really hurt us. It was a big shot and it was the first one he has hit in conference play.”