Clemson vs. NC State Postgame Coaches’ Quotes

Feb. 25, 2012

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Clemson Head Coach Brad Brownell

Overall thoughts: “This was certainly a great win for our players and I couldn’t be happier for Andre (Young) and Tanner (Smith). For those guys to make those plays – Tanner in regulation to draw those fouls and make the free throws and Andre to get that big three – those guys deserve that; they’ve given a lot to our team. This was a good confidence building win against a good team. NC State is hard to stop and hard to guard. Our guys had to play exceptionally well to win.”

On Andre Young’s last 3-point shot: “That last shot, there was no thought to it. Sometimes in that situation you can be your own worst enemy especially if you’re a good kid with a conscience like Andre is and there’s only six seconds left on the shot clock you just have to shoot it and there’s really no thought to it. He nailed it.”

On team’s karma: “You hope the basketball gods are smiling on us all the time. Certainly, you hope that things even out a little bit. This is one win that Andre and Tanner deserve because of how hard they have worked and the kind of kids that they are. It was a great day for karma to go their way with a great crowd including former players.”

On this Alumni weekend: “This weekend was awesome. We had a great event last night with the alumni basketball game with a lot of players that came back. We had a terrific turnout with the crowd and we appreciate all those people that came out. I know the players had a great time watching those guys shoot the ball in Littlejohn. We had a really nice luncheon today to honor the top 25 players in Clemson history. To have them in the stands today to watch our guys compete and win in this environment was awesome. It was really just a great weekend for Clemson basketball.”

NC State Head Coach Mark Gottfried

Overall Thoughts: “First thing, I thought it was a great basketball game to watch. I thought both teams battled each other really hard and it was a tremendous fight out there. I’m very proud of my team. We put ourselves in a position to win a number of times and just couldn’t close it out. I thought there were a lot positives that we can take from this but we just walked out of here empty handed.”

On missed free throws: “We didn’t get to the line at all in the first half but I thought we were a lot more aggressive in the second half and tried to attack the basket. The missed free throws that we had didn’t cost us the game though. There are just too many plays in a 45 minute basketball game to point to one or two. It is part of the game but we battled really hard and I am proud of our effort.”

On tough loss: “I told them to keep their head up. I said if you give us that kind of effort every night then eventually things will turn good for us. It’s just one of those things that is a part of sports. It’s one more second here or one more inch there. I thought our effort was great thought and I can’t fault our guys for that.”

On Andre Young’s: “I thought we had done a pretty good on them throughout the game of making it hard on them. He’s a senior and he’s going to score some points. He’s a good player. You got to give those guys credit. It’s like Tanner Smith, who’s a senior, college career winding down, he’s been through the wars and steps to the line and hits those two big free throws. With a guy like that it’s almost like there’s no doubt that he is going to make them and that’s what seniors should do. I thought they had some guys step up and make some big plays when they needed them.”