Clemson vs. Notre Dame postgame quotes

Clemson Head Coach Brad Brownell

Opening statement:

“What a great game. Notre Dame showed they have great poise. And (Jerian) Grant, what a great player. I’m proud of our guys. We executed a great plan and competed defensively. It’s hard to hold these guys to 60 points. We gave ourselves chances to win the game down the stretch; we probably just weren’t as aggressive down the stretch as we needed to be, not as confident. Sometimes, in the second halves of these games, I think our guys get a little passive. We need a go-to guy sometimes, Jaron (Blossomgame) can be that sometimes, we kind of struggle sometimes looking for one more guy to help us get over the hump.”

On Damarcus Harrison’s play:

“He played well. (Jordan) Roper and (Donte) Grantham unfortunately didn’t have good games; they didn’t shoot it well at all. I thought Austin (Ajukwa) and Damarcus played well for us. If you’re going to beat the No. 10 team in the country, you need to have more. We’ve got to have more guys making shots. He had a solid game, it doesn’t surprise me.” 

Final play:

“We had plays for both man and zone. They came man, we wanted to get the ball to ‘JB’ in the middle of the court and see what he could do … and he got a shot and it didn’t go. There was a scrum, boy it looked like our guy got clipped or knocked down, but we didn’t get the call.”

Rebounding:

“We rebounded well all game. Some of that is hard. When they ball screen, sometimes you’ll have the center rolling down the lane. There were some hard situations, but I thought we played good defense. I’ll have to go back and look; they got some rebounds. Those couple of possessions hurt us. And those couple of possessions where we just passed it in, they stole it and laid it back in, pick-sixes. You can’t give Notre Dame free ones, we gave them at least two.”

Notre Dame Head Coach Mike Brey

Overall thoughts:

“I’m proud of our group. We’ve been on a segment of seven games in 20 days, including three in six, to bounce back after a tough one and play a really good Clemson team who guards the heck out of you. We knew it was going to be a grind, but I’m really proud of our group. I thought our defense really got it under control after the first 10 minutes. Zone helped us there at the end. I thought Jerian Grant was flat out fabulous being the conductor of what we wanted to do offensively, especially in crunch time. I’m really proud of our group. We’re at 10 league wins. Heck of a way to go into a bye week with a win like that, and 10-3 in this league.”

On Grant’s play:

“I think that’s why he’s thrust himself into the Player of the Year talk in the league. He’s a fabulous player, you know, if he’s not scoring it, he’s making the pass to score it. You saw him at his best and he’s done that a lot this year. I don’t know if there’s a better player in the country at crunch time to take the big shot. That shot he hit, he jumped, twisted his body, and then he made some key defensive plays down the stretch. He’s having a fabulous year, and he’s a thrill to coach.”

On the final few minutes:

I think we strengthened up a little bit at the stretch. If there’s a weakness in us, it’s keeping people off the boards. We play a little smaller, and we give up some of that because we’re hard to guard. We did a better job out of zone, I thought, getting rebounds, but we did get some offensive rebounds, and I think that’s our will. (Pat) Connaughton has such a will; he’s smart to go in there at a key time and get one, and that was really a big one. The other thing I talked to them about down the stretch is we’ve been in a lot of game situations like this, we’ve been in them, and we’ve won most of them, so they’re pretty confident when it gets to that point. I think this is our fifth road win, so we’ve been good in these atmospheres, too.”

On switching defenses on the last play:

“I was actually thinking do we go back zone? But you don’t want a three to go in. We thought, if anything, they’ll just tie us. But we had a great stance, and I think that Connaughton did a great job taking that drive to the baseline and he never turned a corner on him, he met a chest. We get a great rebound, and my young guy thinks he’s a ball-handler and starts going the length of the court and we flat out dodged a bullet by the guy who missed it (Damarcus Harrison), and he didn’t miss many tonight. I thought our body position defense on that possession was great, and Connaughton was the guy who really chested up (Jaron) Blossomgame on that.”