Clemson vs. SC State Postgame Coaches’ Quotes

Clemson Head Coach Brad BrownellOverall thoughts:“Good bounce back game for our guys. Certainly we had more talent than South Carolina State and they’ve been traveling, so we caught them at a good time. But I thought our guys approached the game the right way. We’ve had some good practices and some demanding practices the last couple of days. Some of the things we were trying to work on, we did a good job with today. I was really glad to see Damarcus (Harrison) shoot the ball better. He and I have been working on his shot the last couple of weeks. It was just good to see him play well and play with confidence. Even though we got behind, I thought our defense was good; they just made a couple of guarded shots. We kept pushing tempo a little bit and play faster. It was good to see us play a clean game because a game like that can get loose because there can be bad turnovers, things like that. We did a great job with having a business-like approach.”On working with Damarcus Harrison:“We’ve worked on some technique things. I think he gets the ball back a little too far behind his head, so we’ve been trying to keep his shoulders forward and keep the ball a little more in front. He’s got a very high arch to his shot. He has a good release point, but sometimes he can get a little lazy with it. It’s not easy to work on things like that during the season, but it’s something we needed to do and we’re making progress with it.”On transition of Harrison:“It’s easy to forget it’s not really his freshman year, because he played last year at BYU. But it’s his freshman year at Clemson. Certainly, systematically, there are things that are different. And he’s trying to process a lot of things. It’s frustrating when you’re not shooting the ball to your ability. He’s been good about it with his attitude. He had six assists today and you don’t think about that, you just think about all the shots. But he’s a guy who’s versatile who can do a lot of things. He can handle it a little bit, guard a little bit, shoot a little bit, got good size. That’s obviously why I recruited him hard out of high school. And that’s why I think he has a chance to be a good player.”

SC State Head Coach Tim CarterOverall thoughts:“We did not handle their increased pressure, and I believe they ended up getting 18 points off of our turnovers in the first half. In essence, that was the ballgame. They turned up the pressure on us and we did not respond very well. What’s been our nemesis the majority of the year has been hitting shots. The real issue was that our lack of maturity showed when they put more pressure on us.”On how the game can prepare his team for conference play:“We’ve got one big one. We’re at South Carolina. I think the number one thing that I have to do is to try to keep our guys’ spirits up. It’s been a tough, tough guaranteed road trip for us these last four games. Mentally, we’re on break right now, but in the long run, it’ll show us our weaknesses more than anything else. We’ve got to handle pressure better.”