Clemson vs. South Carolina Postgame Coaches’ Quotes

Clemson Head Coach Brad Brownell

Overall thoughts:“I’m really proud of our team. We competed tonight in many different ways. South Carolina is really big and strong and a terrific rebounding team-we knew that would be a problem. I thought we executed well late and made big free throws, certainly that was a big advantage. K.J. (McDaniels) was terrific and the best player on the floor. It was a good win for our guys and it was really good to see, because we worked really hard these past few days in practice.”  On McDaniels playing the leading role:“Well, he has to play well for us, no doubt. It’s time in his career to be a high-level player and he performed at a high level tonight. He still has work to do and his game still has room to grow, which is exciting, because he’s a guy still learning to play off the dribble, pass in traffic. He always makes the highlight plays with the blocks and dunks and things of that nature. His skill level has improved tremendously with his shooting, his ability to drive it and attack some close-outs. Those weren’t really things he came here with the ability to do. It’s been fun coaching him because of how hard he works and its fun watching him because he’s only going to continue to develop and I’m excited about his growth.”  On South Carolina cutting it to one and McDaniels scoring 7 of next 10 points:“He just made plays. He attacked the basket, both with some things we set up and one play where he went on his own and grabbed the ball, went to the basket, and got fouled. It was certainly a high-level play.”   “Overall, I did think we were aggressive. It’s hard to play aggressive against South Carolina because they pressure you so much and deny passing lanes. Sometimes you try to pass a lot against them and that’s really not the formula for success. You’re almost better to try to dribble more, play out in space, ball screen more, and do different things to attack their pressure because they make it really hard for you to run a traditional offense. There were a couple of times we struggled with that and got flustered. We did readjust and do some good things.”  On South Carolina getting 21 offensive rebounds, but only 15 points off of them:“I would have to watch the film to know exactly what happened. Some of it was penetration. Now that they’re bigger and stronger, you’re trying to block them out with a guard. Your big guy is rotating to block the ball. That is a recipe for disaster against them. They are a physically oriented team in every way they play. They pound you with posting, and their guys post hard every possession. They send four to the glass. You know going in with them that it’s going to be physical. You just try to do the best you can. This is a where us being weak and young in the frontcourt becomes a problem.”  South Carolina Head Coach Frank Martin

Opening thoughts:“Give credit to Clemson, they played aggressive and don’t make mistakes.  They’re rock solid in how they play.  I’m not going to sit here and tell you I could have predicted this, but I knew if we didn’t shoot a high, high percentage, we were not going to be very good defensively against a team as disciplined as Clemson.”On Clemson physicality:“No doubt, the physicality of the game impacted our team.  After the Baylor game, my first comment was the perimeter defense stunk, so we changed to a zone to save us.  Well, our players didn’t listen to me.  Our perimeter defense stunk.  So today we played a guard, a three-year guy that drove into the paint anytime he wanted to.  That’s on us as coaches.  We’ve got to fix that, and the players have to listen and be more committed to getting better.  Here’s what this team is going to learn.  In life you get what you deserve and tonight we got what we deserved.  We’ve got young guys that got a little too casual, they were jogging through their cuts, it’s not like they’re not trying.  We got 21 offensive rebounds tonight; you don’t do that unless your guys are actually trying.  We’ve just got to learn.  We got exposed today on offense and defense.”On offensive play of his team:“We jogged cuts. Anytime the guys off the ball don’t play with the sense of urgency they have to play with, then it makes your point guard look bad.  And I’m not defending Ty (Johnson), Ty’s got a lot of stuff he has to clean up, but when the guys off the ball don’t play the way they’re supposed to play, and then the ball becomes stagnant.  Today we played a team that’s disciplined, the guys have been in Brad’s system for a few years, they understand how they’re playing and they are playing better at this point in the season.”On what let the game get away:“The zone, but our offense was so inept we couldn’t keep up.  We went to that zone to try and slow their dribble penetration and then we scored a couple easy baskets.  But then we got back to the nonchalant, the jogging around, then we had four or five bad offensive possessions in a row that led to breakaways for them.  And give them credit, they made free throws, they made layups, we didn’t make layups. Their guy, K.J. McDaniels, almost had a triple-double.  That’s what good players do.  He stepped up and played like a big-time player.”On guard play:“The three guards that play the one and two spots combined 3-of-23 and we got four assists from three guys.  That’s not good enough, but that’s not passing the buck off to the players.  That’s what you get with young kids and as coaches we are harping and saying things, they have never been through before.  We play well in the exhibition, we played ok the first game of the year, we go up to Baylor and we battled.  We’ve created a false sense of reality. Some of the players think it is a little easier than it really is.”