Clemson vs. Wake Forest Postgame Quotes

Feb. 26, 2011

Clemson Head Coach Brad Brownell

Overall Thoughts: “This was just a blue-collar win, that’s the best way I can describe it.

“I thought our team, we were pretty aggressive, maybe not early but shortly there after. I thought we could have played a little better offensively. We missed a couple lay-ups in the first half and had a few too many turnovers, being a little careless and playing a little faster than we needed to. All in all, though, I thought our guys played the game the right way and forced Wake (Forest) out of doing some of the things that they like doing. We played some one-on-one stuff and I thought our defense was pretty good.”

“[Wake] did show some signs of guys being able to make individual plays in the second half.”

Defense on McKie – didn’t score until 9:11 in the second half: “It wasn’t anything in particular, I thought our guys just locked in. He plays the four spot for them in a three-man’s body and I thought Devin had him early and did good things defensively with him. Tanner got a turn on him for a while and did some things with him, and so did Brian. We kept some fresh people on him and I thought some of our pressure bothered him a little bit. We didn’t allow him to get into a flow, but he is a talented player.”

On Demontez Stitt: “He had a very good game; I thought he was very unselfish in this game. In games like this when you are able to get a 12 or 14 point lead, players who play a lot will sometimes take some ill-advised shots just to get some extra points. But I thought tonight he was very unselfish; he passed up some shots and he was really looking to get other guys the ball. I don’t think he had a lot of assists but I think he had a lot of extra passes and plays. I thought he played a really sound game all around.”

On the difficulty of having his players buy into his defensive concept: “It was hard because you’re not only teaching defense, but you’re teaching offense and defense. It’s not like I’m just the defensive coordinator, so when they come to me I’m not just talking to them about defense, I’m talking about movement offense, zone-offense, man-offense, and out of bounds plays. I’m teaching so many different things. I think they understood that I wanted them to play hard on defense, but we were also talking about different stuff. The media was kind of preoccupied with motion offense so I was the one that was pointing out that if you look at how I manage this team, and my teams in the past, I try and coach hard on defense.”

Wake Forest Head Coach Jeff Bzdelik

Overall Thoughts: “We missed a lot of lay-ups. There’s nothing else I can do, as a coach, except get them to the rim. We just missed a lot of lay-ups. We’re so young that it’s different in practice. We can’t simulate length and athleticism in practice, and it’s different than in high school. Do we need to get stronger? Yes. Do we need to get more mature? Yes. We’re a team loaded with zero experience. We got the ball to the rim, we just couldn’t make it. We competed, we battled, but we just couldn’t score enough. It’s hard to put pressure on people when you’re not scoring.”

On Second Half Scoring: “They were pressuring us so much; the best thing to do was spread the ball and drive through the pressure. We were able to do that, we just couldn’t score. We didn’t make great decisions either. It’s different for us than it is for Clemson. They have one freshman who’s averaging two points per game and is only shooting 24% from three. Half of my scholarship players are freshmen, so you can see where it’s different. It’s not an excuse, it’s just how it is.”