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ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE BASKETBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

February 28, 2011

Brad Brownell

COACH BROWNELL: Good week for us. Had a nice win against Wake. Played pretty well defensively, I thought. Got good play out of our two seniors again, Demontez and Jerai Grant. Pleased with our team's development through the season, but certainly will be tested this week against two very good teams playing very good basketball against Virginia Tech.

Q. What have you heard about the ACC Tournament, everything around the hoopla everything about the tournament, even growing up and stuff like that?
COACH BROWNELL: Growing up in Indiana, I didn't really follow the ACC as closely as a lot of people, obviously. We didn't have -- the Big Ten tournament came about much later. So certainly you would see national games that wouldn't involve Big Ten tournament. It involved ACC tournaments or some other tournament.
You clearly remember the history of some of those games and teams and coaches and watching Dean Smith and Valvano and all of those guys, and Coach K for that matter coaching in some of those games.
Certainly when I came to Wilmington and spent 12 years in the state of North Carolina , that was a big part of watching what was going on in college basketball. Usually the CAA Tournament would finish that early that week, so a couple years we were waiting to find out who we'd play, and we'd get a chance to watch a lot of the college basketball tournaments.
Certainly the one I wanted to watch the most was the ACC Tournament having seen those teams for that 12-year period a lot.

Q. Have you heard about the tournament, as far as you'll be coaching in it for the first time, more intensity or just a bigger stage, I guess?
COACH BROWNELL: Certainly a bigger stage. You know, it was funny, I remember my wife used to teach a little bit there when we first moved to Wilmington, and there was a good friend of hers who wheeled in a TV and had a TV going on the side when she was teaching class with a little bit of the ACC tournament games were on.
I think it just spoke to the passion that the people had even in Wilmington. A lot of the people that were UNCW fans were state grads or Duke grads or Carolina grads or Wake Forest fans. For some of us, we were the secondary team.
So the passion of the tournament everybody was pretty excited that time of year. Certainly the passion came out in a lot of different ways. You had all kinds of people leaving to go to the tournament when it was in Greensboro and all those kind of things.

Q. As you prepare to play Duke, I was curious your thoughts on watching Kyle Singler on film this year, and what you think of him? His shooting percentage is down some from last year, not as reliable. But how do you approach a guy like him?
COACH BROWNELL: I think he's terrific. I think he's the consummate basketball player. I think he does more than just shoot. First of all, he plays two positions. He can play the wing, the power forward, he can handle the ball. He can make threes. He gets to the free-throw line and makes 80, 81% of his free throws. He's a terrific rebounder. He's a very good offensive rebounder.
He shows his competitiveness, by the way, when the shot goes up and he's at the three-point line just about every time he gets to the paint and tries to attack the glass. He's probably one of the better offensive rebounders in our league.
So I just have a lot of respect for him. He plays the game the right way. Great poise, great leadership, good decision maker. Certainly a guy that can make big shots and can score in a variety of ways. Coach K does a great job of getting him in different positions on the court defending on matchups, for him to be successful.

Q. I wanted to ask about going to Duke too. You've got to take them on Senior Day when they've got two pretty impressive seniors to be honored. Does that make it tougher the emotions surrounding a game like that or do you catch them when they're too emotional?
COACH BROWNELL: I don't know. I think too emotional versus more emotional or whatever. We always look after the game was played and we make the judgment on it. I don't know how you can prepare for that.
I joked with our media here after the game that you knew that one of the new rookie coaches was going to get that assignment, and I guess I drew the short straw. It's not something anybody would be overly excited about going if you picked a day to play Duke at Duke. I'm not sure anyone's going to be excited and say let's pick that day.
But they have two great players that will be honored and should be honored in the highest regard. They've won a National Championship. They're Player of the Year-type guys and terrific young men. So I'm sure that the people there will treat them the right way. Hopefully, they're more preoccupied with those two guys than they are with our team.

Q. You've got a Senior Day of your own coming up this weekend. Can you talk about your seniors and how you'll approach that, and whether you'll do anything to try to keep it folk used on the game at the same time honoring them?
COACH BROWNELL: Well, we'll certainly try to honor -- we have four guys. Two guys that received scholarships halfway through the year that had been walk ons for us, Jonah Baize and Zavier Anderson. And Zave's been the guy that's come off the bench and started some games with Demontez's injury. I'm proud of those guy's efforts this year.
And most people know about Demontez Stitt and Jerai Grant. They've had great senior seasons, good careers. Been part of a lot of wins here, and we want to recognize them for all their efforts, hard work, and what they've been able to accomplish.
But at the same time, we know it's going to be a significant game. We have Virginia Tech coming in here playing very good basketball coming off a terrific win against Duke. It will be a game where we'll need to play exceptionally well, and hopefully those guys will be able to manage their emotions.

Q. I know you've got a couple weeks to go on this. But can you evaluate your first season at Clemson? You'll be the first Clemson coach to finish 500 or better in the league your first year. Any reflections on that?
COACH BROWNELL: I think every year's different. I'm proud of what our staff has done this year. I think we've done a good job with some challenges certainly with a couple players leaving and changing a little bit of a system and doing some things that way. But the reason we're having success is because we have guys that are good players.
Demontez and Jerai Grant are two seniors that have played well. Certainly Jerai's emerged this year. I felt like he was a key guy for us. And for us to have the kind of year we wanted to have, he would be the guy that would have to emerge as a player. He maybe didn't get a lot of touches in the previous part of his career, so we felt that was significant to kind of work to develop his game. I think he's done that.
But in terms of looking back on it, it's been very rewarding here for a while. It also was very challenging early on. I'm grateful that I had some experiences at Wilmington and Wright State to help give me an idea how to handle this situation.
But in terms of comparing me to other coaches in their first year, that's hard to do and unfair because maybe some guys are left with more players than another. It's great to be in this league. It's unbelievably competitive, and you've got to be at your best every night. Just looking forward to continuing to compete and finish this season.

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