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ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE BASKETBALL MEDIA CONFERENCEFebruary 6, 2012Brad BrownellMIKE FINN: Thanks for being with us today. Brian Morrison isn't with us today. He has a family situation that he couldn't make the teleconference. He'll be available for next week's call. I wanted to let you know we also have a schedule change today which just came about this morning. Steve Donahue of Boston College will not be available at 10:30. We will start with Coach Brownell at 10:40. We're now joined by Clemson head coach Brad Brownell. Coach Brownell, just a brief opening statement, then we'll go to questions. COACH BROWNELL: Coming off a difficult week where we lost two games, one at Virginia where I thought we played really well, then Virginia Tech, where we got off to a slow start. Rallied, had a chance to win. Unfortunately weren't able to get it done. Obviously play a good Maryland team at home and then up to Wake Forest. So obviously a big week for us. MIKE FINN: Questions for Coach Brownell. Q. When you have a week like this where you lost two games on the road, tense end‑of‑the‑game situations, you're trying to build a program, a team, is that something you build on or is that a setback? COACH BROWNELL: I don't think it's a setback. It's part of the learning process. We played very well against Virginia. It was a back‑and‑forth game. We actually led at half, thought we played a terrific first half. Their credit, they got hot a little bit in transition, made a couple shots, put us on our heels. Our kids rallied back, had a shot with 15 seconds, an open three to tie, and missed. It's been kind a little bit of the story of our season. We did not play well. Again, to Virginia Tech's credit, they were ready, got off to a great start. We had a hard time getting going a little bit. Just kind of stuck with it. We were down 12 to 14 most of the game. In that game rallied all the way back where we had the ball down 2, got fouled on a dunk attempt, missed a free throw, then tipped it to ourselves and missed again. It's a situation where that's happened to us probably five times this year where we've been in that situation, had some chances, haven't been able to make the free throws, make the shot. So it's a little frustrating. At the same time give our kids credit because in a lot of games on the road, we've been down a little bit and managed to rally back to where it's a one‑possession game and we have a chance to win, just haven't been able to get it done. A little bit that's our bugaboo this year. We don't have one guy we can give the ball to at the end of a game to help us in those situations. Q. I'm sure the local guys notice, but as an outsider, is the situation with Milton Jennings, any hope he'll be back this season? COACH BROWNELL: Yeah, there is, certainly. There's a chance he'll be back this week. I'm going to sit down and talk to the young man today, see how things have progressed over the last week, talk to a couple other people, start to make a decisions about moving forward. Q. You've had some good play lately from K.J. McDaniels. Can you bring me up to date. COACH BROWNELL: He has done what we thought he would do. He's a tremendous athlete. Anybody that saw the game against Virginia Tech, he can block shots, drive it to the basket, score. He can actually make a three. He's a little bit like a young fawn sometimes. He doesn't always have his legs under him. The speed of the game can put him a little bit behind. I think the game has slowed down a little bit for him here in the last month or so. He actually had some ankle issues that were bothering him about a week, week and a half ago, so he missed some practices. I didn't play him much in a couple games because he had been missing some practice, wasn't himself, wasn't doing very well in practice. He's fought through that a little bit and seems to have come out of that. We gave him his first start against Virginia Tech. I thought he responded very well. But he's like a lot of our young guys: they've showed signs of doing some really good things and at other times have looked very average. We're just hoping there's going to be some consistency in his game. But I'm really proud of how well he played at Virginia Tech. I thought he showed some toughness that maybe he hasn't shown that much this year, so I'm really proud of him. Q. The game against Maryland, they're getting some good play lately from Alex Len, their 7‑footer. I wonder how that changes things for them having a guy like that and preparing for them. COACH BROWNELL: Well, it makes it very difficult. Obviously Stoglin leads the league in scoring and is a very dynamic player. It's hard to keep him from getting shots. It's hard to keep him out of the paint. Hard to keep him off the free‑throw line. He's a guy that's one of those scorers. Some guys are pure shooters, some guys are scorers. He's a tremendous scorer who can shoot, knows how to draw fouls. Now you throw Alex Len in there, who is a big guy, great hands, runs the floor like a forward, does a good job of finishing. Obviously the stronger he gets, the more dynamic he's going to be. Very good shot‑blocker. I really like Pankey, as well. I think he's a hard‑playing, physical rebounding forward. So I think it's a nice combination that Mark has in their low post. Obviously with a dynamic scorer out front, it makes it very difficult to guard these guys. Q. We were talking about the close calls, the fact you weren't able to get over the hump. You said it's happened to you several times this year. Other than not having the great player to be the go‑to guy, is there anything else your team needs to do to avoid those situations? COACH BROWNELL: Yeah, we've had a couple times where we've had some scoring droughts that have really hurt us where we've gone three or four minutes at times where we maybe haven't gotten the kind of basket that we need. Some of it goes along the lines of still not having that one guy that just goes by people and maybe drops it off to somebody for a layup, draws two people on a drive, finds another guy on penetrating situations. That's been problematic for us. I think our defense hasn't been quite as good as I would like either. At times in the league it's been a little up and down. Certainly there have been times it's been reasonably good, but there have been other times where I don't think we've played as well defensively. We just have a small margin for error. As a result, we end up in a lot of these close games. Unfortunately a lot of times when we've gotten the ball in some good positions, gotten some good shots, it hasn't been just one guy. Andre Young has had two shots late in games that haven't gone down. Milton Jennings had a 10‑foot shot in the lane against Boston College. Devin Booker got fouled, missed free throws. Tanner Smith had a free throw situation late in the game where if he made free throws. Obviously K.J. at Virginia Tech. We've probably had four or five guys that have had an opportunity to make a big shot at the end of the game in the last 10 seconds, and three or four times we've had free throws and we missed free throws. It's challenging, it's hard to keep getting the guys going in those situations. But I think the thing that I'm proud of is our guys have grinded away, especially in a lot of road games, to get to that position. A lot of times on the road in the ACC, if you can get yourself in a position to win, you've done pretty good. We just haven't been quite able to get that finished. Q. Bernard James, what do you think he brings to the table as an opposing big man? COACH BROWNELL: He's a tremendous shot‑blocker, really protects their basket. Allows them to pressure out on the perimeter. Guys drive. He wipes away penetration. He's always a very good low‑post scorer in terms of being able to throw the ball to the block. Offensive rebounder that cleans up around the basket, kind of earns baskets through toughness and hard work. I'm sure there's an element of maturity and stability that he provides to the team being a guy who has served and done a lot more than just play college basketball. He's certainly a terrific player. I'm sure he's a big influence off the court, as well. MIKE FINN: Coach, thanks for being with us today. Good luck this week and we'll talk to you next Monday. COACH BROWNELL: Thank you. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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