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ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE BASKETBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

January 17, 2011

Brad Brownell

THE MODERATOR: We have with us Head Coach Brad Brownell. Coach, a few comments about your team; then we'll open it up for questions.
COACH BROWNELL: We're playing pretty well right now. Obviously had the outstanding second half against Georgia Tech, where we just about made everything. And hope we didn't use all of our bullets in one game.
But, you know, I think our guys are adjusting to what we're trying to do. I've gained confidence through the last month, and playing a little bit better basketball right now and certainly have our hands full with North Carolina tomorrow night.
THE MODERATOR: Questions?

Q. Coach, I was wondering if I could just ask you you're a newcomer to this series here, what your take on the streak in Chapel Hill is?
COACH BROWNELL: I haven't really been involved with it, so I'm aware of the situation. I'm aware that Clemson's never won there. But beyond that, I really don't know much about the series or anything of that other than just that fact.

Q. Does it matter? Does 54 games in the past matter this year or does it not?
COACH BROWNELL: I don't think so. I mean, the only streak I've talked to our guys about is the fact we've won eight in a row and that we're playing better basketball, and we need to go into the environment with great confidence.
Certainly there's a lot of people I would imagine that haven't had a lot of success against North Carolina in their building. And unfortunately we haven't had any.
But I don't know that that plays any part in what's going to happen tomorrow night at 8:00 or for the next 10 years when we play them.

Q. As you mentioned, the streak that you were interested in is you've won eight straight games. What happened to turn it around after a really up-and-down start?
COACH BROWNELL: Well, I think we have a chance to get some practice time. I think we got to find out a little bit more about our team.
I think every coach approaches each season and you think you're good at one thing, you're maybe not as good at another, and you play some games and you really find out how you are.
And we found out that we needed to improve defensively. We found out that offensively we didn't understand exactly what we were trying to do. So we had to work through it.
I think the schedule came back to us. We played a bunch of home games against some teams that we were favored against. And we took care of business, played better basketball and won some games.
As we started to win some games and have some success, I think our kids started to gain some confidence and started to believe in each other a little bit more. Probably believe in their coach a little bit more and what we're trying to do and embrace the roles that we've talked about with each player.
And as that's happened, momentum has kind of moved our way a little bit. And for a while here right now we're playing pretty good basketball. We just gotta try to do it for two more months.

Q. Just again looking at numbers, more than having seen you, Jerai Grant seems to have really elevated his game in the last few weeks.
COACH BROWNELL: He has. Jerai is playing very well he's a guy that probably hasn't -- I know he hasn't been a primary focus here in his time at Clemson. I think when I took the job, I immediately met with he and Demontez, my two seniors, and told them that I felt like some new coaches talk about the future all the time and talk about their new recruits, this and that, that I believe that that's doing a disservice to the kids that you're coaching and that you owe it to them to give them your best immediately.
And I told them that we'd do our best to have the best season we could. And that I wanted those two guys to be leaders in the program and respected what they accomplished here before I got here and would lean on them heavily to help me get this team going in the right direction and was going to count on them and ask them to do more things. I think Jerai is a young man who is prime example of somebody who has gained more confidence with good play.
He's a primary target for us. He's a primary option. We want to get him the ball inside. And he's responded and now feels very good about his game. And I think he's excited about his role on our team.

Q. You said the streak is not necessarily a subject that you guys talk about. But externally, do you hear, other than on this conference call and the media, do you hear about it from the students?
COACH BROWNELL: Certainly. Certainly. Our fans, especially the ones that are Clemson grads that live in North Carolina, you know, when I was doing our prowl and growls and meeting people, they would say they'd like nothing more than see us win a game there. And gotten e-mails.
There's certainly some interest of people on this end that they want to end the streak and all that. But we haven't talked about it within our program at all. And I don't plan on talking about it between now and tip.

Q. Coach, you've had a lot of success this year forcing turnovers. I think you're probably plus 40 or 45. And UNC had some trouble handling the ball. Is that an area that you think you might be able to exploit tomorrow night?
COACH BROWNELL: I don't know about that. I don't think that we go into the game thinking that we're going to create a bunch of turnovers. We're just going to try to get back and set our defense, and that's very difficult to do against them.
Coach Williams has done an unbelievable job of establishing a tempo and a way that they want to play that puts unbelievable pressure on your defense and they push the ball and attack you right from the first five seconds of the possession.
We certainly don't want to get caught on our heels and have those guys attacking us all game. But I don't know that we're going to go into the game thinking that we're going to get a bunch of turnovers and all those kinds of things. But certainly we're going to try to get our defense set and pressure the ball when we can and just try to be in good position off the ball.

Q. Could you talk about Milton Jennings? Seems like he's coming around a little bit. What's he doing to show the improved output?
COACH BROWNELL: Oh, I think he's just another guy that maybe didn't play much last year. And when he did play and maybe played poorly, like a lot of coaches, we tend to take guys like that out of the game and sometimes don't put them back in. Or they play a little bit more passively.
I've just tried to give Milton some more time and some more freedom and let him play through some mistakes and keep him on the court a little bit more and encourage him that good plays are going to happen.
And he's made good plays. He's had bad stretches at times. And he's gotten to play through them. And I think it's just giving him a little more confidence. He's still not all the way there yet, but he's a young man that has a good skill set, very talented and just needs some positive reinforcement and some positive play to build his confidence, and hopefully some of that has happened to date and will continue to happen through the rest of the season.

Q. Given you've had a few days since your last game, and I'm sure you had your preparations pretty well in place, can a singular performance like North Carolina's game late on Sunday night, can that lead you to kind of change on the fly, change things on short notice just after watching one performance or one game like that pretty close to your matchup with that team?
COACH BROWNELL: Oh, I guess it could, if you did a lot of different types of things. But we don't really play a lot of different ways. We don't play a million different defenses.
So we're really not going to plan on changing our game plan from what we've been doing the last couple of days in practice and getting ready for this game.
But certainly I think with some coaches it might affect some things or whatnot. I also think you have to take into consideration it was a tough night for North Carolina. They didn't play very well. They missed some shots they probably normally make.
To Georgia Tech's credit, those guys scrapped and clawed and played really hard. And Iman Shumpert and Glen Rice, Jr. were outstanding and made big shots. And momentum is a powerful thing at this level. And they just got it going in the right direction.
And North Carolina just seemed to have a little bit of a bad night.
THE MODERATOR: Thank you, Coach.

End of FastScripts

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