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ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE BASKETBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

February 21, 2011

Brad Brownell

THE MODERATOR: We have with us Clemson Head Coach Brad Brownell. Coach, if you could, a few comments about your team, then we'll open for questions.
COACH BROWNELL: Well, we bounced back after a difficult loss at NC State with a nice win yesterday against a very gritty Miami team. Hard-fought game back and forth. Fortunately for us we had some guys really step up and make a couple of shots and some big free throws down the stretch to sneak out of there with a win. Miami's a team that's been in a lot of those situations. We've been in quite a few ourselves. Sometimes it's worked out.
But a lot of times it hasn't. But I think getting ourselves into that position several times before helped us execute a little bit better down the stretch and guys made some big shots and big plays. So it certainly was a good win for us with a week to get ready for Wake.
THE MODERATOR: Questions?

Q. Coming in as a first-year coach when you first laid your eyes on Demontez, what did you think? And as he's progressed through the season, what kind of year do you think he's given you?
COACH BROWNELL: You know, just in watching him play, I quickly found out in working with him a little bit we didn't get the job early enough. But I worked with him for about a week before we had to stop individual workouts. His competitiveness came out. He's a very competitive young man. Very prideful.
He's a kid who I think is having a very good season for us. He's asked to do a lot of different things defensively guarding the ball sometimes. Other times guarding teams' best shooters. We've moved him around in different spots.
Sometimes we outlet the ball to him, let him be a primary ball handler and go make plays in transition. Other times we move him off the ball trying to get him coming off some screens and giving him some different looks. I think he's enjoyed that and having a little bit of a different role maybe not just always being the primary ball handler.
But he's had a very good season for us. He's helped us, I think, do more than a lot of people thought. Certainly the emergence of Jerai Grant has helped as well. But those two guys are obviously a big reason why we've had some success this year.

Q. When you're in year one at a program, what are some of the behind-the-scene challenges you face besides the coaching responsibilities but trying to learn the culture of a program, getting on the same page with administrators and things of that nature?
COACH BROWNELL: I think it just takes more time to do things. You know, proper procedure in terms of requests to travel, recruiting, expectations for speaking, meeting with boosters. You know, their familiarity with you in terms of how you like to do things.
So there's just everything from where to house your guys in the dorms to dealing with the academic people and building relationships with people. You know, it just takes time to build quality relationships with people. I don't think you can do that quickly.
I think that comes over time. It comes over consistent, positive relationships with people and positive encounters.
And so you know it's really strange when you're hired to a new school. You really don't know each other as well as people might think. They interview you a couple of times. You spend three or four hours together a couple times. You spend some time over the phone.
They certainly do their due diligence of checking you out and all those kinds of things and talking to people about you. But at the end of the day, in terms of your relationship with your administrators and the people that you're going to be working with on a daily basis, you don't have much of a relationship yet.
And so you're kind of learning to work together and build a relationship together. And so everything just goes a little bit slower, and you gotta figure out how everybody likes things done. And again sometimes it requires a little more of your time so it feels like you have a little less time to deal with your players and to deal with the things of basketball.

Q. You mentioned recruiting, specifically on that angle, what is the difficulty of putting together a blueprint than trying to sort of figure out a strange time of year when you get the job, what way to go with the next few classes?
COACH BROWNELL: Yeah. You come in. When it's not right in the area where you've been -- I mean, I've been in this area a little bit having been in Wilmington for 12 years and we recruit some part of this part of country certainly. But then four years in Ohio, we were mostly recruiting Indiana, Ohio, Illinois, and Michigan. So I really wasn't paying attention to the class of 2012 down here.
So you get the job, and you've got to quickly try to figure out what can you do in a situation where you're behind in recruiting, really, for probably a year and a half, behind all the schools that you're competing against, who are the kids you can get, who are the kids that you don't want to waste too much time on because you're behind the eight ball already; it's too far gone down the relationship trail.
And then how best can you utilize your time. And you certainly have to learn about your school again and all the things that you want to sell about your school. So that takes a little bit of time. But it just feels like you're playing catch up mode for the first recruiting class or two. You just can't quite feel like you catch up on all the people that have been recruiting those people for over a year.

Q. A week off this late in the season, what do you hope to accomplish with the time off leading up to the game this weekend?
COACH BROWNELL: Well, we'll take a little time here early. We'll be off today and then the guys will do a little bit of weightlifting and do some shooting tomorrow. But not quite as strenuous, because I do think especially teams like ours that maybe don't have quite as much depth as some other people, we do have to be a little sensitive to the amount of minutes that some of our guys are playing.
And so we've got to be very careful to manage the legs of our guys and make sure that they're fresh come game time here. You don't play for five or six days but then you play Wake on Saturday and Duke, and then the next Saturday you've got Virginia Tech. So you have three games in seven or eight days again right after that.
So you kind of have to have that in mind in terms of keeping guys fresh. But you want to be sharp. So you need to get into the gym on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, you need to have good productive practices. And some days may be longer than others. But you just -- you try to get better at some things that maybe you haven't done as well recently. Maybe for one day like Wednesday and then Thursday and Friday you really, you focus more on Wake Forest.

End of FastScripts

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