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NCAA MEN'S 1ST AND 2ND ROUNDS: SAN DIEGO

March 16, 2018

San Diego, California

Clemson - 79, New Mexico State - 68

THE MODERATOR: For Clemson, head coach, Brad Brownell, student-athletes are Gabe DeVoe and Shelton Mitchell. We will begin with statement from Coach Brownell.

BRAD BROWNELL: Terrific win for our team. Thought our guards especially these two guys just played outstanding. You know, the game was a little bit different in both halves. I thought the first half both teams were excited to play, got after each other a little bit. The second half they really changed the way the game was. They started trapping and pressing because they got down and made it aggressive and really they turned it into game where players have to make plays and fortunately our guards are good enough to do that. I thought we did a good job of attacking the paint, playing out of the paint and finished off with a pretty good job defensively.

Q. Shelton, talk about the Aggies made a run, got within 6 points and then you took it upon yourself to put it away there. What was that about?
SHELTON MITCHELL: Really just being aggressive. Coach called a lot of good plays, and I knew we had to execute. So the execution was key in that situation.

Q. Did you feel like it was up to you in that moment you scored 7 straight points?
SHELTON MITCHELL: No, not really. We have a bunch of good guys on our team. We all can make plays at any time. Today it just happened to be me.

Q. I know you guys said you hadn't worried about all the talk that you were going to get upset, but did that fuel you at all being in the national attention in that light all week?
GABE DeVOE: Not really. You heard about it a lot, but we just worried about the guys in the locker room, come out and play the game the same, came out and stayed with our game plan and came out with a win.

Q. New Mexico State's came into the game as one of the better defensive teams in the country. It seemed like you were scoring at will at times in the game. Was it game planning this week in practice that led to the good offensive performance or did you get caught off guard by your own shooting performance on the court tonight?
GABE DeVOE: Not really. I think they came out aggressive, try to knock over passes that opened up driving lanes for us. We did a good job of finishing around the rim.

SHELTON MITCHELL: We knew we had to be aggressive with the ball and be strong with it. They are a feisty team, so really just playing strong at all times on offense.

Q. What are your thoughts on Zach Lofton? Talk about the kind of player he was against you guys tonight?
GABE DeVOE: That was my match-up starting off, so he's a good guard. Just tried to make his early shots tough to mess up his rhythm. Tried to get in his head a little bit, staying aggressive, not giving him any easy looks.

THE MODERATOR: Thank you, gentlemen. Questions for Coach Brownell?

Q. This isn't related to your game, but I was wondering, I'm sure it's been brought to your attention that Virginia lost.
BRAD BROWNELL: I didn't know that.

Q. Virginia lost, first No. 1 seed to ever drop a game in the tournament. Do you have a reaction to that?
BRAD BROWNELL: Well, obviously I'm surprised. I've got the utmost respect for Coach Bennett, their program, their staff and players and what they do. You know, they lost DeAndrÃ© Hunter who is probably their most talented front court player, and I know from experience that our first game after losing our most talented player was not a good one. We went to Virginia and lost by 25.

It's extremely difficult to adjust on the run. So, you know, I just know that that's hard. Obviously a lot of credit goes to the team that they played because I know how good Virginia is and it's hard to beat 'em. But I also think it's another example of, you know, college basketball has changed in terms of the landscape of talent. There's more better players than ever and the differences between 1's and 16's is narrowed just like with 2's and 15's and 3's and 14's and all that. I don't think there is a big difference between 5 and 12's, 6 and 13's. I just don't think there is a difference anymore. Obviously 1 and 16 there is probably, but I didn't see anything about it. But certainly it is surprising.

Q. What does it say about your team being able to stay with it at the end?
BRAD BROWNELL: They're good players. Our guys have been through a lot this year. There has been a lot on our guys, Gabe and Shelton and Marcquise. They have had to shoulder the load in a lot of situations. They are good guys. They can play. If we just give them space and tell them to make plays. It's as simple as that. I'm just proud of our guys for believing in our team, believing in what we do, how we do things. Our preparation was extremely good this week. Our guys were very focused and I knew we would play well. I think we showed that today. We weren't surprised at all by what we saw and I wasn't surprised by how well our players played. This is a big-time atmosphere that we haven't been in in a while, but I think our guys showed that they're more than capable and ready to be in this environment.

Q. Brad, you said you weren't surprised. You knew what they were about and Jemerrio Jones ends up with his 14 rebounds, Zach Lofton ends up with his 29 points. I think that would be the top of the scouting report for a team like New Mexico State, but they got of their made field goals. Was it a game plan of let them do their thing and stop everybody else?
BRAD BROWNELL: I don't know if it was exactly that. We knew that Jemerrio Jones was going to get a bunch of rebounds. We just didn't want them to be put-backs for points and I don't think many of them were. He got a couple the first play the second half, and we knew Zach Lofton would get 18 to 22 points. But we wanted him to shoot a lot of shots to get 'em. He had 29, which we didn't do as well as we needed to do in that scenario. He took 12 threes, which is a lot and was 4 for 12. I thought defensively we did a lot of good thing in the game, we made them really work, and it's always harder to defend when you are up 14 or 16 in the middle of the second half against guys like that who are coming at you aggressively. It's just the nature of basketball. It's hard to hold on to leads like this and I thought our guys withstood it pretty well and I was pleased with the way we rebounded the ball today and made plays down the stretch against a good, aggressive team.

Q. Congratulations on the win. I know coming into the week with the student-athletes that there was a lot of talk on New Mexico State's being the trendy upset pick. Did you use that as motivating factor in practice this week? Was it talked about?
BRAD BROWNELL: We mentioned it, but we're not like some big chip on our shoulder, underdog. We talked about at the beginning of the season that we not didn't concern ourselves with we're picked 13th in our league and nobody believes in us because none of that really matters. It doesn't matter in these games if you go in as a coach and give them the Knute Rockne speech and tell them all that. Three minutes into the game it's all about making plays.

So for us it's about preparing the right way, believing in what we're doing and believing in each other and executing our game plan which is way more important than worrying about what's said around the outside.

Q. Brad, it's been a while since you guys have shot the ball that well. I think NC State was the last time you shot that well. Did you have an idea that was coming tonight?
BRAD BROWNELL: The nature of the way they play, we talked about taking the ball to the basket and if they're going to deny passes and make it hard around the perimeter and take away threes, you're going to have to attack the basket. We did that. Some teams guard pack line. They're pressure. We wanted a mix of interior touches with our post players. We wanted drives to the paint. We wanted to shoot more free throws than we did, but I think our guys are strong and athletic. We were able to get in there and make plays and finish plays and we play in the ACC. Every game is like that. You're going up against big guys, strong guys and that's not easy to do. So we're used to competing against those not kind of athletes and attacking the basket like that.

Q. Coach, New Mexico State's cut it to 6 with 5 minutes to go and you guys responded to every run. Was there anything specific that you said to the guys during the timeout?
BRAD BROWNELL: Not really. I think we just, we spread it out a little bit, you know. We kind of stopped calling plays. The longer the game went the less plays we ran and we allowed our guys the freedom to make plays, get out of each other's way a little bit because I think it was easier to play in space than it was to try and run action and force passes and do different things against that kind of pressure. I didn't think was as productive, and when you do that you've got to have good players that can go make the plays and unfortunately for me we do.

THE MODERATOR: Thank you, Coach.

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