ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE BASKETBALL TIPOFF MEDIA DAY

October 12, 2022

Brad Brownell

Chase Hunter

Hunter Tyson

Clemson Tigers

Press Conference

Q. Coach, Brevin Galloway is your only incoming transfer for the season and he's from Anderson, South Carolina, right outside of Clemson. In this era of frequent roster turnover. Is there something to be said for having home grown talent like the Clemson team has?

HUBERT DAVIS: Yeah, obviously Brevin is a guy that we've known for a while. Watched him throughout his career at College of Charleston where he played for Earl Grant, who obviously worked with us.

You know, he's a good player, and so we knew that when he was excited about having an opportunity to come home that he would be a really good addition to our team.

We really try to recruit in our breadbasket, which we kind of consider anywhere three to four hours from Clemson. So there's a lot of good players in Charlotte and in North Carolina, Atlanta and Georgia and South Carolina that fall into that three- to four-hour breadbasket, and he happens to be one that's kind of right in our backyard.

But you'll see a lot of our freshmen, we've gotten those guys from Atlanta here recently, and that's been really good to us.

Q. What's PJ's status? How is he doing in his recovery?

HUBERT DAVIS: Well, he's doing great. But it's challenging. It's a tough couple of injuries. It's been a hard off-season for him. I'm really proud of him the way he's attacked his rehab. He's had two.

So he's doing well. He's ahead of schedule. We're optimistic that he'll play in November at some point. We don't know when. But I do think the next two to three weeks are really the most important times for that.

He's had no contact. He's done nothing with our team. He's just been on the side doing a little shooting and conditioning and trying to get his leg stronger with all the surgery he's had.

But he's doing very well. Again, I'm optimistic that he could be back early in the season. We'll have to wait and see.

Q. Chase, my question for you is obviously your brother is playing with you now, Dillon Hunter. What has it been like playing with him and having him at Clemson with you?

CHASE HUNTER: It's definitely been a great experience. We've already had some chemistry being that we played together in high school.

For me it's been different because now I'm in a leadership role as far as basketball. Usually we're just at home just chilling.

But yeah, it's been a good experience for sure. I would say for me, just learning how to talk to him on a basketball level, not more of a brother level. Sometimes we do butt heads and argue a little bit, but he's catching on. He's learning fast. He's going to be good.

Q. Coach, as you're watching that dynamic between the two brothers, do you feel like you need to step in at times or do you let it work itself out?

HUBERT DAVIS: No, I haven't had to step in. It's been good. It's funny because Chase is a little quieter. He just kind of plays, and we're trying to get him to be more vocal. And it's funny, because in practice I'm up top a lot and they're kind of -- Chase or Dillon is usually out there.

Both are kind of playing the guard spots, point guard spots, and every once in a while now I'm hearing Chase from behind me coaching his brother. Like he's coaching his brother, like, hey, Coach told you not to do that; you're not listening.

I'm just thinking to myself, wow, that's great that Chase did listen because sometimes he wasn't always communicating himself.

Now, he doesn't communicate like that with the other guys on the team enough, but he certainly doesn't have any problem correcting his little brother. But Dillon has been great. He's a good player, and he's a guy that wants to learn, and obviously those two guys together have been really fun to coach, and that dynamic has been a fun one for us and our team.

Q. Hunter, speaking of learning, we've used this a couple of times today. What is it that you've learned in your time at Clemson, something you know now that you did not know when you first came in?

HUNTER TYSON: Man, there's so many things. One thing that comes to mind that I've really been trying to pass down to our freshmen is just the importance of -- I understand guys that your head is spinning, the game feels like it's a million miles an hour, but you've just got to stick with it.

As long as you stick with it, I promise it's not as bad as it seems, and it'll all work itself out.

Q. So are you saying that it does slow down in time?

HUNTER TYSON: Oh, absolutely. Absolutely it slows down.

Q. Coach, team went on an overseas trip to France. Beyond the basketball, what was accomplished?

HUBERT DAVIS: Oh, a lot really. It was a phenomenal experience for our players. Certainly the camaraderie that we built, the team spirit, morale was awesome, and has continued today. We have a great group of young men that are a pleasure to coach and a lot of fun to be around. I enjoy them every day.

But as much as anything, I hope our trip to Normandy hit home with our players, and I think it did. It needs to be reminded. We all need to be reminded of things like that, people that sacrificed and gave the ultimate sacrifice for us to have the kind of lives we have.

We talked about it a lot, going to the different places, certainly the cemetery was inspiring, and to see the graves of six Clemson students who paid the ultimate sacrifice I think really hit home with our players.

There's so many things that came from that, but I hope that's one that sticks with them for a long time.

Q. Brad, just from a basketball perspective, what did you learn about your team on that trip, and how do you feel like it helped you guys come together?

HUBERT DAVIS: You know what, I learned that we're a versatile group. We're bigger, obviously, than we've been the last couple of years, and I think we can play a lot of different ways. We can play with three guards. We can play Hunter Tyson at the 3. We can be bigger.

It just reaffirmed what I already knew, which is that we have a lot of great kids in our program that want to be coached and want to be good and want to work and like each other and want to have fun and just have a good experience. We've kind of done all that.

We had an incredible summer together. We worked really hard, got to take a great trip together, and now we're hopefully going to see the fruits of some of that labor this fall in our season.

But we're off to a great start. Our momentum is really positive and good, and I think, again, we need to stay healthy. We haven't been as healthy as we'd like the last couple of years. These two guys have both been injured. We need those guys and PJ to achieve all that we want to.

Q. Brad, a healthy PJ, does he make you a completely different team?

HUBERT DAVIS: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think PJ is one of the five or six best players in our league if he's healthy. By the time hopefully we get to ACC, he's able to show all that because he is healthy and he's got some game experience.

He won't have played since last year. He won't have much time in the fall. He really hasn't played since last season. So it's going to be -- we're going to have to be patient. I've got to be patient. Our team has to be patient with him.

But he is extremely talented and a competitive young man. He's got great hands. He can catch. He can shoot. He's playing with confidence, or he was finishing the year with confidence, which I think is really important.

He's a guy who's now had to overcome two off-season surgeries. I think that humbles you a little, as well, and it makes you appreciate every day, and I think we're going to get everything we possibly can out of him, and he's an extremely talented player.

Q. What do you like about your schedule? You've got a bit of a tournament style event in November, one in December. How is that all shaking out?

HUBERT DAVIS: I mean, I like our schedule. We've tried to challenge ourselves as best we could. We've got a couple neutral site games against teams that have NCAA Tournament aspirations, have been there and have those kind of veteran teams.

We've got a great tournament down in Florida with NCAA teams. We've scheduled a couple mid-major teams that won their leagues last year. So we've tried to do everything we can to put our guys in a position to play meaningful games in November and December.

Then obviously I think the league is going to be tremendous. I thought it was better than people realized last year, and it probably showed itself in the NCAA Tournament with how well our teams did, and I think that number will be more this year.

Q. Coach, Clemson's average attendance last season was its lowest since the 1970s. Why do you think that is, and what can be done to sort of galvanize and attract the student body at Clemson?

HUBERT DAVIS: You know, I don't know. I do think the COVID situation, people are still -- we're still trying to kind of get bearings from that.

We've got to do our part and play well and create some excitement, which I think we will.

I think it'll be different just because of that. I think people, now that we're getting away from a little bit more of the COVID experience that fans are more comfortable coming out, and I think that's going to happen this year, as well.

Q. Chase, you've got a second half of last season that you really can build upon for this season. What is it about the end of last season that you've been able to take with you through the off-season, through the workouts, all the way up to today?

CHASE HUNTER: I would say just staying confident. I did end up well, and it was a season for me definitely that was good just for my confidence and my game.

I would say this summer, just learning how to keep that going. Just coming in every day and just working. I definitely want the same results this year, and I'm going to work to make that happen.

Q. Hunter, do you have to win a championship to call it a successful season?

HUNTER TYSON: Well, I don't know if we have to win a championship to call it a successful season. Now, obviously that is our main goal, but I think a successful season for the Clemson Tigers just looks like playing our best basketball at the end of the year, working hard every day, taking every opportunity we can to just be the best team we can be.