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ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE MEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 14, 2014Brad BrownellRod HallGREENSBORO, NORTH CAROLINA Duke – 63 COACH BROWNELL: Obviously this is a difficult defeat. Couldn't be prouder of my players. To show the resiliency we did throughout the game especially in the second half when we looked like we were dead again. Our guys just have a lot of fight. They just kept coming. And, you know, we made it a one‑possession game and two bang bang plays right at the end at the basket. They got a call and made one and we didn't. That's not the end of the world, but it's painful right now. It's very painful for a group of guys that have put so much into it. And obviously, you know, with a win today, we maybe would have still had a chance to make the NCAA Tournament. So I think that's what makes it so hard. But proud of my guys. Great effort and congratulate Duke on a good win. Q. Hey, Coach, this is for Rod Hall too. Just talk about that last possession and your thoughts, foul, no foul, good call? COACH BROWNELL: Yeah, I can't really make comments like that. I haven't seen it. I don't know. It's a bang bang play. We did exactly what we wanted. It's something we practiced and guys executed it beautifully. We got it to our guy who we want to have it drive into the rim. You know, there's contact. There's nothing there. That's part of what you're trying to do, you got four seconds or less, get it to the paint and make a play and we did that. Q. Rod, just walk us through the possession. ROD HALL: We drew up the play. We go through it in practice often. Coach knew he wanted to get me the ball and I tried to make something happen at the rim and the referee didn't call nothing. So I just had to deal with it. Q. Brad, were there thoughts if we can win this one and another one, there would be an NCAA Tournament bid out there? This would have been a 21st win. COACH BROWNELL: Certainly, if you win the tournament, you got a chance to go without anybody deliberating. And we played well enough tonight to feel like we could win again tomorrow. So that's one factor. But certainly, you know, we've played good basketball here down the stretch and, you know, we've had a couple of controversial calls that have gone against us here late. That's part of basketball. Something guys got to learn from. But the most important thing and what I told our team, is how proud I am of the way they compete. I don't think there's many people in the arena that felt like this game was going to get to a one‑possession game and Clemson would ever have the lead. Q. Coach, I wanted you to take just a second and talk about your defense in the first half. And then in the start of the second half I thought you guys did a wonderful job of preventing Duke from getting the looks that they want and the fact that you held them to just six three‑point attempts in the first half, was that by design? Can you help me out on that one? COACH BROWNELL: Yeah. We certainly were trying to guard the three. You know, they make over nine a game. They shoot terrific percentage and we played great defensively for 18minutes and then had a couple of bad plays at the end. Duke made a couple of adjustments, got a couple of dunks. One was a steal. Two were good offensive possessions by them. Certainly we felt by the way we played defensively in the first half we were going to have a chance. Duke came out after halftime and played well again and put us on our heels, but our guys dug in and fought and we've done that all year. And gave ourselves a chance to do some good things. Certainly they're a talented group. Parker and Hood are really good players, hard to guard. We did about as good a job defensively as we could expect to do today. Q. Coach, you had that run in the second half. I think you scored on six of seven possessions and it got you back in the game. What were you guys getting done during that stretch that got you back in it? COACH BROWNELL: I don't know. I mean, sometimes when you get down a little bit, I think guys almost play with a little more confidence. There's not as much to lose in your mind. So if you miss a shot, you know, you're already behind seven or eight or ten or whatever it is. There's quite ‑‑ you just shoot with a little more confidence, a little more carefree. I think we executed some things well. We hadn't shot well most of the night. We usually have stretches where we don't score, but then we also have stretches where we'll look really good for 10 or 12 possessions and look like a great team. The problem is where we have ten possessions where we don't look very good. That's why we aren't better than we are. We usually find 10, 12 stretches during games and we stream those together. And when we do, that's when we make our runs. It either puts us well ahead or it gets us back into a game. Tonight it got us back into a game. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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