Postgame Quotes

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Clemson Head Coach Brad Brownell

Overall thoughts:
“It was a great team win tonight. I thought our guys really competed.
Virginia is so fundamentally sound and in good position, so your effort
has to be supreme. I challenged our guys at halftime that we couldn’t let
this opportunity get away from us. We were in position to beat this team
tonight, and we needed to take advantage of it. I thought our guys came
out very spirited and played very well.”

On using his deep bench to his advantage:
“I thought we did a good job offensively of making them play defense. We
wanted to try to wear them down. They don’t play as many guys as some
people. Obviously Harris’ hand was bothering him a little bit, so we felt
like this was a game where we could wear them down a little bit. I thought
that on both ends of the court, we needed to push them.”

On the play of Devin Coleman:
“He’s starting to do some things in games now that we’ve seen in practice.
He has a good ability to move off screens in our offense. It’s taken him a
while to figure things out on both ends of the court in terms of how we
want to play. He just needed a couple of shots to go down to take the
pressure off.”

On building on the lead late in the game:
“I thought the key was our second half defense. There were some
opportunities for them to make a little run. There were some shots they
missed. But by and large, we didn’t give them very many easy baskets. They
had to go earn them.”

On any differences in defending Mike Scott from the first game:
“Nothing drastic, other than just having a little better feel for how good
he is. Our guys understand when you play against a guy, as opposed to you
telling them he is a good player. When you go up against a guy and you
know he’s a good player after playing him, you know you’d better compete
and be ready or you’ll get embarrassed. I thought our guys at least did a
better job.”

Virginia Head Coach Tony Bennett

Overall Thoughts:
“When you’re in a game that’s lower scoring, possessions really matter.
Whether it’s a turnover on our end or we make a defensive mistake, those
possessions hurt and sting. If you look at the stat sheet, the tell-tale
numbers are the 18 turnovers, especially in a game with this few
possessions. That’s 18 times we don’t get a chance to get a shot. We shot
50 percent, but our three-point shooting was poor. Without Joe [Harris] we’re not
as much of a threat from three. Those missed shots and turnovers are
really crucial in a game like this.”

On three straight possessions with turnovers:
“They made a couple of good plays, but we were just being careless. We
tried to feed the post and we just didn’t value the ball. Some of it was
also just active defense by Clemson.”

On Sammy Zeglinski’s lack of scoring opportunities in the second half:
“He didn’t pass up many open shots, they just played pretty good defense
on him. He had a hard time getting by the guys they were playing on him.
He also tried to be a team guy. A lot of times when your shot is
struggling, you look to make the next pass.”

On Clemson’s defense against Mike Scott:
“We shot the ball better at Virginia. We stretched it out that way,
especially from three. They also didn’t have [Milton] Jennings that game.
He’s a long, athletic defender. They had to guard Mike [Scott] with
[Catalin] Baciu and other guys, which allowed Mike to move away from the
basket and get some looks that way, and it also allowed him to get inside
because they had to be mindful of our outside shooting. Also, our
turnovers took away five or six opportunities for him to get shots off.”

On Devin Booker’s play in the second half:
“He took advantage of us getting worn down as the game went on. He ducked
in hard on the inside and his physicality showed. He played like a man out
there.”