Brad Brownell Notebook: Full Transcriptions from San Diego
BRAD BROWNELL: Just excited to be here for game 2. Really proud of the way our guys played yesterday. I thought we executed our game plan exceptionally well and showed very good poise down the stretch and late in the game when they made a run. So excited about that. Know we have our hands full with an Auburn team that is extremely talented, a lot of similarities, especially with guard play. They have terrific guards. They rebound the fire out of the ball, attack the glass with three and sometimes four guys. So I think we have to do a good job in that area as well.
Q. Brad, today you went ahead and had practice early. What's your thought process in that? Is it to let the guys have the afternoon off?
BRAD BROWNELL: Yeah, we like to get off our feet as often as we can. We like to be done 24 hours ahead of practice, or ahead of the game time, and we play tomorrow at 4 and we want to be done with everything as soon as we could. We met this morning and got a few things in and then, you know, we want for about an hour this afternoon and now we will have a night meeting and get up and get ready to go.
Q. It's been 19 years since Clemson has won a first round game in March Madness.
BRAD BROWNELL: You're not even 19 years old.
Q. Some of your players and me weren't even born yet. How do you think your guards match up with the Auburn guards in this match-up?
BRAD BROWNELL: I think it's going to be a big part of the game. I really do. Those three guys for them really control it and we're the same way. I think a big part of which team wins will be which set of guards plays better. I think they both, all three guys can shoot it, drive it to the paint, make plays. I think it will be exciting to watch this game because of the quality of play out on the perimeter.
Q. Coach, I was in there talking to your three guards and they said they all have known each other since high school, some of them played against each other their sophomore and junior years in Shelton and Gabe, and Marcquise played with Gabe in an AAU event his senior year. How does a friendship among guys carry over on to the court when they start playing in the heat of the battle and things start to matter?
BRAD BROWNELL: I think as much as anything, when you really like the guys you're playing with, you're willing to sacrifice more. That's something we talk a lot about at Clemson is being unselfish in nature and having a willingness to want to sacrifice for the good of the team. And our guys certainly like each other, have a great relationship with one another, and I think when you watch us play, you see that.
One night it's Gabe. One night it's Shelton and Marcquise. When we're lucky it's all three. Some of that stems from the fact that these guys enjoy each other as people and as friends and spend time together not only on the court but away from the court as well.
Q. Coach, the other day you talked about the symbiotic relationship between the basketball and football program at Clemson. I was just in the locker room and rumor has it that Dabo Swinney shows up at your facility to play pick-up basketball. What kind of player is he and does he bring his own uniforms?
BRAD BROWNELL: Coach Swinney does show up and play basketball. He's not there all the time. He has other things to do. He shows up in the offseason. He's a chucker. He's going to get his shots up and there is really nobody in the gym unless I'm there that is going to tell him he's shot too much. Most of the guys he's playing are GAs and assistants or other people in the athletic department that are scared of him. I joke, but he does love basketball. He was a high school player, and he was a good player in high school.
There are jerseys, but he buys the jerseys. If you reach a certain level you're deemed to get a jersey. You have to earn your jersey according to him, and it says NTBA, Noontime Basketball Association, and he's obviously the chairman.
Q. As a follow-up to that --
BRAD BROWNELL: No, he doesn't rebound and defend very well.
Q. When you got here you said he was more enthused than anyone on your team. Has he reached out at all to you by text message or anything?
BRAD BROWNELL: Oh, yeah. We've gotten some texts; and, yeah, like I said, he's a big basketball fan. He and I are pretty good friends, our families. So I greatly appreciate his friendship, and he has reached out and his wife reached out to me and Paula. They're terrific. He's been a true friend for me through this time, and we have a good time together. It's a great way to have somebody to be able to relax with every once in a while and kick back, but also to go to him for professional advice when you got things going on, and we talk about different things together that way. It's been great. He's obviously reached out to us and he will be watching.
Q. The last 24 hours, what has it been like for you to hear the people telling you, you know, what this team has accomplished, balancing out that it's been so long since you've gotten to this point and balancing out with we've still got work to do. Appreciating what you've done and also looking forward?
BRAD BROWNELL: It hasn't been as crazy as everybody thinks it is. We had a great night last night. It was great for our program. We have a lot of boosters that came out with us that have been a big part of what we've been able to build at Clemson these last 80 years. We've had folks that have been extremely generous, not only with their money but with their time and have become friends. They're not just boosters to me because they're people that have really done more for our program in terms of spending time with us and following us and traveling with us and going on foreign tours with us and just really getting behind our program and have made the difference to help us renovate our coliseum and create an unbelievable environment for our players. Those people have become friends of mine.
To share last night with them, although very briefly for me, was special and a lot of fun and obviously my family was here, my parents and wife and kids and my sister and her family. So to share that time with them was really special. It was about an hour. Then it was right to Auburn. You know, beyond that, it's been business as usual. You're watching film until 2 in the morning. You're up at 6 in the morning watching more film and trying to prepare your team to play as well as they can play tomorrow at four.
Q. Brad, as far as the ACC goes you guys play a roughly schedule where a couple of times a year you have to go less than 48 hours to play a fame?
BRAD BROWNELL: Yeah.
Q. How has that helped you? I remember you said this season you had to cut back in practice because you noticed your team was getting tired and fatigued. What are the changes you made in practice?
BRAD BROWNELL: We shortened practice a little bit and went a little less contact, a little more noncontact practice at certain times in the year. Especially with the amount of minutes that some of our guards were playing and just worried about those guys being able to hold up. I think we did a good job with that. That was one thing with Donte's injury. We're not as deep as we were at the beginning of the season. I think now we're doing fine. I think guys are excited and we're ready to play. I do think having had a couple of these two-day turnarounds in the regular ACC season and obviously we played in the MTE a long time ago now back in November.
So we're used to these preps, but it is a little different. Auburn plays a little different than most ACC schools. I don't know that they run an offense that's the same of anybody in our league. So that part is a little bit unique.
Q. With football at its height a couple of years ago how did that change basketball?
BRAD BROWNELL: We're still at a pretty high level. We made the Final Four and we have a top-10 recruiting class. We're not going anywhere. We're not quite a basketball school yet!
Q. Did you ever imagine that you would be a basketball school relative to football there?
BRAD BROWNELL: That would get me in trouble with a lot of people to answer the question that way. No, but I do think what I am optimistic about is that we can certainly co-exist in a very positive way.
The success of the football program over the course of the last five, six, seven years with Coach Swinney has been unbelievable, not just for men's basketball but for our athletic department, our university and our community.
Q. So what have you felt in the fan base that hard-core Clemson fan base about raising expectations for your program given where football has been? Is there a palpable sense of that?
BRAD BROWNELL: No question. Our folks want to win in everything we do, whatever sport we play at Clemson. We're now at a position facility-wise and support to give ourselves a better chance. I don't think in the past we have always done that. We may have given lip service to it, but I don't think that we actually showed as a university that we really care about basketball in certain situations. We've worked hard, especially these last seven or eight years, to change that perception. To go out and fundraise and fundraise and finance and figure out a way to build a new facility and show that we care.
Obviously, that starts with making the players in your program feel good about being a Clemson basketball player and then it helps in recruiting and everything that goes with it, and then as you start to win you build a stronger fan base. We sold out seven or eight of our games this year at home. We have great attendance. We have passionate fans. They want to win. We're in an unbelievable league. We just haven't had long periods of success. We have a couple good years and then go away quietly for a few years and then try to come back and that's something we're trying to change right now.
Q. I was asking the players in the locker room about Clemson grit and they said you came up with it and gave them a speech after Family Day. What does it mean to you and how has it applied to this season?
BRAD BROWNELL: Grit, passion, and perseverance toward a long-term goal and that can be applied to many things. I think that's something I wanted to challenge our players with because I don't think young people really, long-term isn't how they think. And it's not just a season. It might be a college career. It might be a professional career. It might be graduating from college. It can pertain to just about anything. But you need to have tremendous passion for something in your life if you want to be successful.
There's going to be ups and downs. There's going to be difficult times. If you're going to be successful you need to be able to persevere through that and have this undying belief in your yourself and this passion of what you want to achieve that you're willing to work for it and you are willing to go through these ups and downs and these challenges.
To me, that's what "grit" is. Staying power. It's something that we have talked about the last couple of years. We thought we need maybe, one of my assistants came to me and said we need to "brand" our program a little bit. So that was something I came up with and I think it's been good for our guys.
Q. I'm curious from your vantage point watching Elijah Thomas grow on the floor and off the floor. You know he has a 1-year-old son. I got to imagine when you heard he was going to have a child you were wondering how can he handle this? How can he handle that joy of being a father along with committing to basketball and his academics?
BRAD BROWNELL: He's really maturing both on and off court, and I think having a son has helped in that regard for him because I think it's put more responsibility in his life, and it's made him grow up a little bit and think beyond himself. Which, again, is challenging for young people. I think it's been a good thing for him. He certainly is motivated to be a good basketball player, but he's also motivated to be a good father. He wants to do right by his son. He lights up once every two weeks he's going to bring me a photo of his son doing something different, and he's upset with me that I haven't offered him a scholarship yet. He keeps saying that to me, and I'm saying, I'm not sure I would have offered you one knowing all that I know right now. I'm proud of Eli. I really am. His growth this year has been a big difference maker for our team. Defensively he's been a difference maker, and I thought at the beginning of the day yesterday his difference in rebounding helped us get off to a great start.
Q. We know about David Skara on the court with his defensive ability, but what is his personality like off court?
BRAD BROWNELL: He's hard to get to know like that. He's pretty quiet. Just kind of goes about his business, but an easy-going guy. Gets along with everybody. He rooms with Eli, so those two guys have some fun and poke fun at each other, but you know what? He's a selfless guy and that's one of the reasons why he's a good defensive player and one of the reasons I like him as a player is because he really just wants to win.
I think that comes from who you are as a person. He's very humble, and he's really a better player than he realizes. Once he realizes he's really good, he's going to jump to another level. He probably is in his own way sometimes with that, but he's athletic. He moves. He's tough. He's competitive, and it's really been fun to coach him.
Q. Aamir Simms came in as a freshman and he's been able to contribute right away and fill in for Donte. What is it about him that, usually a freshman struggles to learn your systems?
BRAD BROWNELL: Yeah.
Q. Why is he different from other freshmen you have had?
BRAD BROWNELL: He's mature, not only physically, for big guys that's a challenge to be able to handle the physicality and the speed of the game, especially in the ACC as a freshman. All you have to do is look at him and see that's not a big challenge for him, but he's also a very mature young man. Went to boarding school for a couple years and really, I think, grew up quickly up there. He's bright. He picks things up quickly. He's a leader. He has an unbelievable outgoing personality that just attracts people and because of that he's a confidence giver. He's an energy giver. He's really special that way.
All of that, in terms of his personality, has allowed him to be mature enough to handle whatever we throw at him. Obviously, we're blessed that he's with us.