Brad Brownell, "Defensively we took a step back."
The following is a transcript from the ACC's Operation Basketball held earlier today in Charlotte.
Question: The makeup of the team this season, just what you can say, maybe some of those words that best describe what you have. And then, secondly, the two gentlemen you brought with you today, what their leadership means to the team.
Coach Brownell: I like our team a lot. We were fortunate we took a trip to Spain this summer. So we got 10 practices in 10 days over there. And so got a little chance to work with them.
I think we have a completely different team from the standpoint of we have five experienced players that are back that are truly guys that have played and played well at this level. But then we also have seven new guys or seven guys, per se, that really don't have much Clemson experience at all. So blending that group, I think is the real challenge. As you mentioned, I think, a lot of that responsibility is going to fall to myself and then also our seniors, Gabe DeVoe and Donte Grantham, two guys that I think are very good players.
They're guys that I think have bided their time very well and played a little bit in the shadow of Jaron Blossomgame, who was certainly an outstanding player in our program these past couple of years. But I think they're going to have opportunities to get more opportunities to score, to put themselves in positions off of set plays and actions where they have opportunities to make more plays. I look forward to those guys having bigger seasons.
Question: I know defensively you would like things to be better, number-wise, than last year, and I know maybe at times the way you played offensively led to maybe some of the defensive issues. But what have been some of the things you've worked on with the team so far to get back to what you want to have defensively?
Coach Brownell: I'm excited to try -- we're going to try to go back to playing a little bit more in the full court defensively. I think we haven't quite had as much depth in certain years to do that.
We have to be a little cautious with it because Shelton Mitchell is a guy who has battled knee injuries and again had a surgery this offseason. So we've got to be careful with how we deal with him. And we were concerned about that last year.
But I think with the freshmen that we've added in A.J. Oliver and Clyde Trapp, combine that with Marcquise Reed who is experienced in our system and knows how we want to do things defensively. Even Gabe DeVoe, I think we can pressure the ball more in the full court and be difficult to play against.
I'm hoping our depth will create problems for teams and we can wear some teams down a little bit defensively, much like we did in certain years here with K.J. and my first year as the coach at Clemson when we had good depth.
So I think those are some things we've really worked on, and we've begun to start to look at a little bit of the zone. Not sure where that will go yet. But we're trying to look at a couple things to be better defensively. We know that's where we took the step back. Offensively we were a very efficient team. We didn't turn the ball over much. Our assist/turnover numbers were really, really good. We averaged 75 points a game. We had three guys who shoot over 40 percent. So offensively we were a pretty good team last year.
Defensively we took a step back. And so we feel like we've got to address that to make another step this year.
Question: You mentioned Blossomgame. You also don't have Djitte anymore -- gave you some really good rim protection, defensive rebounding. Do you have someone else who can do that? Or are you simply a smaller, quicker team?
Coach Brownell: We have two guys inside that we hope will emerge defensively. I don't know that either one of them are tremendous shot blockers. I think Elijah Thomas can block some shots. He has long arms. He's 6'9". He's been in our system now for six months. He was a transfer that came late. So he really kind of joined our team in the middle of December last year and that probably wasn't the easiest thing for him.
I think he's really grown up in our system. He's learned how to coexist with his head coach and understand my expectations a little bit better and is working harder to meet those expectations and responsibilities. And because of that, I see that he really is improving. And I'm excited by his development. I think he has a chance to take a big step forward.
And we also added Mark Donnal, a fifth-year transfer from Michigan. Mark will never be thought of as a shot blocker, but he is a physical defender. He's an experienced player that's been in a lot of big games. And he's a great complement to Elijah because you have two guys that are big, strong, physical. Mark can actually play away from the basket, shoot some 3s on offense. Elijah is primarily a low post scorer.
Question: You guys lost an incredible series of close games last year. What was the culprit there and what can you put in place this year to kind of avoid that same trap?
Coach Brownell: It was a myriad of things. And we did win some at the beginning of the year and that's what was frustrating. We won one against Nebraska. We won one at South Carolina and won one in a comeback game against Wake.
When you're winning the close games, all of a sudden we were 12-2 at one point in the season and we looked like we were well on our way to the tournament. Then we hit ACC play and lost a couple of games. We missed a free throw begins North Carolina.
Syracuse we had a defensive error and gave up a 3 at the buzzer. Offensively in the Florida State game at home, we had two bad possessions and that probably cost us.
It wasn't just one thing. That's what the issue was. It wasn't one thing that we could just fix. I will say that I think our defense not being as good as it needed to be at times helped create more close games because we didn't defend as well for the full 40 minutes. We allowed teams to get into rhythm and score. We found ourselves in difficult situations that could end up in losses. We're trying to address that.
We have an offensive-minded group. I think we're still fairly offensive-minded with the way our lineup is made up of and what guys identity and how they see themselves. And I've got to do a better job of making sure they understand we're going to have to win with some defense. And that's one of the reasons why we're increasing our pickup point, pressuring more, going to play more players. We're going to challenge older players that if you don't defend you're going to sit.
And we're going to give young guys opportunities to get out there and try to wear teams down with some legs and do some different things because we do feel like we have depth. We think if we do those things, hopefully, that eliminates some of the close games that we're in. But then if we get in those situations, a lot of times it's about players making plays.
You've got to have guys step up. And we had a couple of games where we did have guys make big plays. And in those situations, we oftentimes didn't get a stop. And then we had a couple times when we didn't execute offensively and that was the culprit. So it wasn't just one thing.
Question: How will you kind of handle and manage Shelton's knee early on in the season? Will you maybe limit his minutes?
Coach Brownell: That's a good question. We've been managing some of his practice time right now. I think the challenge for it is some days he feels really good. And then other days, for whatever reason, it's just sore. And I think that's -- I don't know that that's ever going to go away.
I don't know that we can predict it. So we are going to try to manage minutes sometime. It stiffens up sometimes when he comes out or when we stop practice and shoot free throws for five minutes or he takes an extended period out. It's hard for him to get going and get back into a practice when his knee stiffens up. So we've got to figure out some things there.
I'm sure we'll have a bike on the side and try to keep him riding a bike while we take him out. And we've got to figure out ways to play without him, whether that's Donte Grantham playing some minutes at the point, Marcquise Reed, Gabe DeVoe, you know, Clyde Trapp.
We'll have backup guys doing different things, and we may tweak our offense a little bit to take less pressure off that position when he's not in the game.
Question:. You've called David Skara by far your best defensive player. What is it that makes him so tough defensively?
Coach Brownell: First of all, he has great length at 6'7", 210 pounds. He has great feet as well. Laterally he moves better than anybody on our team. He just slides well laterally, it's athleticism. But he has a willing, a want to that most guys on our team most guys, in general, see themselves as offensive players, and they had a good game if they made three 3s and scored 15 points.
David doesn't think that way. He knows he can have a good game by making one basket, getting four rebounds and stopping the best player. And he's willing to do that. He's a guy who will sacrifice. He's a guy who has the athleticism and he takes great pride in defending and obviously in his sit-out year last year he had an opportunity to try to guard Jaron Blossomgame every day. I think that helped him. He took that challenge very seriously.
I think he's a guy defensively is our best player in his versatility and in terms of being able to guard perimeter players and undersized 4 occasionally. A point guard. I think that will really help this team.
Question: You talk about how guys think that they're offensive guys. How difficult is it to recruit defense and is it becoming harder and harder as guys see the NBA stars and things like that?
Coach Brownell: A little bit. But there are guys out there. And we're recruiting some right now. But there's no question that guys more times than not everybody wants to know how they do offensively and score baskets and this that and the other. I think as a coach you've got to make a conscientious decision to recruit guys who are competitors who are team guys and who want to do what's best for the team.
We, in my first few years here, we were kind of a defensive-minded team and we were very close and we had some very good defensive players, Landry Nnoko, K.J. McDaniels, Rod Hall. But we were a little offensively challenged. We weren't great shooters. We lost games but we would lose close, but it would be low-scoring and it would be physical and it would be tough.
And we got to a point where we had some good teams when K.J. got a little bit better. But then we made a conscientious decision we've got to add more points, guys that can score, more fire power. We brought in the three transfers -- Shelton Mitchell, Marcquise Reed and Elijah Thomas. And they're all offensive players. They can score. And they proved it last year and they'll prove it again this year.
But you have to be able to do both. Best teams win in the high 80s but they can also win it grind-it-out style against Tony Bennett, 58-55. And we have to figure out how to be that kind of team.
And in order to do that you've got to have a little bit of both. So our recruiting is getting better. Our new facility is helping us tremendously. Can't say that enough. In the last 18 months, we've had more better players on campus and the reaction we're getting is such that we feel like we're going to make strides that way. And as we do that, if we can blend that group that I talked about, I think we have a chance to take another step as a program.