Brad Brownell previews Clemson's matchup with Georgia Tech
**Note the attached audio is from earlier this week when assistant coach Dick Bender joined Clemson Sports Talk.
Clemson basketball travels to Georgia Tech Sunday afternoon in its first back-to-back road game trip of the season. It’ll be the first time Clemson plays two games on the road in a row since February of last year.
In a series of back-to-back road games, Clemson has only won once in the last two seasons.
The Tigers are coming off of their worst loss of the season, a 61-36 loss at No. 2 Virginia.
“Georgia Tech is playing much better and playing better at home,” Coach Brad Brownell said. “They had a good ACC run last year. They didn’t lose very much.”
Brownell is 12-4 against Georgia Tech, including 4-3 in Atlanta. The Yellow Jackets are 10-10, 3-4 coming into the game against the Tigers, but have lost three in a row.
Georgia Tech is led by Josh Okogie, who is averaging 17.7 points and six rebounds a game. Brownell believes that he is an All-ACC player.
Clemson played a pretty good first half against the Cavaliers in Charlottesville but faltered in the second only scoring 13 points. Brownell said it was a mixture of Virginia’s suffocating defense and lack of offensive execution.
“We played very well defensively for 30 minutes but wore down at the end. Let our offensive efficiency really bother us,” Brownell said. “We got frustrated and tried to do a little too much one-on-one. We didn’t do the things we needed to do to keep the game close on offense.”
Even with everything that went wrong for Clemson in the second half, Brownell was pleased with how his team came out fighting in the first game without Donte Grantham. They were down 7-0 quickly, but they responded with an 11-0 run of their own. Brownell believed that was the biggest run the Cavaliers had given up all season in their building.
Turnovers have been the demise for Clemson in its past four games. In those games, the Tigers have averaged 14 of them, including 19 at Virginia. Brownell knows turning the ball over has been detrimental to his team. Clemson’s guards staying calm throughout the course of a game will need to happen if Clemson is going to correct those issues.
“If you want Marcquise Reed to be a scorer, he’s going to get in there sometimes and make some bad decisions every once in a while if you let him be loose and shoot it,” Brownell said. “As a coach, you have to keep coaching that. Shelton (Mitchell) has tried to make too many plays sometimes and not going ahead and pass to get the hockey assist. Donte is the guy who was the best at that on our team.”
Speaking of Grantham, Brownell did add it was a little different not having his length at practice and not seeing him dressed out in the locker room before the game and during warmups. He said it’ll be an “adjustment period” for his guys.
But filling in for Grantham in the first start by a freshman since 2014 was Aamir Simms. Brownell was pleased with what Simms did in the game at Virginia, his home state. Simms did everything the coaching staff thought he would do.
It’ll be interesting to see Simms’ growth over the course of the rest of the season now that he’s thrown into the fire.
“He doesn’t need to do anything more than he just did,” Brownell added.
With a win, the Tigers could be 6-3 in ACC play, something that’s only been done nine times in 64 seasons in the ACC. It’ll be important for Clemson to get things back on track before a quick turnaround against North Carolina at home Tuesday night.