No. 6 seed Clemson will take on No. 11 seed New Mexico in the opening round of the West Region of the NCAA Tournament Friday. Tipoff is scheduled for 3:10 p.m. EDT at Memphis’ FedExForum.
Ahead of the game, Clemson players PJ Hall, Chase Hunter and Joe Girard spoke to reporters at Thursday’s NCAA Tournament press conference in Memphis.
Quotes via the Clemson Athletic Department:
Q. You guys were here a couple months ago. Did that go through your mind at all when the announcement was made where you were going? And how do you feel about coming back and playing in a building that you’re sort of familiar with and sort of had a little bit of bad luck there on the floor?
JOSEPH GIRARD III: Especially in March, you want to look at all the little things to give you a little bit of an advantage. You can kind of look at that to our advantage.
But in the end you’ve got to go back out there and play the game. And it definitely is a little bit good to have some familiarity with where we’re going, with the arena, with the hoops, all that stuff. Definitely gives us a little bit of an advantage. But at the end of the day, we’ve still got to go out and play.
Q. With the transfer portal, with everything that goes on in college basketball, we see fewer guys spending four years in college, four years at one school. What do you think of that trend? And how have you personally kind of chosen your paths for how you’ve done things?
CHASE HUNTER: I think it all depends on the player. It all depends on the school and what they go through in their career. I’m a person that’s been at Clemson for four years now, well, five years, and it’s been a long journey.
I just had my own path, and I think it just depends on the player, depends on the school. You could go through things with coaches leaving, players leaving.
And, like I said, just depends on the player and what they go through. Now with the portal, you have an opportunity to go to another school and maximize your college career. Like I said, it just depends on a player and what they want to do in their career.
PJ HALL: Same what he was saying. It all depends on the player and their situation. Obviously Joe was at Syracuse for four years and had a fifth year, so it’s a little different situation for getting into the portal.
But there’s also situations, like where, to an extent there’s too many guys jumping in as well. That’s the kind of thing going on now. I think that’s what’s given strength to a lot of these mid-majors, like the JMUs (James Madison) and stuff and great teams and programs because you have these guys that are more experienced and stay there for four years, have a core group. If can you build that core group now and keep them for a while it keeps you really tight on the court.
We have some guys here that have been here for a while — me and Chase, Ian Schieffelin has been here for three years. Alex Hemenway, who is not playing right now but he’s still a guy who is involved a lot.
That’s what’s special about Clemson. We tend to be a school that keeps guys set in stone for a while. And we’re very welcoming for new guys. It’s been great for us this year and it’s nice to have that. And it’s also a great thing to have guys for four years.
JOSEPH GIRARD III: I think these guys both hit it on the head. It’s different for everybody. For me personally, my path was a little bit different. I graduated from Syracuse. My coach decided to retire. Obviously playing for Coach Boeheim, there’s nothing like it.
Once that happened, COVID was kind of like a blessing in disguise. You get another year, another opportunity. And I said, why not? Let’s explore something else. And obviously Clemson was the best choice for me.
But there’s obviously pros and cons to everything. I think it’s good for guys who feel like they made a decision that wasn’t the best for themselves right out of high school. It doesn’t work out for them for whatever reason. It kind of gives them a second chance to go somewhere else and kind of revive their career and make something out of it. There’s always positives in everything, and just depends how you look at it.
Q. How aware are you of the projections or the picks of everybody saying New Mexico is one of the most likely to have an upset? Do you take that in? Do you block it out? How much do you think about it?
PJ HALL: It’s pretty hard not to see that kind of stuff, just with the social media and stuff. But at the same time, also after our last loss, can’t blame all the people for thinking that.
But at the same time we’ve had some great press leading into this, and we know what kind of team we are. We’re excited to get out there and play. And whatever it may be, 16-1, 11-6, 12-5, anybody can win on the court. We’re focused on our guys and we’re excited to get out there.
Q. In terms of their tempo, do they remind you of anybody you played during the season? Or how unique are they in terms of how fast they get up and down the floor?
CHASE HUNTER: Yeah, I mean, I think they play sort of like Alabama — quick guards; big, physical bigs that can do some things. I think they play similar to Alabama, they’re a team that can get up and down. And got some quick guards that can make plays for themselves. I think we prepared well for them.
Q. All three of you from your different perspectives, Chase and PJ, you’ve been at a school your entire career that’s very football crazy. Joe, you came from a school that maybe lives and dies more with basketball. How do you see Clemson and the success Coach Brownell has had and the success you guys have had this year and also in recent years?
PJ HALL: It’s been a fun year just because we’ve had some success. Along with other sports, it’s been a fun year for sports in general. Coming off a 10-1 season with football last year, I was really excited for them going into this year. That’s our main sport at Clemson. There’s no denying it. Having basketball, having a great year this year has been fun for us because people like to say, oh, basketball’s got a back seat or other sports have a back seat. But at a school like Clemson where it’s a small community, everybody’s tight knit, everybody’s in love with Clemson sports in general.
We have crazy support for our soccer teams who are national champions, softball which got added a few years ago. Our gymnastic team that got added this year has been sold out every meet. It’s electric.
So Clemson athletics has incredible support across the board. It definitely doesn’t feel that we have a back seat. It’s fun to play at Clemson for sure.
Q. Was there anything about when you were here the last time that you used going forward over the rest of the season to, like, maybe inform how you approached certain things? Or was there something that you — I don’t know — a lesson you learned or anything from here that you employed the rest of the way?
CHASE HUNTER: I mean, I would say for me that was the COVID year we went. So it was definitely a different experience. We were at one hotel with all the other teams.
PJ HALL: Are you talking about playing here or —
CHASE HUNTER: I thought you meant the tournament. Playing here. Like Joe said, like we said about playing here, you play on the same rims, play on the same court. But at the end of the day we’ve just gotta go out and play our best game.
I think playing here definitely was an advantage that we played here earlier in the season. Didn’t turn out the way we wanted it to. But we got another chance, another opportunity to prove ourselves.
PJ HALL: I’d say in terms of how the game went, one thing I thought about after that was, as it gets down to the wire with a team that does a little bit of run and jump like Memphis was, who is kind of similar to a New Mexico, probably not as fast. But play your game, stay poised, and run your stuff, that’s a big thing we were playing fast teams.
Yes, they (indiscernible) sped up. That’s what we learned from the Memphis game and tried to employ for the rest of the year.
Q. What does it feel like, especially PJ and Chase, to bring Clemson back to this stage? You guys haven’t been here in a couple of years.
PJ HALL: I’d say, first of all, we didn’t do it alone. We had incredible coaches and a lot of guys that came and helped us along the way. Obviously we brought in new guys like Joe and Jack who are tremendous boosts for us, shooting on the outside. Then 1 through 5, switching with Jack, who can play incredible defensive and rebound.
It wasn’t just us bringing us back. It’s been fun. It’s been expected. Last year we definitely felt shorted after having a great year: 14 wins in the ACC and getting left out of the tournament. So this year it’s not necessarily like, oh, we’ve got to get to the tournament, we’ve got to get to the tournament. That’s our floor, that’s how we expected it.
So the whole year we were expecting to come here and play our game and make some noise. That’s kind of how we thought about it the entire year with the players we have and the coaches we have.
Q. As you noted, you kind of struggled down the stretch. If each of you could take an aspect of the team going into tomorrow that you think you kind of kind of flipped that switch to get back to where you were playing your best, what would it be in each of your opinions?
JOSEPH GIRARD III: I think, first off, I think that our practices this last week have been a lot better. There’s a lot more on edge. I think just kind of, one of the things that the coaches were, I guess, emphasizing was getting our edge back. And we had that obviously the first two months of the season. And it’s easy to have an edge when you’re 10-0 whatever it was, 11-1 at one point.
It’s easy to be up when things are going great. But when things were going bad, you just gotta figure out a way to get out of the hole and try to get that edge back. I think that’s what we’ve done this last week. And, again, trying to look at everything positive. Losing early in the ACC Tournament kind of gives you a chance to go back to practice and get your mind right. So I think if we took a look at it that way it will help us for tomorrow.
PJ HALL: Yeah, especially what Joe said, the last point, losing early in the ACC Tournament in the fashion we did was not just disappointing, but embarrassing. So going back to these practices, going good on good and making sure we’re sharpening our edges and making sure we’re having a competitive edge and fight was huge for us.
And going into these last few practices, after we had some time off or not time off but the first couple after the ACC Tournament, sharpen our minds, ready for the tournament and sharpen our minds for the opponent, that’s big for us.
It’s not necessarily flip a switch. If you have to flip a switch then you have a problem especially this late in the year. It’s time to be ready to be on go at all times.
CHASE HUNTER: For me, I think game-wise, we just gotta be able to fight through adversity. We’ve had some games where we started off great and the teams come out and make a run. As the three leaders here, we’ve got to be able to step up, whether it’s calling timeout, bringing the team together and making sure we get a stop or a big basket when we need it. I think going into this tournament, we made sure we put more focus on that, and making sure as leaders of this team we get the team together and we do what we need to do.
Q. PJ, you were mentioning the coaching staff. Coach Brownell, how much respect do you feel he gets from the fan base compared to what he deserves, and is there any motivation to try to make a run to kind of back him up?
PJ HALL: Yeah, there’s always been motivation for me to — not just me, the whole team — to fight and win for him and the loss at Cameron this year was sickening because I know he had never won there. He’s had so much close chances. It feels every time, it’s like, what’s going on? It hurts.
So wanting to win for him, wanting to win for the rest of our coaching staff is huge because I don’t want to say there’s not a respect for him, but there is — you hear all the outside voices of people who aren’t fans of him. And it’s frustrating because of how much we care and love that guy and how incredible he is and how smart of a coach he is.
So it definitely is an added motivation to fight for our coaches. There’s not a whole lot of motivation you need to get up for these games. If you have added stuff, it’s special, yeah.
Q. What has been Coach Brownell’s message heading into tomorrow’s game throughout these last few days of practice?
JOSEPH GIRARD III: I think it was getting the edge back. Coach Brownell is someone who loves to go to work, loves to work hard. He said that to us, ultimately, we had a lot of days in between our last game and tomorrow, and likely we probably wanted a few more days off. But Coach Brownell is a guy who likes to get back to work. I think it’s good for us. It’s been good for us. It’s kind of given us that competitive spirit that will help us for tomorrow, and I think just the biggest thing is getting the edge back, like I said.
–Quotes via the Clemson Athletic Department
