What Brad Brownell said after Clemson’s win at Syracuse

It was hard for Clemson coach Brad Brownell not to be happy after his team’s gutsy 77-68 victory at Syracuse on Saturday.

The win over the Orange marked the first time all season the Tigers (16-7 overall, 6-6 ACC) had won back to back games in conference play. After beating No. 3 North Carolina in Chapel Hill earlier in the week, Clemson made sure to avoid a letdown at the Carrier Dome.

The Tigers never trailed after the early going and had one of their better overall starts of the season, then withstood a second-half surge by Syracuse to close the game on a 17-8 run in the final 3:37.

Joe Girard led all scorers with 18 points and missed only two shots all afternoon in his return to Syracuse, where he spent four seasons under coach Jim Boeheim,

Here’s what Brownell said after the game.

On finishing strong down the stretch in back to back games:

“Obviously the free-throw shooting down the stretch was huge for our guys. Give Joe and Chase Hunter a ton of credit. It was kind of a strange game. Our starting unit did not guard well the first four minutes of either half. I thought our bench was terrific, giving us the jolt that we kind of needed. There’s been some games where those guys haven’t been able to help us and today they were big. That’s where the lead came from. RJ (Godfrey) was really good. I thought (Chauncey) Wiggins was good. Dillon (Hunter) was really good. I’m just proud of those guys.

“I give our older guys credit. I kind of got into them in a huddle midway through the second half. I was disappointed for a little bit because I thought we were just a little starry-eyed or what not. They thought it was going to be easy, but it’s not going to be easy. (Syracuse) was 11-1 up here. There was a huge crowd today, and they were fighting for their team. It gets loud in here, so we took a deep breath. PJ Hall had a great play off a dunk and then we had a great after-timeout play to Joe for a 3, but those were a couple of really good actions that got us some big baskets. Then defensively, we just kind of held on and held the ball against the (full-court) press.”

On Jack Clark’s performance (game-high 10 rebounds in 29 minutes):

“He did a good job on Chris Bell. When he was on Bell, he had maybe one mistake at the end of the game. The other times early on, he didn’t. Chris Bell is a hard cover because he’s so tall, and he shoots like he’s out of a phone booth. If you’re not in that phone booth with him, he just shoots over the top of you. Dillon was all over him one time, and he just shot on top of him. Dillon is 6-foot-4 and it still wasn’t tall enough. So I thought (Clark) did a good job of guarding. His presence with rebounding and even little things like passes against the press that you don’t think much about, he does them well. That’s certainly helped our team tremendously.”

On Joe Girard not letting his emotions affect him:

“I’m so proud of him. We’re trying to get him 12 shots a game and we run a bunch of different things, but when they put Judah Mintz on him and they just chase him everywhere, it’s like Reece Beekman from Virginia. Those dudes are panther-type athletes. Those dudes do an unbelievable job. They’re right on top of screens and they’re connected. It’s hard to break (Girard) free.

“To Joe’s credit, he did not take bad shots. He stayed within the offense. He moved and he accepted that sometimes he’s not going to get a shot. When they guard like that, sometimes it opens up room for other players. Chase Hunter has room to drive and has more space to post the ball. So just Joe being on the floor is significant from that (standpoint), but the efficiency is what it comes down to. Joe’s efficiency is so good: 5-for-6 (field goals), and then he makes all his free throws. There are a lot of guys that score 20 in games, but they take 20 shots to get them. Joe rarely does that. His poise down the stretch and the way he wanted the ball and helped us break press and deal with pressure, he was terrific.”

On getting past 21 turnovers:

“Our big guys just did not do a good job. Ian (Schieffelin) barely practiced Friday. He’s battling some stuff and even PJ, we had to sit him out two days. It’s hard when guys don’t practice, but you can’t simulate this kind of speed and athleticism. Maliq Brown is a tough hombre. I liked that kid for Syracuse. He plays hard and tough and has his hands on everything.

“It was hard for PJ to get comfortable, and I thought one of the moves he made at the end, one of the tough power moves, he multi-pivoted. That’s just a grown-man basket. That basket by PJ Hall, there are only three guys in our league that can make that play. It was a phenomenal play. It was tough all day and they were unrelenting in that they kept pressuring those big guys every second. We kept trying to do different things to try to move them around.”