March 22, 2024 • 60 mins
After a disappointing loss to Boston College in the first round of the ACC Tournament, the Tigers look to remedy that, and get a win here in the first round of the NCAA Tournament tonight, and advance to the next round as they gear up to face down the Lobos! As always, John and Rich preview today's game, and set the scene with interviews, clips from the players, and more!
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Usa, W E, S,E, F N Reads, Hardenberg Anders.
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Time for the Ingles Countdown to tipOff Show, brought to you Pie
Ingles Markets, Low prices, Lovethe Savings, Blue Ridge Electric Cooperative,
Harley Davidson of Greenville, Greer FlooringCenter, the Surgery Center at Pella McGhee
Eating in Air hand by pal MeadowState Armory. Now Here are your hosts,
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John Alism, Richman and Weaver.Well, have your brackets been busted?
Ladies and gentlemen? I know minehave. It's all in good fun.
It is March Madness officially for theClemson Tigers is they're not looking to
get busted today. It's a firsttime matchup between the Tigers and the Lobos
from New Mexico. As we getyou set for tournament action, I'm John
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Ellis along with Richmond Weaver as alwaysTrey Falco in the house for the Ingles
Countdown to tip Off Show Special EditionTournament Edition. What an exciting time,
Richmond Weaver, March March and MarchMarch Madness. That's all you have to
say. I'm March. This isChristmas time for me as a basketball guy,
and obviously it's even better when ateam that you follow your school is
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in the NCAA tournament. It makesit even more special from that standpoint.
And what a great day we hadyesterday in terms of the tournament starting and
now obviously action today going on rightnow. Maybe not a barn burner with
Northwestern and Florida Atlantic twenty eight totwenty five here with sixteen and a half
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minutes to go in the second half, So yeah, they're not lighting anything
on fire from that perspective, butwe are seeing some good games obviously,
some upsets that we had yesterday,and then now can Clemson be a team
that avoids the upset? That's abig storyline heading into this game against New
Mexico. Huge game three ten tipoff is the schedule right now out there
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in Memphis, a place that Clemsonknows well. Coming up later in the
show, you'll hear from Brad Burnelsome of his comments this week as well
some of the key players for Clemson, Chase Hunter, PJ. Hall,
Joseph Girard, all talking about whatthis means to them being back in the
tournament and how they all stayed togetherdespite nil and the portal, how it
all came together for this team thisyear, a team that did win twenty
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one games and an impressive resume.On top of that, Rich brought up
the live games in action Northwestern andthe nine seed is on top of FAU
right now. Twenty eight twenty seven, Northwestern shot twenty one percent from the
field in the first half, wellbetter than Colorado State, who scored eleven
points in their game at halftime.I mean, that is absolutely crazy.
And we talked about are the narrativeswe're out there with Virginia only scoring fourteen
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points at halftime, not to beout done their first four game. Yeah,
so not to be outdone. ColoradoState shows some offensive inefficiencies there it
only scores eleven points. But Ido believe that the committee did get a
lot of the picks right the selections, And you can't just judge one You
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can't judge the entire selection committee basedon one performance by Virginia or even Colorado
State. You obviously have to lookat it the totality of it, and
you look at a team that wasleft out like a Providence and Providence goes
to the NIT and loses a game. But I don't hear anybody saying that
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to Oh, Okay, the selectioncommittee got it right because it didn't put
Providence in. Only when there's ateam that is in and they lose,
and then you hear, oh theygot it wrong. Well, Cleinton faces
a team today coached by a familiarname, Richard Patino, a guy who
coached at Minnesota and you speak ofthe nit. He woned an IT championship
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as the coach of the Golden Gophers. So that's going to be a fascinating
matchup breakdown. Let's turn the clockback a little bit. Obviously we kept
talking about this on this show.Maybe it would be a rebirth for this
team in the a SEC tournament,a chance for the first time to you
know, breeze through this tournament orat least blast through this tournament with some
authority. And it was a thud. It was a resounding thought against Boston
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College. He just goes to showyou, Richmond, as Brad Burnell has
talked about throughout the season, asyou and I both talked about, as
Clemson lost that game seventy six fiftyfive in their opening game in the tournament,
anything can happen in the Atlantic CoastConference, and it sure did in
this game. Yeah. Well,I'm just going to my corner over here,
and I'm refusing to talk about thegame. Sorry, Yes, I'm
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just going to be a Yes.Claudelle Harrison, jaydon Zachary did all the
talking in this game. Wow.What a performance though by Boston College.
And a lot of people will lookat how Clemson finish the season and question
Clemson's motivation, question Clemson's effort,and I understand and question how well Clemson
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is playing. And now the BostonCollege game. You can't make excuses for
Clemson. During that game. Theyplayed bad. Yeah, they played poorly,
there's no sugar coating that. Butwhen you look at the game against
wake Forest, that was on theroad against wake Forest, wake Forest had
only lost one home game during theseason, and Clemson had an opportunity to
win that game and they just cameup short. So it wasn't that they
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played that poorly. And then obviouslyyou can look at the Notre Dame loss
also, But outside of that,Clemson has actually shown some effort, They've
shown some consistency. It's just thething that we remember the most is what
the last game was. And obviouslythat was a dud for Clemson. And
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so it is going to be veryimportant do the players take ownership of that
game, because it's one thing thatBrad Burnell takes ownership. And obviously we've
heard some of his comments and we'llhear more about him taking ownership and his
response disability as a coach. Butthere's so many times teams that have an
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opportunity to rebound and have success.As you know, John, you've followed
NFL, you followed college sports footballor basketball. It's those teams that have
that balance between being coach led andplayer led yep. And each has to
work in unison. So a coachhas to own his responsibility and their coaching
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staff has to own their own responsibility. But then the other side, the
players have to be accountable also,and it's the players that have to hold
the other players accountable and have toown their own responsibility in the whole microcosm
of being together as a team.And so we can talk about all of
the x's and o's and break downwhat New Mexico does well, we can
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talk about what Clemson does well,we can talk about all the stats,
but at the end of the day, this is going to come down to
a simple equation. Players make playsand is Clemson. Are they going to
come out and be ready to makethe plays to their standard and not worrying
about who the opponent is, howwell they're playing at this time of the
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year, coming off of Mountain WestConference championship, this is all about Clemson.
They have to own up to howthey finished against Boston College and are
they ready to turn the page andhave a new start here in the NCAA
tournament New starts. Indeed, wetalk about getting your batteries charged. If
you will have an NC State ateam with a coach and Kevin Keats that
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was on the hottest of hot seatsabout a month ago, and it just
goes to show you, much likewhat happened with Virginia Tech and Mike Young
and so many other teams, theyblaze right through the ACC tournament and they
get it done against North Carolina andDJ Burns My goodness, as somebody said,
we got to get that guy onthe football field. He is a
monster. Well it's so funny becauseI saw some meme with DJ Burns and
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it was basically showing like how hetrains, and it's him dribbling a basketball
and he's leaning in, you know, like as you could see every time
the defender would body up, they'dwall up and he would lean in.
But his training, they showed allthese different clips and one time he's up
against a dump truck and then anothertime he's up against a house. You
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know, it's all these different things. Wow, that he's being pressured up
against you know, that's how hetrained. And I would say, lookout,
dump truck, lookout, So gonnaneed to buy a new dump truck
after facing DJ Burns. That's right, But it's to your point, John
that look at INC State. Lookhow they turned it around the tournament win
too. Yeah. Yes, andthen now they're one game away from making
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the Sweet sixteen. How about that. It's amazing. They bee Texas Tech
yesterday, the eleven seed NC Stateeighty to sixty seven, eleven six games.
Richmond historically, look out. Wesaw it with the game Cocks yesterday
as well, no question. SoClemson is now facing that scenario. Can
they salvage this number six seed inthis tournament because all six seeds have lost.
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We've never had a tournament where allfour six seeds lost in one tournament.
No pressure, guys, No pressureClemson. And that's why again don't
even be thinking about that. Justhave that mindset of hey, we just
have to play basketball as Clemson playsbasketball. Lead that up to the fans
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that each time a six seed gotbeat yesterday, you're thinking, Okay,
well that's a good one because nowthat means a sixth seed will win at
some point, right and can itbe the Clemson Tiger got to be their
time? Well, it tips offat three ten pm. You got Don
Montzon Tim Burray on the call righthere on WEESC and the Clemson Athletic Network.
Coming up next, Will Vandervoord fromthe Clemson Insider stops by gives us
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his perspective on the season that wasin the regular season and now what's ahead
for Clemson as a take on NewMexico in the postseason. The NCAA Tournament
is here. We're live in theIngles Studios downtown Greenville for the Ingles Countdown
to tip Off Show. Much morecontinues right here on the WSC. You
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gotta locked in on the Angles Countdownto tip Off Show. John Ellis,
Richmond Weaver, Trey Falco and Studiowith us producing as always. Coming up
in a minute, Will Vandervoort stopsby from the Clemson Insider dot com.
He's live in Memphis and he's gotall the details in advance of Clemson's first
ever matchup against New Mexico. Itcomes at a vital time in the career
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arc of one Brad Burnell. Mean, he would say it's a six eleven
game, but it's also a hugegame for so many seniors, so many
of these veterans on this team thatreally really have put in the work here.
And you'd like to see this Clemsonteam, no matter where you stand
in the fan base, get thewin in advance and have an opportunity to
face what looks to be Baylor,who is holding down a twenty point lead
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right now in their first round matchup. Joining us live from Memphis is our
good friend Will Vandervoort Clemson in SATDAdot com. Will how you doing,
buddy? How y'all doing? Weare fantastic. How was your travel?
How's everything doing up there in Memphis? What's the scene right now live from
the AREDA? Well, the travelis we're here. I would say that
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it was some interesting. I can'tgo into the story because it's too long
of a story, but it wasinteresting. Nonetheless, But we're here,
so I'm thankful for that. Andthen we're sitting up here as I'm talking
to you guys, I'm sitting inthe media room right now. It's where
the Grizzlies training facility is, iswhere they have the media for their work
media workroom. And so it's areal nice venue. Real nice is a
beautiful venue here in downtown Memphis.And so yeah, man had some barbecue
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last night, got out to theone and only barbecue place down here in
Memphis, Tennessee. Clemson fan,you're coming through and you're hearing you guys
that they need to check that out. Man, it's unbelievable barbecue. You
have enjoyed it. Well. Thisis the second trip Clemson has made to
Memphis this season, back on Decembersixteenth, a two point loss, but
one that the Tigers talked about thisweek, in particular Joseph Gerard about having
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some familiarity with that venue. Let'stalk about what happened in the ACC Tournament.
Obviously, a disappointing loss to BostonCollege sort of is there a hangover
effect from your perspective? What wasthe takeaway from your end in watching that
difficult loss? Against BC. No, I don't think there's going to be
a hangover effect. I mean theyto me, I think the nine days
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can be a benefit for Clemson inthis game because they're going to be rested.
I mean, there's no doubt aboutit. And let's be honest.
We talked about how they needed thatdouble bye and get them rested, and
they didn't get it. Well that'swhy they did kind of get it the
other way on the other side ofit, and they hit the nine day
rest and you could tell at leastfrom you know, talking to the players,
and they seem more energetic. Ithink Joe Giarrard told us yesterday that,
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you know, they got their edgeback, and Coach Brown Now they
got a couple of days off andthen Coach bran Now put them to work
Saturday and Sunday and they've been They'veworked all the way. You know,
had a light practicing on Tuesday,but pretty much they got back at it.
And he said, you know,coach came a couple days off that
kind of recharged the batteries and thenthey came in and practices have been really
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good. So you know, whateverhappens today is not going to be because
they're having a hangover. I don'tthink that's gonna be the case at all.
That was just one of those games. You know, you're gonna have
a bad basketball game every once ina while, and Climpson had that.
Now, if you're Clemson, youjust hope you don't have back to back
bad basketball games. And because they'regonna need to play well to win this
game today, obviously against Mexico teamswho's really really well right now, and
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they're you know, they won fourstraight to win their conference to get into
this tournament. And you know,it's some pretty good darn basketball team.
It's really guard heavy, and we'llsee, we'll see how it goes.
As we're talking with Will Van Dedrvoordof The Clemson Insider, and Will you
talked about Joseph Gerard the Third gettingthe edge back and maybe not having this
hangover effect. How much have youbeen able to pick up from some of
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the players like a Joseph Gerard thethird and in PJ. Hall, that
this is their last go this istheir last run, and how important it
is for them to come out andknowing that this is a one and done
tournament. So you got to putit all on the line, regardless of
who the opponent is. Well,I think, you know, all these
guys have a little bit of experienced. Joe probably a little bit more than
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the others. I know, Chaseand PJ were freshman then and really didn't
play that much in that in thatgame against Rutgers back in twenty twenty one.
But you know, Joe's got alittle more experience understands what kind of
what kind of intensity you got tobring onto the floor for a NANCAA tournament
game, and and being that thisis your last one, you really got
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to bring it. And I think, you know, I think picking up
from the players, that's what Igot from that that they they got this
edge to them, And that's thebest way to describe it, that they
just they seem more confident that I'veseen them. They seem as confident as
they did after they beat Pittsburgh,after they beat Syracuse, that kind of
confidence like they've already won the game. That's kind of how I picked up
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on it. It's like they alreadywon the game. And maybe it's because
they made the tournament and that wassuch a big deal for the program and
the team to get back to getthat opportunity back this year that they felt
they got robbed of last year.And I think because they were robbed last
year, guys, I think that'sgoing to motivate this team too, because
you know, people forget about that. There's something to that when you were
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a Chase Hunter and a PJ.Hall and you got robbed of an opportunity
to play in this event. Tome, that's going to make you more
hungry to come out and play wellin this opportunity. And I think you're
going to see that in this gametoday. I really do. I think
this team. I think they're focusedand I think they're there, and not
so much because they think, ohit could be their last game. It's
more so you know, we gotan opportunity that we got robbed of last
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year. Well, Van Voord toClemson Insider Live from Memphis, getting you
set for the big game between Clemsonand New Mexico. Speaking of the ACC
tournament, have at NC State gotto give them a hat tip there and
what they did in that tournament,And it's a testimony I think to the
depth and quality of that conference andnot that the high end of it,
the top end of it is anyweaker than any of their conference. But
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I'll give you the flour here willyour thoughts on NC State's run so far
in the state of the conference atlarge right now, well other than Virginia,
so far, so good, right, Yeah, Yeah, I think
that's a good way to describe it. N C State came out last night
and I thought played their game,which is what Cletson's going to have to
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do today, right, They're gonnahave to play their game. And what
I mean by that is they gotto get the ball down load at PJ
and E and need be playing inthe post. I'll need any of this
those guys combining to shoot twelve threepointers. That doesn't need to happen today
because that's what you know, thisteam wants them to do, you know.
So I think, you know,Climpton's got to play like that,
like NC State did, like NorthCarolina did yesterday. I think Clemson's the
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better team, guys, I do, But it's a matter of how do
they play and and and you know, and which way and which style do
they come out playing in. AndI think that's just going to be key
in this game for Clemson because Ithink, you know, for what we
know in New Mexico they want torun and they want to get up and
down the court. Well, Clemsondoesn't want to do that. I think
Clinton got to have the same attackthat they had against Syracuse, the same
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attack that they had against Miami,and the same attack they had against Alabama,
and that slowed the thing down,forced them to play half court offense,
make them have to play half courtdefense and insert some energy on the
defensive end of the court. That'sgoing to help them. So play their
game, man, And I'll tellyou, I know everybody says Clinton was
the three seeds, the sixth seedthat should be concerned and worry about losing.
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Right now, look like all thethree seeds should. Let see,
the six seeds should have right becausethey lost right and that's played so far,
and NC State was an eleven seedand beat them. So if you're
Comson, he's looking at the percentages, He's like, Okay, I like
our chances because you know, youdon't think all four eleven seeds are going
to win, right. So andthen again, also understand New Mexico's coming
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off very emotional tournament. They had. They had to travel two times as
opposed to just one travel that Clemsonad in the last you know, week
or so, so it's a lotdifferent situation for them. And then also
they had time off. How muchis that time off going to help or
hurt them because they went on arun and now they went a couple of
days without playing, And does thathelp you to get your mojo back?
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Can you find that magic again?N C State? We saw did right,
so you know, does New Mexicofind that same magic again? We'll
see against Clemson Yess versus RUSS.That's a big aspect for both these teams
in all honesty. As we're continuingwith Will Vandervoort of the Clemson Insider right
here on the Ingles count Down totip Off show in ninety two point five
w SC, and so will youtalked about guard play for New Mexico.
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Jamal Mashburn junior there averaging fourteen anda half points per game, Jalen House
averaging sixteen points per game, andmaybe the best one is actually Donovan Dent
averaging fourteen points per game himself rightthere, And so we can talk about
Joseph Gerard the third that he hasto hit shots. We know that being
able to knock down some three pointshots is crucial, and obviously getting the
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ball to PJ. Hall having theoffense work through him. But I still
contend in your thoughts how important itis that Chase Hunter has to play well
in this game. Yeah. SoI asked Brad that question the other day
and after they were announts for thetournament, right, and I said,
you know, what, do youneed a Chase Hunter and Joe Girard to
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win? You know? How importantis these guys play well? And he
says it's important in the sense thatthey have to play efficiently, you know.
He says you can look at Joe'snumbers and say that, oh,
he played pretty well against Boston College, but he wasn't efficient, you know,
And he says that's something that hesays. He used the Syracuse game
up at Syracuse. He says thatwas the most efficient game Joe's plays.
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He's like, you know, andhe named it. You know, there's
a couple of instances he said,were Chase played that way. It has
the efficient games he did. That'swhat he needs out of those two guys
is an efficient basketball. They don'thave to go score twenty points to be
efficient in what they're doing, whetherthat's distributing the basketball, finding open guys,
getting the ball down inside, oris it scoring, whether it's hitting
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the three or getting to the foulline and creating off the dribble. Those
are things that he wants to seethose two guys do because if they do
it, guys, we both knowit. And Richmond, we mean,
you've talked about this several times.If Chase Hunter plays well and he's a
Chase Hunter that he's supposed to be, Clemson can beat anybody in this country's
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he's on. Clemson is a differentteam and it's a dangerous team. And
I agree with you one hundred percent. He's the key in my opinions to
what this team is going to dotoday. Will Vandervoart from The Clemson Insider
is live from Memphis, getting youset, primed and ready for the eleven
seed New Mexico taking on the Tigers, the sixth seed, the last six
seed standings. So we're hoping forClemson fans, we don't make history today,
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we get one in the books here. Will thanks for your time and
enjoy the game and bring us backsome good info. How about that,
all right? Guys? Man?I hope, so, man, I
hope. I'm hoping. I'm heretill Monday. Let's just try go right,
Yeah. Will Van Dervort feeling confidentman, Hopefully he's packed for a
long stay here. Hey, comingup next, we've got some audio for
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you. Brad Burnell spoke of themedia this week, had some interesting commentary,
and you hear from Chase Hunter,Joseph Girard, and PJ. Hall.
As the Ingles countdown. The tipOff Show continues on we SCA USA.
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March Madness is officially underway, Clemsonfans. The six to eleven matchup
between the Tigers and New Mexico comingyou way shortly. Right here, it's
the Eagles Countdown to tip Off Show. John ellis, Richmond Weaver, Trey
Falco in the house as well.I want to thank our good friend Will
Vandervoort for joining us from the ClemsonInsider follow his work at Steeler Will on
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Twitter X as he will bring youcontinued coverage of this Clemson basketball journey.
We're on right now. The sixto eleven game as always rife with interest,
rife with opportunity of these the elevenseed New Mexico is getting a lot
of love right now, but Clemsonnot going down without a fight. The
ACC tournament was disappointing. Brad Burnellehad some thoughts about that in his opening
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statement during his weekly press conference winpreviewing, among other things, this new
Mexico team. Great day for Clemsonbasketball. Just really really happy for my
players and proud of them. Rewardfor a lot of hard work starting last
offseason. Certainly last year at thistime was heartbreaking. And it's ironic.
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One of the first texts I getus from Hunter Tyson, who's you know,
super excited for his teammates and anduh, you know, I told
him my heart still hurts for himthat last year's team was left out.
But I'm grateful for this year's teamand the way they played this year.
Just some outstanding performances and and uh, you know again, thankfully Virginia got
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in the tournament, you know,or it was going to be four ACC
teams and even to be one offive is I mean, it just is
really hard. It shows you howhard it is to make this tournament.
And to think that that's not anaccomplishment is you know, a problem,
because this is this is really hard. There's a lot of people that have
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really good basketball teams now, alot of really good coaching, and it's
a very challenging long season. Sowhen your guys are able to to do
what our guys were able to dothis year, and to play as well
as they did and be rewarded witha six seed, and you know,
certainly to be looked at by thecommittee as one of the top twenty four
teams in the country. We're proudof that performance and looking forward to playing
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a very good New Mexico team.Richard Patino, I've coached against him when
he was at Minnesota. He's outstandingcoach. I don't know a lot about
him. I really haven't seen himmuch this year. Obviously, you know,
it seems like this is a yearwhere we every every time it seems
we play somebody there on a threeto four game win streak, five,
six, seven, eight, whateverit's been this year. And obviously they
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just won the Mountain West so UHtournament, so they're playing with great confidence.
They've got terrific guards, older players, no surprise that they were able
to do something like that. Theycan really score. Richard's always been a
really good coach and a very goodoffensive coach. They usually you know,
a lot of good pick and rolloffense. I'm sure there's gonna be some
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zoom action we're gonna have to dealwith and and uh, you know,
I know his guards are quick,athletic and can really score, so you
know, it should be a greatgame. Fun funny that we're going back
to Memphis, you know, uh, place where we had an outstanding game
against against the University of Memphis.But again, I'm just I'm just really
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happy for our players, the guysthat have worked so hard, and especially
the older guys that last year thistime was gut wrenching and heartbreaking and for
them to rally and to have areally good season for a lot of them
in their last year, you know, this is a nice reward for them.
So, you know, looking forwardto the tournament and excited for the
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Clemson fan base that we're going tobe playing. One interesting component about this
season right now has been practice injuriesfor Brunelle's team. We've chronicled that on
this show. There's been a lengthylayoff since the Tigers played last How does
that play into this game? Anda little more on the lost to Boston
College. What happened in the ACCtournament. Here's Brunell. You know,
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we handle that well. You know, certainly wish we would have played better
in our last game. I don'treally know what happened. It wasn't that
we weren't ready to play. Wewere ready to play. We had prepared
properly. We did all the motivationalstuff you can do as a coach to
get your guys ready. You know, I think Boston College is playing really
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well, and they kind of punchedus in the mouth early. We took
the first one bounce back there,and then for whatever reason, the game
got away. And uh, wehaven't been a great team when we've gotten
behind. We're not really built likethat as much as maybe some other teams,
and so that's been a little bitchallenging for us. And it was
obviously a major obstacle in the gamethat we couldn't get passed against Boston College.
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So having said that, we've hadsome team meetings and obviously we've discussed
the poor performance, and you know, to be honest with you, I
really got into our guys a littlebit. You know, I was more
than disappointed in them at what happenedin uh at the ACC tournament, and
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you know, they took responsibility,which they should. I mean I did
two after the game, and anduh, you know, we've talked about
a lot of different things and hopefullyget everybody on the same page. And
and uh, obviously we've had twopractices on Saturday and one on Sunday.
And uh, since that time,we took Friday off and we've had very
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good, competitive spirited practices. Youknow, this is for about a week
week and a half now, we'vebeen able to have PJ and Ian back
practicing on a consistent basis. Sothat's been good, necessary in order for
us to continue to improve. Soyou know, we had him back leading
into Boston College, so I thoughtI would have thought that would have played
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better, but we just didn't.And certainly, look, when you get
the tournament play, the emotions naturallyratchet up a notch. We talked about
that in the NFL and college footballinto universal with every sport, the bigger
of the stage, the more emotionscan play in. Here's Brunell and how
he keeps his team focused in themoment despite those emotions. No, I
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think you try not to make itmore than it is. I think that's
sometimes it's the ACC tournament too.You know, kids can and we have
a tendency when we get behind.Sometimes we try too hard, like I
think we take some quick shots.You know, guy on our team who
are good players want to help.But sometimes you can feed the animal a
(38:07):
little bit by trying to do toomuch instead of trusting in your your process,
in what you're doing as a group. And if you get outside of
that, I don't think it's good. You know, so handling the emotions
of all of it, making surethat you're just focused on the you know
the details of the game, managingyour emotions as best you can, I
(38:29):
think those are significant. And asa coach, not overplaying at all,
you know, there's certainly you're notnaive to what's going on, and you
guys and you embrace what what you'redoing and want your guys to really enjoy
it because it's a this is theseare life, lifetime memories for these guys.
You know, I've had more thanone guy already tell me that.
Like, you know, a coach, I dreamed about this when I was
(38:50):
a kid. Hey man, you'restill a kid. But uh, it's
good that you had those dreams,right, it's it's uh And I think
sometimes folks forget about that. Theseguys have been very successful, but you
know, it's hard to make thetournament. There's a lot of guys that
maybe make one tournament in their collegecareer. You know. Obviously there's a
few schools that are in every year, it seems like, but there's a
(39:12):
lot of people that are rotating thoselast few spots all the time. And
it's it's uh. So these theseare big, big experiences for these guys.
Our guys were giddy and excited andyou know, all day today and
and you know they'll be they'll beexcited for the next several days. And
it's been a journey this season forClemson, ups and downs, peaks and
(39:34):
valleys, the dramatic loss, thedisappointing loss at Duke where they felt like
they had that game. Winning outof conference has been big. Winning in
the conference has been big, butthere have been stumbles, especially with injuries.
Brunell has talked about through this journeythis season, keeping the team positive
with good vibes and what ultimately isa marathon, not a sprint. You
(39:58):
know, certainly when everything is goinggreat, right and it's I mean you
watch it in basketball. I talkedabout it. If you guys, remember
I told you that. I don'tknow people want to listen. But I
told you guys before the tournament,I said, lower seed or higher seed,
I guess could very well win thisthing. So like n C State
goes and wins it. I thinkI told you earlier. I think it
(40:19):
speaks to the depth of our league. I think, I mean there's eleven,
twelve, thirteen teams that could beatanybody in the league. And it's
like you catch lightning in a bottlea little bit and you ride the momentum,
and like playing three and four andfive days in a row, there's
something like there's a bigger spirit goingon through your team. And I think
(40:42):
we had that for a while inNovember and December. We were just playing
so well. There's like no adversity, very little adversity. And I told
our guys, like, you know, there's gonna be a point here where
we're going to get smashed in themouth a couple times, and we're going
to have some bad things happen.Basketball is a long season with a lot
of games. You know, youhave a bad week or two in basketball,
could be four or five games andyou know, then you got to
(41:02):
respond. And then there's just goingto be things that happen in games where
you lose some games by a pointor two just and you play well,
you might even lose by three,four or five. And like I mean,
I thought we played really well againstwake Forest at wake uh for the
most part, and didn't win.And that happened some. But keeping keeping
the team spirit together for five orsix months, which is what we all
(41:27):
have, you know, having donethis for almost thirty years or whatnot,
Like it doesn't always it's rare thatthat happens. You're always going to have
a couple of rough patches and yougot to work through them. And I
think that's happened to our team acouple of times. And uh, you
know, hopefully we're back in agood place and ready to play really good
basketball. I think we have goodconfidence. We have good older players.
(41:50):
But at the end of the day, you do have to perform, and
I think there's you know, andto win games against good teams and tournament
settings, you got to perform.A lot of have to perform. You
can't have one or two guys perform, and you know, That's kind of
what happened to us in the ACCtournament is we didn't have very many guys
perform, and so we got toget some good positive vibes back where we
(42:15):
started it Saturday and Sunday, andhopefully that'll continue this week. There's the
head coach at the Clemtson Tigers,Brad Burnell, feeling at a heat of
late. This would be a niceway to cool down some of that heat
on that hot seat getting a bigwin in Round one against New Mexico.
Also on the podium this week,we heard from Chase Hunter, we heard
from PJ. Hall and Joe Girardas well. Here's Gerard talking about coming
(42:37):
back to Memphis, playing on astage where they played earlier this season and
how does that factor into their confidence. Yeah, I mean I think it's
a you know, especially in March, you want to you know, look
at all the little things to kindof give you a little bit of an
advantage. And I mean you cankind of look at that to our like
I said, our advantage in butin the end you got to still play
the game, go out there.But you know, it definitely was a
(42:59):
little bit good for us to havesome familiarity with where we're going, familiarity
with the arena obviously, the hoops, all that kind of stuff. So
it definitely gives us a little bitof an advantage. But at the end
of the day, you still gotto go out and play, and in
the ever changing landscape that is collegesports, the transfer portal nil Several Clemson
players were asked about that in termsof how to keep a group together.
(43:19):
Here in order Chase Hunter, PJ. Hall, and Joseph Gerard talking about
the current state of college athletics andhow important it was to keep this group
together for the run they're on Reddown. Yeah, I mean, I
think it all depends on the player. It all depends on you know,
the school and you know what theygo through in their career. You know,
I'm a person that's been at Clemsonfor four years now, well five
(43:40):
years, and you know, it'sbeen a long journey and you know,
I just had my own path andI think, you know, it just
depends on the player, depends onthe school. You know, you could
go through things with coaches leaving,players leaving, and like I said,
it just depends on the player andwhat they go through. But now with
the portal. You know, youhave an opportunity to go to a school
(44:00):
and you know, maximize your collegecareer. So you know, like I
said, it just depends on theplayer and what they want to do in
their career. Uh. Yeah,to the same estentable he was saying,
you know, it all depends onthe player and uh their situation. Uh
obviously, I mean Joe is itSyracuse four years and then had a fifth
year, So it's a little differentsituation for getting into the portal. But
you know there's also situations, youknow, like where to an intent.
(44:22):
There's too many guys jumping in aswell. That's kind of the thing going
on right now. But that's whatI think has given strength to a lot
of these mid majors that they haveturned into, you know, like the
jm us and stuff and great,great teams and programs because you have these
guys that are more experienced and staythere for four years, have a core
group. If you can build thatcore group right now and keep them there
(44:42):
for a while, it gets youreally tied in the court. And uh,
you know, we have some guyshere that have been here for a
while. Me Chase Ian Shefflin's beenthere for three years. Uh Alex in
Away, who's not playing right now, but he's you know, still a
guy who's involved a lot. Andit's uh, that's what special by Clemson.
We're tending to be a school thatyou know, keeps guys, uh,
you know, settings done for awhile, and uh, we're very
welcome you in new guys. That'sbeen great first this year and it's nice
(45:05):
to have that. And at thesame time, it's also, you know,
a great thing to have guys forfour years. Uh. Yeah,
I think these guys both hit itright on the head. I think it's
different for everybody, and you know, me personally, my path was a
little bit different. I graduated fromSyracuse, my coach decided to retire,
and you know, obviously playing forcoach beahanm there's nothing like it. So
once that happened, Uh, COVIDwas kind of like a blessing in disguise.
You get another year and another opportunity, and I said, why not,
(45:29):
you know, let's explore something else. And obviously Clemson was the best
choice for me. But this isobviously pros and cons everything. I think
it's good for guys who I feellike they made a you know, a
decision that wasn't the best for themselvesright out of high school, and you
know it doesn't work out for himfor whatever reason, it kind of gives
them a second chance to go somewhereelse and kind of revive their career and
(45:50):
make something out of it. SoI think there's always positives and everything,
and it just depends how you lookat it. As always, great commentary
from the coach Brad Brudelle and someof the key players Joseph Gerard car Chase
Hunter, and the all world PJHall, who needs to have a big
time game today. We'll see howit goes against a very talented New Mexico
team. Coming up next, We'regonna bring rich Weaver back in talk about
(46:12):
the matchups. He'll give you thex's and o's on what to look for
against this very good number eleven seedNew Mexico as they're tipping off from Memphis.
Coming up here shortly, John Elis, Richard Weaver, and Trey Falco
giving you the Ingles countdown the tipoff Show, get your set for tournament
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Tigers. As we ended, closerto tip off coming up just after three
ten pm this afternoon, Don MunsonTim Bray will be on the call right
here courtesy of the Clemson Athletic netWork. It's ninety two point five weesc's
(51:01):
own engles countdown to tip Off showJohn and let's Richmond Weaver giving you some
news and notes in advance of thebig game. As we come down the
home stretch here, I must saythat we've got a bit of a finish
coming up here in Brooklyn. Rightnow, there's a timeout with about thirty
five seconds left. FAU the Owls. We all know the story. Last
(51:21):
year, they're up by two onNorthwestern. It was ugly in the first
half, Rich, but this hasturned in to quite the game. Yeah.
They scored thirty nine total points betweenthe two in the first half,
and each team respectively have thirty sevenand thirty eight out here in the second
half, so they've been able tooutperform the combined score there in the first
half. And this is a scenarioalso where Florida Atlantic was trailing and Northwestern
(51:49):
was called for a flagrant one fouland it put Florida Atlantic back on the
free throw line, hit two freethrows and then scored another basket to tie
the game up, and then ultimatelynow they have a two point lead and
Northwestern just turned the ball over onceagain. So things can just change so
quickly. I mean, the marginsare so thin in the NCAA tournament because
(52:12):
again, as we know, it'sone and done, win or you go
home. Yeah, that's the natureof it some action yesterday. Let's walk
through some of these games, Richmond, You and I and Trey were talking
about this. Michigan State. Wait, look, you got tom Izzo.
You never count them out. Whatan impressive win, eighteen point win over
Mississippi State. As Tom Mizzo's teamnow advances to take on North Carolina,
who won big the one seed overthe sixteen seeded Wagner. So North Carolina
(52:37):
Michigan State some interesting matchups coming up. That'd be one of them right there.
Oh, anytime you look at yourbracket and you see Michigan State and
can they advance to the second round, you should just automatically go ahead and
say, yes, Tom Mizzo isgoing to do that. But guess what,
I didn't even do that in mybracket. I picked Mississippi State with
watching though. It's a good team, that's right, and it's so frustrating
(53:00):
that I missed that pick. Butyes, Michigan State, they seem at
least it's one game sample size isvery small, but that looked like a
true tom Izzo type of team,and that looks like a team that could
give North Carolina a little bit oftrouble. They just don't have the size
though to combat with what North Carolinahas in the paint, and that's why
(53:20):
I think North Carolina will advance tothe Sweet sixteen. That was one of
five upsets yesterday. Let's talk aboutthe others. Unfortunately for game Cox fans.
A great run for Lamont Paris andthat game Cox team, but Oregon
too much for them eighty seven toseventy three in the Midwest Region. Had
tip though to South Carolina. Iknow it's always a rivalry here with Clemson,
but certainly they paid their dues thisyear. A sixth seed obviously going
(53:44):
down again in this tournament though.Yeah, a great run for the totality
of the season for South Carolina.And as I have talked about when the
brackets came out, I felt bothteams in the state of South Carolina from
the Power five programs, Clemson andSouth Carolina got terrible drawls. And when
you have an Oregon team who wonthe Pac twelve championship and they got healthy
(54:08):
at the right time, and theywere just too much in the paint there
for South Carolina, and South Carolinajust didn't have too many answers there for
the Ducks. The other upsets.Yesterday we talked about a very impressive NC
State team all of a sudden,the eleventh seed beating the six seed Texas
tech Raiders eighty to sixty seven inthe South Region. And how about Oakland.
(54:28):
You picked this one, rich Twintook down Kentucky. Now you use
logic when you pick, I knowyou do. There was something about this
Kentucky team that I'm sure you lookedat and said something's off here. Defensively,
I didn't see any collectiveness. Andyou can talk about that on an
offensive side, but so many timesyou need to play defense as a unit
(54:49):
to be successful. In Kentucky's justnot a good defensive team because I think
there's an aspect of teams that areunselfish. They play well together on the
defensive and not only just the offensiveend, where you're obviously distributing the ball
getting other players involved from that side, but on the defensive side, you
have to have everybody work in thesame type of effort, and I think
(55:13):
that comes from unselfish players. AndI just don't think that Kentucky is a
team as a unit. They've gota lot of talent, and I felt
that to Oakland they're older group ofplayers there, and I just felt that
Kentucky was primed for an upset thereand I got lucky. Then hey,
buck matters too. Another upset hereyesterday a couple of them here, Ducaine
(55:37):
took down BYU and then the storyof that what could have been an upset
which should have probably been an upset. Samford, a team we know well
from the Southern Conference, losing toKansas, but a controversial call at the
end, a bit of a phantomfoul. It was a phantom foul.
And I did pick Sanford to winthis game. I called several of their
games this year, and they area team that just reeks havoc in terms
(56:00):
of the chaos because of the pressureof the bucket ball that they have.
They want to run and gun andthey want to pressure you at all times.
And we saw some of that playingout early on, and then Kansas
was able to handle the press.But then in the second half, down
by twenty two points, was sixteenand a half minutes to go, Sanford
makes a furious rally and down ninetyto eighty nine was sixteen seconds to go.
(56:22):
That was the phantom foul. AndI've watched it at least fifty times
to all ball. It's all balla ball. It is a terrible call,
frustrating a great defensive play, andthere's no challenge, review or anything
that. We have fifty seven camerasset up around the cord and under two
minutes we can pixelate the ball tothe nth degree to see if it touched
(56:46):
somebody's fingernail as far as who haspossession, But we can't go back and
look at an opportunity for reviewing amiscall. In the NBA, a coach
can challenge a foul. We've seenfouls overturned several times in the NBA,
but in college we don't have that. Unfortunately, for Sanford, we are
prohibited from doing play by play asCBS has the contract of this event.
(57:09):
But there is a dramatic finish happeningright now in Brooklyn. FAU and Northwestern
are tied with about five seconds leftand we're about to find out momentarily who
wins this game, and it isheading to over time fifty eight all.
So how about that? What agame this has turned out to be?
In Brooklyn? Coming up, it'sMarch Maddis site. March Madness Got some
(57:32):
big games also today, including theone we're going to talk about eventing here,
Clemson, New Mexico. Other scoresof note, Colgate loses to Baylor
eighty to sixty of Clemson wins.That's who they face next. That game
does have time left, but itlooks like it's wrapped up. San Diego
State leading UAB right now thirty oneto twenty. Marquette on top of Western
Kentucky by five. That's early inthe first half. Right New Mexico,
(57:54):
We've got a couple minutes left here. Jamal mass Burns junior, obviously,
Richard Patino, the son of Patino, some familiar names. What's the key
to beating this team? If youClemson today, You've got to keep JT
topping off the boards. PJ Halland Ian Shefflin are going to have to
do a fantastic job rebounding the ball. Obviously Shefflin can I think PJ is
(58:14):
going to really have to up hisgame from a rebounding perspective, and again
keep topping off the ball in thepaint. And then obviously you've got to
have Chase Hunter and Jack Clark onthe defensive side. They have to perform
to slow these guards down, DonovanDent, Jamal Mashburn Junior and Jalen House.
And you got to protect the ball. Jalen House is the NCAA's active
(58:37):
leader in steals, So protect thebasketball for Clemson that is going to be
imperative. And again it's an easygame. Hold on to the possession.
Yeah, keep the ball and thenjust put it in the basket and that's
all you have to do. Easygame. It's an easy game. You
got to make it easy on yourselfthough, and you can't heave up any
(58:57):
undo deep balls early on in thisgame. Shots election is key as always
for Clemson cheflet I want to seea little more from him. The last
couple of games haven't been his bestand Chase Hunter not a great way to
end it in the ANCC tournament.Looking for big things from him in this
game. As we talked about here, got a number of games going on
here. Looking forward to seeing Clemsonwhat they can do for the first time
ever. Quickly thirty seconds Rich,that's you know, a first matchup ever,
(59:21):
program program. It really doesn't matterthough when you get to this time,
I don't know each other. Yeah, yeah, it doesn't matter.
This is all about you performing toyour ex'es and o's not necessarily about what
the other team does. Yes,there is a portion you're going to have
to do the scouting and understand whatthey do. But at the end of
the day, this is your playersmaking the plays for your particular style,
(59:44):
and Clemson has to remember that.Don't settle for all threes. New Mexico
is not a three point shooting team. They want to get it inside the
paint, they want to drive,get to the rim, and Clemson is
going to have to do a greatjob of keeping guys in front of them
on the defensive side. It's afirst round West Region game between the Tigers
and the Lobos coming up just afterthree to ten. You can watch it
on True TV, but turn downthat volume and turn up Don Munson Tim
(01:00:07):
Burray right here on ninety two pointfive WSC for some great, thrilling play
by play action. What we hopeto be finally Clemson's breakthrough moment with coach
Brunnell getting that first round win,for Richmond Weaver, for Trey Faco.
I'm John Ellis. This has beenthe Engles countdown to tip off show.
We hope to see you again comingup on Sunday. Enjoy the game today,
Usa, W E, S,E, F N Reads, Hardenberg Anders.
(02:00):
Time for the Ingles Countdown to tipOff Show, brought to you Pie
Ingles Markets, Low prices, Lovethe Savings, Blue Ridge Electric Cooperative,
Harley Davidson of Greenville, Greer FlooringCenter, the Surgery Center at Pella McGhee
Eating in Air hand by pal MeadowState Armory. Now Here are your hosts,
(02:21):
John Alism, Richman and Weaver.Well, have your brackets been busted?
Ladies and gentlemen? I know minehave. It's all in good fun.
It is March Madness officially for theClemson Tigers is they're not looking to
get busted today. It's a firsttime matchup between the Tigers and the Lobos
from New Mexico. As we getyou set for tournament action, I'm John
(02:44):
Ellis along with Richmond Weaver as alwaysTrey Falco in the house for the Ingles
Countdown to tip Off Show Special EditionTournament Edition. What an exciting time,
Richmond Weaver, March March and MarchMarch Madness. That's all you have to
say. I'm March. This isChristmas time for me as a basketball guy,
and obviously it's even better when ateam that you follow your school is
(03:09):
in the NCAA tournament. It makesit even more special from that standpoint.
And what a great day we hadyesterday in terms of the tournament starting and
now obviously action today going on rightnow. Maybe not a barn burner with
Northwestern and Florida Atlantic twenty eight totwenty five here with sixteen and a half
(03:30):
minutes to go in the second half, So yeah, they're not lighting anything
on fire from that perspective, butwe are seeing some good games obviously,
some upsets that we had yesterday,and then now can Clemson be a team
that avoids the upset? That's abig storyline heading into this game against New
Mexico. Huge game three ten tipoff is the schedule right now out there
(03:52):
in Memphis, a place that Clemsonknows well. Coming up later in the
show, you'll hear from Brad Burnelsome of his comments this week as well
some of the key players for Clemson, Chase Hunter, PJ. Hall,
Joseph Girard, all talking about whatthis means to them being back in the
tournament and how they all stayed togetherdespite nil and the portal, how it
all came together for this team thisyear, a team that did win twenty
(04:14):
one games and an impressive resume.On top of that, Rich brought up
the live games in action Northwestern andthe nine seed is on top of FAU
right now. Twenty eight twenty seven, Northwestern shot twenty one percent from the
field in the first half, wellbetter than Colorado State, who scored eleven
points in their game at halftime.I mean, that is absolutely crazy.
And we talked about are the narrativeswe're out there with Virginia only scoring fourteen
(04:41):
points at halftime, not to beout done their first four game. Yeah,
so not to be outdone. ColoradoState shows some offensive inefficiencies there it
only scores eleven points. But Ido believe that the committee did get a
lot of the picks right the selections, And you can't just judge one You
(05:05):
can't judge the entire selection committee basedon one performance by Virginia or even Colorado
State. You obviously have to lookat it the totality of it, and
you look at a team that wasleft out like a Providence and Providence goes
to the NIT and loses a game. But I don't hear anybody saying that
(05:28):
to Oh, Okay, the selectioncommittee got it right because it didn't put
Providence in. Only when there's ateam that is in and they lose,
and then you hear, oh theygot it wrong. Well, Cleinton faces
a team today coached by a familiarname, Richard Patino, a guy who
coached at Minnesota and you speak ofthe nit. He woned an IT championship
(05:49):
as the coach of the Golden Gophers. So that's going to be a fascinating
matchup breakdown. Let's turn the clockback a little bit. Obviously we kept
talking about this on this show.Maybe it would be a rebirth for this
team in the a SEC tournament,a chance for the first time to you
know, breeze through this tournament orat least blast through this tournament with some
authority. And it was a thud. It was a resounding thought against Boston
(06:10):
College. He just goes to showyou, Richmond, as Brad Burnell has
talked about throughout the season, asyou and I both talked about, as
Clemson lost that game seventy six fiftyfive in their opening game in the tournament,
anything can happen in the Atlantic CoastConference, and it sure did in
this game. Yeah. Well,I'm just going to my corner over here,
and I'm refusing to talk about thegame. Sorry, Yes, I'm
(06:31):
just going to be a Yes.Claudelle Harrison, jaydon Zachary did all the
talking in this game. Wow.What a performance though by Boston College.
And a lot of people will lookat how Clemson finish the season and question
Clemson's motivation, question Clemson's effort,and I understand and question how well Clemson
(06:56):
is playing. And now the BostonCollege game. You can't make excuses for
Clemson. During that game. Theyplayed bad. Yeah, they played poorly,
there's no sugar coating that. Butwhen you look at the game against
wake Forest, that was on theroad against wake Forest, wake Forest had
only lost one home game during theseason, and Clemson had an opportunity to
win that game and they just cameup short. So it wasn't that they
(07:20):
played that poorly. And then obviouslyyou can look at the Notre Dame loss
also, But outside of that,Clemson has actually shown some effort, They've
shown some consistency. It's just thething that we remember the most is what
the last game was. And obviouslythat was a dud for Clemson. And
(07:42):
so it is going to be veryimportant do the players take ownership of that
game, because it's one thing thatBrad Burnell takes ownership. And obviously we've
heard some of his comments and we'llhear more about him taking ownership and his
response disability as a coach. Butthere's so many times teams that have an
(08:05):
opportunity to rebound and have success.As you know, John, you've followed
NFL, you followed college sports footballor basketball. It's those teams that have
that balance between being coach led andplayer led yep. And each has to
work in unison. So a coachhas to own his responsibility and their coaching
(08:28):
staff has to own their own responsibility. But then the other side, the
players have to be accountable also,and it's the players that have to hold
the other players accountable and have toown their own responsibility in the whole microcosm
of being together as a team.And so we can talk about all of
the x's and o's and break downwhat New Mexico does well, we can
(08:52):
talk about what Clemson does well,we can talk about all the stats,
but at the end of the day, this is going to come down to
a simple equation. Players make playsand is Clemson. Are they going to
come out and be ready to makethe plays to their standard and not worrying
about who the opponent is, howwell they're playing at this time of the
(09:15):
year, coming off of Mountain WestConference championship, this is all about Clemson.
They have to own up to howthey finished against Boston College and are
they ready to turn the page andhave a new start here in the NCAA
tournament New starts. Indeed, wetalk about getting your batteries charged. If
you will have an NC State ateam with a coach and Kevin Keats that
(09:37):
was on the hottest of hot seatsabout a month ago, and it just
goes to show you, much likewhat happened with Virginia Tech and Mike Young
and so many other teams, theyblaze right through the ACC tournament and they
get it done against North Carolina andDJ Burns My goodness, as somebody said,
we got to get that guy onthe football field. He is a
monster. Well it's so funny becauseI saw some meme with DJ Burns and
(10:00):
it was basically showing like how hetrains, and it's him dribbling a basketball
and he's leaning in, you know, like as you could see every time
the defender would body up, they'dwall up and he would lean in.
But his training, they showed allthese different clips and one time he's up
against a dump truck and then anothertime he's up against a house. You
(10:22):
know, it's all these different things. Wow, that he's being pressured up
against you know, that's how hetrained. And I would say, lookout,
dump truck, lookout, So gonnaneed to buy a new dump truck
after facing DJ Burns. That's right, But it's to your point, John
that look at INC State. Lookhow they turned it around the tournament win
too. Yeah. Yes, andthen now they're one game away from making
(10:43):
the Sweet sixteen. How about that. It's amazing. They bee Texas Tech
yesterday, the eleven seed NC Stateeighty to sixty seven, eleven six games.
Richmond historically, look out. Wesaw it with the game Cocks yesterday
as well, no question. SoClemson is now facing that scenario. Can
they salvage this number six seed inthis tournament because all six seeds have lost.
(11:07):
We've never had a tournament where allfour six seeds lost in one tournament.
No pressure, guys, No pressureClemson. And that's why again don't
even be thinking about that. Justhave that mindset of hey, we just
have to play basketball as Clemson playsbasketball. Lead that up to the fans
(11:28):
that each time a six seed gotbeat yesterday, you're thinking, Okay,
well that's a good one because nowthat means a sixth seed will win at
some point, right and can itbe the Clemson Tiger got to be their
time? Well, it tips offat three ten pm. You got Don
Montzon Tim Burray on the call righthere on WEESC and the Clemson Athletic Network.
Coming up next, Will Vandervoord fromthe Clemson Insider stops by gives us
(11:52):
his perspective on the season that wasin the regular season and now what's ahead
for Clemson as a take on NewMexico in the postseason. The NCAA Tournament
is here. We're live in theIngles Studios downtown Greenville for the Ingles Countdown
to tip Off Show. Much morecontinues right here on the WSC. You
(15:24):
gotta locked in on the Angles Countdownto tip Off Show. John Ellis,
Richmond Weaver, Trey Falco and Studiowith us producing as always. Coming up
in a minute, Will Vandervoort stopsby from the Clemson Insider dot com.
He's live in Memphis and he's gotall the details in advance of Clemson's first
ever matchup against New Mexico. Itcomes at a vital time in the career
(15:46):
arc of one Brad Burnell. Mean, he would say it's a six eleven
game, but it's also a hugegame for so many seniors, so many
of these veterans on this team thatreally really have put in the work here.
And you'd like to see this Clemsonteam, no matter where you stand
in the fan base, get thewin in advance and have an opportunity to
face what looks to be Baylor,who is holding down a twenty point lead
(16:07):
right now in their first round matchup. Joining us live from Memphis is our
good friend Will Vandervoort Clemson in SATDAdot com. Will how you doing,
buddy? How y'all doing? Weare fantastic. How was your travel?
How's everything doing up there in Memphis? What's the scene right now live from
the AREDA? Well, the travelis we're here. I would say that
(16:29):
it was some interesting. I can'tgo into the story because it's too long
of a story, but it wasinteresting. Nonetheless, But we're here,
so I'm thankful for that. Andthen we're sitting up here as I'm talking
to you guys, I'm sitting inthe media room right now. It's where
the Grizzlies training facility is, iswhere they have the media for their work
media workroom. And so it's areal nice venue. Real nice is a
beautiful venue here in downtown Memphis.And so yeah, man had some barbecue
(16:55):
last night, got out to theone and only barbecue place down here in
Memphis, Tennessee. Clemson fan,you're coming through and you're hearing you guys
that they need to check that out. Man, it's unbelievable barbecue. You
have enjoyed it. Well. Thisis the second trip Clemson has made to
Memphis this season, back on Decembersixteenth, a two point loss, but
one that the Tigers talked about thisweek, in particular Joseph Gerard about having
(17:18):
some familiarity with that venue. Let'stalk about what happened in the ACC Tournament.
Obviously, a disappointing loss to BostonCollege sort of is there a hangover
effect from your perspective? What wasthe takeaway from your end in watching that
difficult loss? Against BC. No, I don't think there's going to be
a hangover effect. I mean theyto me, I think the nine days
(17:44):
can be a benefit for Clemson inthis game because they're going to be rested.
I mean, there's no doubt aboutit. And let's be honest.
We talked about how they needed thatdouble bye and get them rested, and
they didn't get it. Well that'swhy they did kind of get it the
other way on the other side ofit, and they hit the nine day
rest and you could tell at leastfrom you know, talking to the players,
and they seem more energetic. Ithink Joe Giarrard told us yesterday that,
(18:08):
you know, they got their edgeback, and Coach Brown Now they
got a couple of days off andthen Coach bran Now put them to work
Saturday and Sunday and they've been They'veworked all the way. You know,
had a light practicing on Tuesday,but pretty much they got back at it.
And he said, you know,coach came a couple days off that
kind of recharged the batteries and thenthey came in and practices have been really
(18:29):
good. So you know, whateverhappens today is not going to be because
they're having a hangover. I don'tthink that's gonna be the case at all.
That was just one of those games. You know, you're gonna have
a bad basketball game every once ina while, and Climpson had that.
Now, if you're Clemson, youjust hope you don't have back to back
bad basketball games. And because they'regonna need to play well to win this
game today, obviously against Mexico teamswho's really really well right now, and
(18:52):
they're you know, they won fourstraight to win their conference to get into
this tournament. And you know,it's some pretty good darn basketball team.
It's really guard heavy, and we'llsee, we'll see how it goes.
As we're talking with Will Van Dedrvoordof The Clemson Insider, and Will you
talked about Joseph Gerard the Third gettingthe edge back and maybe not having this
hangover effect. How much have youbeen able to pick up from some of
(19:17):
the players like a Joseph Gerard thethird and in PJ. Hall, that
this is their last go this istheir last run, and how important it
is for them to come out andknowing that this is a one and done
tournament. So you got to putit all on the line, regardless of
who the opponent is. Well,I think, you know, all these
guys have a little bit of experienced. Joe probably a little bit more than
(19:41):
the others. I know, Chaseand PJ were freshman then and really didn't
play that much in that in thatgame against Rutgers back in twenty twenty one.
But you know, Joe's got alittle more experience understands what kind of
what kind of intensity you got tobring onto the floor for a NANCAA tournament
game, and and being that thisis your last one, you really got
(20:02):
to bring it. And I think, you know, I think picking up
from the players, that's what Igot from that that they they got this
edge to them, And that's thebest way to describe it, that they
just they seem more confident that I'veseen them. They seem as confident as
they did after they beat Pittsburgh,after they beat Syracuse, that kind of
confidence like they've already won the game. That's kind of how I picked up
(20:23):
on it. It's like they alreadywon the game. And maybe it's because
they made the tournament and that wassuch a big deal for the program and
the team to get back to getthat opportunity back this year that they felt
they got robbed of last year.And I think because they were robbed last
year, guys, I think that'sgoing to motivate this team too, because
you know, people forget about that. There's something to that when you were
(20:44):
a Chase Hunter and a PJ.Hall and you got robbed of an opportunity
to play in this event. Tome, that's going to make you more
hungry to come out and play wellin this opportunity. And I think you're
going to see that in this gametoday. I really do. I think
this team. I think they're focusedand I think they're there, and not
so much because they think, ohit could be their last game. It's
more so you know, we gotan opportunity that we got robbed of last
(21:07):
year. Well, Van Voord toClemson Insider Live from Memphis, getting you
set for the big game between Clemsonand New Mexico. Speaking of the ACC
tournament, have at NC State gotto give them a hat tip there and
what they did in that tournament,And it's a testimony I think to the
depth and quality of that conference andnot that the high end of it,
the top end of it is anyweaker than any of their conference. But
(21:27):
I'll give you the flour here willyour thoughts on NC State's run so far
in the state of the conference atlarge right now, well other than Virginia,
so far, so good, right, Yeah, Yeah, I think
that's a good way to describe it. N C State came out last night
and I thought played their game,which is what Cletson's going to have to
(21:48):
do today, right, They're gonnahave to play their game. And what
I mean by that is they gotto get the ball down load at PJ
and E and need be playing inthe post. I'll need any of this
those guys combining to shoot twelve threepointers. That doesn't need to happen today
because that's what you know, thisteam wants them to do, you know.
So I think, you know,Climpton's got to play like that,
like NC State did, like NorthCarolina did yesterday. I think Clemson's the
(22:11):
better team, guys, I do, But it's a matter of how do
they play and and and you know, and which way and which style do
they come out playing in. AndI think that's just going to be key
in this game for Clemson because Ithink, you know, for what we
know in New Mexico they want torun and they want to get up and
down the court. Well, Clemsondoesn't want to do that. I think
Clinton got to have the same attackthat they had against Syracuse, the same
(22:32):
attack that they had against Miami,and the same attack they had against Alabama,
and that slowed the thing down,forced them to play half court offense,
make them have to play half courtdefense and insert some energy on the
defensive end of the court. That'sgoing to help them. So play their
game, man, And I'll tellyou, I know everybody says Clinton was
the three seeds, the sixth seedthat should be concerned and worry about losing.
(22:53):
Right now, look like all thethree seeds should. Let see,
the six seeds should have right becausethey lost right and that's played so far,
and NC State was an eleven seedand beat them. So if you're
Comson, he's looking at the percentages, He's like, Okay, I like
our chances because you know, youdon't think all four eleven seeds are going
to win, right. So andthen again, also understand New Mexico's coming
(23:14):
off very emotional tournament. They had. They had to travel two times as
opposed to just one travel that Clemsonad in the last you know, week
or so, so it's a lotdifferent situation for them. And then also
they had time off. How muchis that time off going to help or
hurt them because they went on arun and now they went a couple of
days without playing, And does thathelp you to get your mojo back?
(23:37):
Can you find that magic again?N C State? We saw did right,
so you know, does New Mexicofind that same magic again? We'll
see against Clemson Yess versus RUSS.That's a big aspect for both these teams
in all honesty. As we're continuingwith Will Vandervoort of the Clemson Insider right
here on the Ingles count Down totip Off show in ninety two point five
w SC, and so will youtalked about guard play for New Mexico.
(24:03):
Jamal Mashburn junior there averaging fourteen anda half points per game, Jalen House
averaging sixteen points per game, andmaybe the best one is actually Donovan Dent
averaging fourteen points per game himself rightthere, And so we can talk about
Joseph Gerard the third that he hasto hit shots. We know that being
able to knock down some three pointshots is crucial, and obviously getting the
(24:26):
ball to PJ. Hall having theoffense work through him. But I still
contend in your thoughts how important itis that Chase Hunter has to play well
in this game. Yeah. SoI asked Brad that question the other day
and after they were announts for thetournament, right, and I said,
you know, what, do youneed a Chase Hunter and Joe Girard to
(24:48):
win? You know? How importantis these guys play well? And he
says it's important in the sense thatthey have to play efficiently, you know.
He says you can look at Joe'snumbers and say that, oh,
he played pretty well against Boston College, but he wasn't efficient, you know,
And he says that's something that hesays. He used the Syracuse game
up at Syracuse. He says thatwas the most efficient game Joe's plays.
(25:11):
He's like, you know, andhe named it. You know, there's
a couple of instances he said,were Chase played that way. It has
the efficient games he did. That'swhat he needs out of those two guys
is an efficient basketball. They don'thave to go score twenty points to be
efficient in what they're doing, whetherthat's distributing the basketball, finding open guys,
getting the ball down inside, oris it scoring, whether it's hitting
(25:32):
the three or getting to the foulline and creating off the dribble. Those
are things that he wants to seethose two guys do because if they do
it, guys, we both knowit. And Richmond, we mean,
you've talked about this several times.If Chase Hunter plays well and he's a
Chase Hunter that he's supposed to be, Clemson can beat anybody in this country's
(25:55):
he's on. Clemson is a differentteam and it's a dangerous team. And
I agree with you one hundred percent. He's the key in my opinions to
what this team is going to dotoday. Will Vandervoart from The Clemson Insider
is live from Memphis, getting youset, primed and ready for the eleven
seed New Mexico taking on the Tigers, the sixth seed, the last six
seed standings. So we're hoping forClemson fans, we don't make history today,
(26:19):
we get one in the books here. Will thanks for your time and
enjoy the game and bring us backsome good info. How about that,
all right? Guys? Man?I hope, so, man, I
hope. I'm hoping. I'm heretill Monday. Let's just try go right,
Yeah. Will Van Dervort feeling confidentman, Hopefully he's packed for a
long stay here. Hey, comingup next, we've got some audio for
(26:41):
you. Brad Burnell spoke of themedia this week, had some interesting commentary,
and you hear from Chase Hunter,Joseph Girard, and PJ. Hall.
As the Ingles countdown. The tipOff Show continues on we SCA USA.
(31:26):
March Madness is officially underway, Clemsonfans. The six to eleven matchup
between the Tigers and New Mexico comingyou way shortly. Right here, it's
the Eagles Countdown to tip Off Show. John ellis, Richmond Weaver, Trey
Falco in the house as well.I want to thank our good friend Will
Vandervoort for joining us from the ClemsonInsider follow his work at Steeler Will on
(31:48):
Twitter X as he will bring youcontinued coverage of this Clemson basketball journey.
We're on right now. The sixto eleven game as always rife with interest,
rife with opportunity of these the elevenseed New Mexico is getting a lot
of love right now, but Clemsonnot going down without a fight. The
ACC tournament was disappointing. Brad Burnellehad some thoughts about that in his opening
(32:13):
statement during his weekly press conference winpreviewing, among other things, this new
Mexico team. Great day for Clemsonbasketball. Just really really happy for my
players and proud of them. Rewardfor a lot of hard work starting last
offseason. Certainly last year at thistime was heartbreaking. And it's ironic.
(32:37):
One of the first texts I getus from Hunter Tyson, who's you know,
super excited for his teammates and anduh, you know, I told
him my heart still hurts for himthat last year's team was left out.
But I'm grateful for this year's teamand the way they played this year.
Just some outstanding performances and and uh, you know again, thankfully Virginia got
(33:00):
in the tournament, you know,or it was going to be four ACC
teams and even to be one offive is I mean, it just is
really hard. It shows you howhard it is to make this tournament.
And to think that that's not anaccomplishment is you know, a problem,
because this is this is really hard. There's a lot of people that have
(33:21):
really good basketball teams now, alot of really good coaching, and it's
a very challenging long season. Sowhen your guys are able to to do
what our guys were able to dothis year, and to play as well
as they did and be rewarded witha six seed, and you know,
certainly to be looked at by thecommittee as one of the top twenty four
teams in the country. We're proudof that performance and looking forward to playing
(33:45):
a very good New Mexico team.Richard Patino, I've coached against him when
he was at Minnesota. He's outstandingcoach. I don't know a lot about
him. I really haven't seen himmuch this year. Obviously, you know,
it seems like this is a yearwhere we every every time it seems
we play somebody there on a threeto four game win streak, five,
six, seven, eight, whateverit's been this year. And obviously they
(34:06):
just won the Mountain West so UHtournament, so they're playing with great confidence.
They've got terrific guards, older players, no surprise that they were able
to do something like that. Theycan really score. Richard's always been a
really good coach and a very goodoffensive coach. They usually you know,
a lot of good pick and rolloffense. I'm sure there's gonna be some
(34:30):
zoom action we're gonna have to dealwith and and uh, you know,
I know his guards are quick,athletic and can really score, so you
know, it should be a greatgame. Fun funny that we're going back
to Memphis, you know, uh, place where we had an outstanding game
against against the University of Memphis.But again, I'm just I'm just really
(34:52):
happy for our players, the guysthat have worked so hard, and especially
the older guys that last year thistime was gut wrenching and heartbreaking and for
them to rally and to have areally good season for a lot of them
in their last year, you know, this is a nice reward for them.
So, you know, looking forwardto the tournament and excited for the
(35:15):
Clemson fan base that we're going tobe playing. One interesting component about this
season right now has been practice injuriesfor Brunelle's team. We've chronicled that on
this show. There's been a lengthylayoff since the Tigers played last How does
that play into this game? Anda little more on the lost to Boston
College. What happened in the ACCtournament. Here's Brunell. You know,
(35:37):
we handle that well. You know, certainly wish we would have played better
in our last game. I don'treally know what happened. It wasn't that
we weren't ready to play. Wewere ready to play. We had prepared
properly. We did all the motivationalstuff you can do as a coach to
get your guys ready. You know, I think Boston College is playing really
(35:58):
well, and they kind of punchedus in the mouth early. We took
the first one bounce back there,and then for whatever reason, the game
got away. And uh, wehaven't been a great team when we've gotten
behind. We're not really built likethat as much as maybe some other teams,
and so that's been a little bitchallenging for us. And it was
obviously a major obstacle in the gamethat we couldn't get passed against Boston College.
(36:22):
So having said that, we've hadsome team meetings and obviously we've discussed
the poor performance, and you know, to be honest with you, I
really got into our guys a littlebit. You know, I was more
than disappointed in them at what happenedin uh at the ACC tournament, and
(36:43):
you know, they took responsibility,which they should. I mean I did
two after the game, and anduh, you know, we've talked about
a lot of different things and hopefullyget everybody on the same page. And
and uh, obviously we've had twopractices on Saturday and one on Sunday.
And uh, since that time,we took Friday off and we've had very
(37:04):
good, competitive spirited practices. Youknow, this is for about a week
week and a half now, we'vebeen able to have PJ and Ian back
practicing on a consistent basis. Sothat's been good, necessary in order for
us to continue to improve. Soyou know, we had him back leading
into Boston College, so I thoughtI would have thought that would have played
(37:25):
better, but we just didn't.And certainly, look, when you get
the tournament play, the emotions naturallyratchet up a notch. We talked about
that in the NFL and college footballinto universal with every sport, the bigger
of the stage, the more emotionscan play in. Here's Brunell and how
he keeps his team focused in themoment despite those emotions. No, I
(37:45):
think you try not to make itmore than it is. I think that's
sometimes it's the ACC tournament too.You know, kids can and we have
a tendency when we get behind.Sometimes we try too hard, like I
think we take some quick shots.You know, guy on our team who
are good players want to help.But sometimes you can feed the animal a
(38:07):
little bit by trying to do toomuch instead of trusting in your your process,
in what you're doing as a group. And if you get outside of
that, I don't think it's good. You know, so handling the emotions
of all of it, making surethat you're just focused on the you know
the details of the game, managingyour emotions as best you can, I
(38:29):
think those are significant. And asa coach, not overplaying at all,
you know, there's certainly you're notnaive to what's going on, and you
guys and you embrace what what you'redoing and want your guys to really enjoy
it because it's a this is theseare life, lifetime memories for these guys.
You know, I've had more thanone guy already tell me that.
Like, you know, a coach, I dreamed about this when I was
(38:50):
a kid. Hey man, you'restill a kid. But uh, it's
good that you had those dreams,right, it's it's uh And I think
sometimes folks forget about that. Theseguys have been very successful, but you
know, it's hard to make thetournament. There's a lot of guys that
maybe make one tournament in their collegecareer. You know. Obviously there's a
few schools that are in every year, it seems like, but there's a
(39:12):
lot of people that are rotating thoselast few spots all the time. And
it's it's uh. So these theseare big, big experiences for these guys.
Our guys were giddy and excited andyou know, all day today and
and you know they'll be they'll beexcited for the next several days. And
it's been a journey this season forClemson, ups and downs, peaks and
(39:34):
valleys, the dramatic loss, thedisappointing loss at Duke where they felt like
they had that game. Winning outof conference has been big. Winning in
the conference has been big, butthere have been stumbles, especially with injuries.
Brunell has talked about through this journeythis season, keeping the team positive
with good vibes and what ultimately isa marathon, not a sprint. You
(39:58):
know, certainly when everything is goinggreat, right and it's I mean you
watch it in basketball. I talkedabout it. If you guys, remember
I told you that. I don'tknow people want to listen. But I
told you guys before the tournament,I said, lower seed or higher seed,
I guess could very well win thisthing. So like n C State
goes and wins it. I thinkI told you earlier. I think it
(40:19):
speaks to the depth of our league. I think, I mean there's eleven,
twelve, thirteen teams that could beatanybody in the league. And it's
like you catch lightning in a bottlea little bit and you ride the momentum,
and like playing three and four andfive days in a row, there's
something like there's a bigger spirit goingon through your team. And I think
(40:42):
we had that for a while inNovember and December. We were just playing
so well. There's like no adversity, very little adversity. And I told
our guys, like, you know, there's gonna be a point here where
we're going to get smashed in themouth a couple times, and we're going
to have some bad things happen.Basketball is a long season with a lot
of games. You know, youhave a bad week or two in basketball,
could be four or five games andyou know, then you got to
(41:02):
respond. And then there's just goingto be things that happen in games where
you lose some games by a pointor two just and you play well,
you might even lose by three,four or five. And like I mean,
I thought we played really well againstwake Forest at wake uh for the
most part, and didn't win.And that happened some. But keeping keeping
the team spirit together for five orsix months, which is what we all
(41:27):
have, you know, having donethis for almost thirty years or whatnot,
Like it doesn't always it's rare thatthat happens. You're always going to have
a couple of rough patches and yougot to work through them. And I
think that's happened to our team acouple of times. And uh, you
know, hopefully we're back in agood place and ready to play really good
basketball. I think we have goodconfidence. We have good older players.
(41:50):
But at the end of the day, you do have to perform, and
I think there's you know, andto win games against good teams and tournament
settings, you got to perform.A lot of have to perform. You
can't have one or two guys perform, and you know, That's kind of
what happened to us in the ACCtournament is we didn't have very many guys
perform, and so we got toget some good positive vibes back where we
(42:15):
started it Saturday and Sunday, andhopefully that'll continue this week. There's the
head coach at the Clemtson Tigers,Brad Burnell, feeling at a heat of
late. This would be a niceway to cool down some of that heat
on that hot seat getting a bigwin in Round one against New Mexico.
Also on the podium this week,we heard from Chase Hunter, we heard
from PJ. Hall and Joe Girardas well. Here's Gerard talking about coming
(42:37):
back to Memphis, playing on astage where they played earlier this season and
how does that factor into their confidence. Yeah, I mean I think it's
a you know, especially in March, you want to you know, look
at all the little things to kindof give you a little bit of an
advantage. And I mean you cankind of look at that to our like
I said, our advantage in butin the end you got to still play
the game, go out there.But you know, it definitely was a
(42:59):
little bit good for us to havesome familiarity with where we're going, familiarity
with the arena obviously, the hoops, all that kind of stuff. So
it definitely gives us a little bitof an advantage. But at the end
of the day, you still gotto go out and play, and in
the ever changing landscape that is collegesports, the transfer portal nil Several Clemson
players were asked about that in termsof how to keep a group together.
(43:19):
Here in order Chase Hunter, PJ. Hall, and Joseph Gerard talking about
the current state of college athletics andhow important it was to keep this group
together for the run they're on Reddown. Yeah, I mean, I
think it all depends on the player. It all depends on you know,
the school and you know what theygo through in their career. You know,
I'm a person that's been at Clemsonfor four years now, well five
(43:40):
years, and you know, it'sbeen a long journey and you know,
I just had my own path andI think, you know, it just
depends on the player, depends onthe school. You know, you could
go through things with coaches leaving,players leaving, and like I said,
it just depends on the player andwhat they go through. But now with
the portal. You know, youhave an opportunity to go to a school
(44:00):
and you know, maximize your collegecareer. So you know, like I
said, it just depends on theplayer and what they want to do in
their career. Uh. Yeah,to the same estentable he was saying,
you know, it all depends onthe player and uh their situation. Uh
obviously, I mean Joe is itSyracuse four years and then had a fifth
year, So it's a little differentsituation for getting into the portal. But
you know there's also situations, youknow, like where to an intent.
(44:22):
There's too many guys jumping in aswell. That's kind of the thing going
on right now. But that's whatI think has given strength to a lot
of these mid majors that they haveturned into, you know, like the
jm us and stuff and great,great teams and programs because you have these
guys that are more experienced and staythere for four years, have a core
group. If you can build thatcore group right now and keep them there
(44:42):
for a while, it gets youreally tied in the court. And uh,
you know, we have some guyshere that have been here for a
while. Me Chase Ian Shefflin's beenthere for three years. Uh Alex in
Away, who's not playing right now, but he's you know, still a
guy who's involved a lot. Andit's uh, that's what special by Clemson.
We're tending to be a school thatyou know, keeps guys, uh,
you know, settings done for awhile, and uh, we're very
welcome you in new guys. That'sbeen great first this year and it's nice
(45:05):
to have that. And at thesame time, it's also, you know,
a great thing to have guys forfour years. Uh. Yeah,
I think these guys both hit itright on the head. I think it's
different for everybody, and you know, me personally, my path was a
little bit different. I graduated fromSyracuse, my coach decided to retire,
and you know, obviously playing forcoach beahanm there's nothing like it. So
once that happened, Uh, COVIDwas kind of like a blessing in disguise.
You get another year and another opportunity, and I said, why not,
(45:29):
you know, let's explore something else. And obviously Clemson was the best
choice for me. But this isobviously pros and cons everything. I think
it's good for guys who I feellike they made a you know, a
decision that wasn't the best for themselvesright out of high school, and you
know it doesn't work out for himfor whatever reason, it kind of gives
them a second chance to go somewhereelse and kind of revive their career and
(45:50):
make something out of it. SoI think there's always positives and everything,
and it just depends how you lookat it. As always, great commentary
from the coach Brad Brudelle and someof the key players Joseph Gerard car Chase
Hunter, and the all world PJHall, who needs to have a big
time game today. We'll see howit goes against a very talented New Mexico
team. Coming up next, We'regonna bring rich Weaver back in talk about
(46:12):
the matchups. He'll give you thex's and o's on what to look for
against this very good number eleven seedNew Mexico as they're tipping off from Memphis.
Coming up here shortly, John Elis, Richard Weaver, and Trey Falco
giving you the Ingles countdown the tipoff Show, get your set for tournament
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and kN ninety two point five WDSis the Upstate's new home for the Clemson
(50:37):
Tigers. As we ended, closerto tip off coming up just after three
ten pm this afternoon, Don MunsonTim Bray will be on the call right
here courtesy of the Clemson Athletic netWork. It's ninety two point five weesc's
(51:01):
own engles countdown to tip Off showJohn and let's Richmond Weaver giving you some
news and notes in advance of thebig game. As we come down the
home stretch here, I must saythat we've got a bit of a finish
coming up here in Brooklyn. Rightnow, there's a timeout with about thirty
five seconds left. FAU the Owls. We all know the story. Last
(51:21):
year, they're up by two onNorthwestern. It was ugly in the first
half, Rich, but this hasturned in to quite the game. Yeah.
They scored thirty nine total points betweenthe two in the first half,
and each team respectively have thirty sevenand thirty eight out here in the second
half, so they've been able tooutperform the combined score there in the first
half. And this is a scenarioalso where Florida Atlantic was trailing and Northwestern
(51:49):
was called for a flagrant one fouland it put Florida Atlantic back on the
free throw line, hit two freethrows and then scored another basket to tie
the game up, and then ultimatelynow they have a two point lead and
Northwestern just turned the ball over onceagain. So things can just change so
quickly. I mean, the marginsare so thin in the NCAA tournament because
(52:12):
again, as we know, it'sone and done, win or you go
home. Yeah, that's the natureof it some action yesterday. Let's walk
through some of these games, Richmond, You and I and Trey were talking
about this. Michigan State. Wait, look, you got tom Izzo.
You never count them out. Whatan impressive win, eighteen point win over
Mississippi State. As Tom Mizzo's teamnow advances to take on North Carolina,
who won big the one seed overthe sixteen seeded Wagner. So North Carolina
(52:37):
Michigan State some interesting matchups coming up. That'd be one of them right there.
Oh, anytime you look at yourbracket and you see Michigan State and
can they advance to the second round, you should just automatically go ahead and
say, yes, Tom Mizzo isgoing to do that. But guess what,
I didn't even do that in mybracket. I picked Mississippi State with
watching though. It's a good team, that's right, and it's so frustrating
(53:00):
that I missed that pick. Butyes, Michigan State, they seem at
least it's one game sample size isvery small, but that looked like a
true tom Izzo type of team,and that looks like a team that could
give North Carolina a little bit oftrouble. They just don't have the size
though to combat with what North Carolinahas in the paint, and that's why
(53:20):
I think North Carolina will advance tothe Sweet sixteen. That was one of
five upsets yesterday. Let's talk aboutthe others. Unfortunately for game Cox fans.
A great run for Lamont Paris andthat game Cox team, but Oregon
too much for them eighty seven toseventy three in the Midwest Region. Had
tip though to South Carolina. Iknow it's always a rivalry here with Clemson,
but certainly they paid their dues thisyear. A sixth seed obviously going
(53:44):
down again in this tournament though.Yeah, a great run for the totality
of the season for South Carolina.And as I have talked about when the
brackets came out, I felt bothteams in the state of South Carolina from
the Power five programs, Clemson andSouth Carolina got terrible drawls. And when
you have an Oregon team who wonthe Pac twelve championship and they got healthy
(54:08):
at the right time, and theywere just too much in the paint there
for South Carolina, and South Carolinajust didn't have too many answers there for
the Ducks. The other upsets.Yesterday we talked about a very impressive NC
State team all of a sudden,the eleventh seed beating the six seed Texas
tech Raiders eighty to sixty seven inthe South Region. And how about Oakland.
(54:28):
You picked this one, rich Twintook down Kentucky. Now you use
logic when you pick, I knowyou do. There was something about this
Kentucky team that I'm sure you lookedat and said something's off here. Defensively,
I didn't see any collectiveness. Andyou can talk about that on an
offensive side, but so many timesyou need to play defense as a unit
(54:49):
to be successful. In Kentucky's justnot a good defensive team because I think
there's an aspect of teams that areunselfish. They play well together on the
defensive and not only just the offensiveend, where you're obviously distributing the ball
getting other players involved from that side, but on the defensive side, you
have to have everybody work in thesame type of effort, and I think
(55:13):
that comes from unselfish players. AndI just don't think that Kentucky is a
team as a unit. They've gota lot of talent, and I felt
that to Oakland they're older group ofplayers there, and I just felt that
Kentucky was primed for an upset thereand I got lucky. Then hey,
buck matters too. Another upset hereyesterday a couple of them here, Ducaine
(55:37):
took down BYU and then the storyof that what could have been an upset
which should have probably been an upset. Samford, a team we know well
from the Southern Conference, losing toKansas, but a controversial call at the
end, a bit of a phantomfoul. It was a phantom foul.
And I did pick Sanford to winthis game. I called several of their
games this year, and they area team that just reeks havoc in terms
(56:00):
of the chaos because of the pressureof the bucket ball that they have.
They want to run and gun andthey want to pressure you at all times.
And we saw some of that playingout early on, and then Kansas
was able to handle the press.But then in the second half, down
by twenty two points, was sixteenand a half minutes to go, Sanford
makes a furious rally and down ninetyto eighty nine was sixteen seconds to go.
(56:22):
That was the phantom foul. AndI've watched it at least fifty times
to all ball. It's all balla ball. It is a terrible call,
frustrating a great defensive play, andthere's no challenge, review or anything
that. We have fifty seven camerasset up around the cord and under two
minutes we can pixelate the ball tothe nth degree to see if it touched
(56:46):
somebody's fingernail as far as who haspossession, But we can't go back and
look at an opportunity for reviewing amiscall. In the NBA, a coach
can challenge a foul. We've seenfouls overturned several times in the NBA,
but in college we don't have that. Unfortunately, for Sanford, we are
prohibited from doing play by play asCBS has the contract of this event.
(57:09):
But there is a dramatic finish happeningright now in Brooklyn. FAU and Northwestern
are tied with about five seconds leftand we're about to find out momentarily who
wins this game, and it isheading to over time fifty eight all.
So how about that? What agame this has turned out to be?
In Brooklyn? Coming up, it'sMarch Maddis site. March Madness Got some
(57:32):
big games also today, including theone we're going to talk about eventing here,
Clemson, New Mexico. Other scoresof note, Colgate loses to Baylor
eighty to sixty of Clemson wins.That's who they face next. That game
does have time left, but itlooks like it's wrapped up. San Diego
State leading UAB right now thirty oneto twenty. Marquette on top of Western
Kentucky by five. That's early inthe first half. Right New Mexico,
(57:54):
We've got a couple minutes left here. Jamal mass Burns junior, obviously,
Richard Patino, the son of Patino, some familiar names. What's the key
to beating this team? If youClemson today, You've got to keep JT
topping off the boards. PJ Halland Ian Shefflin are going to have to
do a fantastic job rebounding the ball. Obviously Shefflin can I think PJ is
(58:14):
going to really have to up hisgame from a rebounding perspective, and again
keep topping off the ball in thepaint. And then obviously you've got to
have Chase Hunter and Jack Clark onthe defensive side. They have to perform
to slow these guards down, DonovanDent, Jamal Mashburn Junior and Jalen House.
And you got to protect the ball. Jalen House is the NCAA's active
(58:37):
leader in steals, So protect thebasketball for Clemson that is going to be
imperative. And again it's an easygame. Hold on to the possession.
Yeah, keep the ball and thenjust put it in the basket and that's
all you have to do. Easygame. It's an easy game. You
got to make it easy on yourselfthough, and you can't heave up any
(58:57):
undo deep balls early on in thisgame. Shots election is key as always
for Clemson cheflet I want to seea little more from him. The last
couple of games haven't been his bestand Chase Hunter not a great way to
end it in the ANCC tournament.Looking for big things from him in this
game. As we talked about here, got a number of games going on
here. Looking forward to seeing Clemsonwhat they can do for the first time
ever. Quickly thirty seconds Rich,that's you know, a first matchup ever,
(59:21):
program program. It really doesn't matterthough when you get to this time,
I don't know each other. Yeah, yeah, it doesn't matter.
This is all about you performing toyour ex'es and o's not necessarily about what
the other team does. Yes,there is a portion you're going to have
to do the scouting and understand whatthey do. But at the end of
the day, this is your playersmaking the plays for your particular style,
(59:44):
and Clemson has to remember that.Don't settle for all threes. New Mexico
is not a three point shooting team. They want to get it inside the
paint, they want to drive,get to the rim, and Clemson is
going to have to do a greatjob of keeping guys in front of them
on the defensive side. It's afirst round West Region game between the Tigers
and the Lobos coming up just afterthree to ten. You can watch it
on True TV, but turn downthat volume and turn up Don Munson Tim
(01:00:07):
Burray right here on ninety two pointfive WSC for some great, thrilling play
by play action. What we hopeto be finally Clemson's breakthrough moment with coach
Brunnell getting that first round win,for Richmond Weaver, for Trey Faco.
I'm John Ellis. This has beenthe Engles countdown to tip off show.
We hope to see you again comingup on Sunday. Enjoy the game today,
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