March 28, 2024 • 49 mins
Another win in the NCAA Tournament has the Tigers advancing to the Sweet 16! Only Arizona stands in their way, at a chance to move on to the Elite 8! The Tigers gear up to face down the Wildcats in today's matchup! 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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W E. S E F M. Greenville, Spartanburg Anders A time for
the Ingles Countdown to tip Off Show, brought to you Pie Ingles Markets,
low prices, Love this Sabiens,Blue Ridge Electric Cooperative, Harley Davidson of
Greenville, Greer Flooring Center, theSurgery Center at Pella McGhee eating an air
pan by Palmeadow State Armory. NowHere are your hosts sehn Alis, I'm
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Bridgman and Weaver. The Clemson Tigershave an opportunity here in a couple of
short hours to make some history.They are in the Sweet sixteen with a
chance to get back to the Eliteeight for the second time in program history.
Would be the highest seated team they'veever beaten in the NCAA tournament.
What a time it is. MarchMadness is in full swing and the Clemson
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Tigers and Arizona Wildcats tip off herein about an hour and a half.
Ahead of that, it's the InglesCountdown to tip Off Show. John Ellis
Trey Falco here producing as always inthe great Richmond Weaver Here, get Vina
all the news and notes and nuggetsyou need in advance of this big game.
We were brought to you by ourfriends at Ingles low Prices, love
the savings Ingles Dashmarkets dot com.And it goes without saying, this has
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been one heck of a ride forthis Clemson team so far. They beat
New Mexico, they take down Baylorand Richmond Weaver. Now they have an
opportunity to reach the Elite eight.My friend, what a beautiful sound that
is when you can say Elite eightand that opportunity. I know, this
is not an easy task. Thisis the Arizona Wildcats, and this is
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a blue blood type of program.I know, maybe not winning as many
national championships obviously as a Kentucky orNorth Carolina or a Duke, but this
is one of those stables that youhear of, or I should say staples
that you hear of when you talkabout college basketball, going all the way
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back to the days of Loud Olsen, the head coach that was there for
a long period of time and justa great ambassador of the game. So
this is a storied program and thisis a great opportunity. Clemson seemed to
be with that mindset after the ACCTournament as far as hey, we've got
to turn the page We've got torefocus. We've got to come out with
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a little more grit. We've gotto come out with a little bit more
urgency because this is it, andthis is now even more so your opportunity,
especially as heading into the NCAA tournament. John the narrative was, Oh,
Clemson, they're limping in a sixversus eleven New Mexico coming in hot.
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Oh, this is upset special,this is everybody was all on board
with New Mexico and I'm not goingto try to rewrite history. And we
talked about it previously on the InglesCountdown to tip Off show before the New
Mexico game that I didn't like thematch up when I saw it right because
I did know that New Mexico wascoming in hot. They were playing really
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well, their guard play was reallygood, and maybe their record wasn't indicative
of just how talented of a teamthey were. But not to say that
Clemson couldn't win that game. We'veseen throughout this season that Clemson can compete
with anybody. They beat Alabama onthe road, they had Duke on the
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ropes in Durham, should have wonthat game. There's obviously some questionable calls
down the stretch, and then theclose losses at home this year were also
somewhat struggling or somewhat frustrating from afan perspective. But make no mistake,
Clemson is a team that can competewith anybody, and they can compete with
Arizona. But this is obviously atough matchup. This is not a scenario
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where you're just going to roll theball out there and hopefully Clemson plays well.
They're going to have to do certainthings extremely well. And then also,
as you know, John, sometimesif you can just have a team
and like we saw in the Baylorgame, and we'll talk about it,
that if they can just have justa little bit of an off night,
if they just are a team thatcan make some mistakes, and some of
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it obviously can be part of whatyou do to that team. And I
think that's what we did see inthat Baylor game. It wasn't just necessarily
about all Baylor was playing poorly.Clemson was playing well defensively. Allah what
we saw in that New Mexico game, they were playing very well defensively and
carried over into that Baylor game.But there were also times where I saw
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some wide open shots for Baylor downthe stretch as they were making their run,
and then even in that last minutewhen they cut it to two points,
there were some open shots that Baylordidn't make. And those are the
type of plays that I'm talking aboutJohn that hey, if you can have
a scenario where just does the ballbounce your way on a certain night,
and when you get to this point, these teams are so close in terms
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of how one is inferior or superiorto the other. And I do believe
roster wise, Arizona does have abetter roster than Clemson. It's just the
reality of it. But that doesn'tmean that Clemson collectively can't play as good
as Arizona collectively. And that's whatwe're hoping for tonight for the Tigers,
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no doubt about it. You talkabout the New Mexico game, they held
New Mexico Clemson to the twenty ninepoint seven percent shooting second lois for a
Clemson team and tournament history for anopponent. The record was twenty five point
eight percent back against Auburn in twentyeighteen. That magical run Clemson went through
to the Sweet sixteen that the heartof believe that was six years ago now,
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but here we are again with anopportunity to see Clemson. Like I
said, make a little history.They've been the one elite eight in their
program's history. Rich This might resonatewith you. Arizona and Clemson have met
three times. The only time they'vemet in the NCAA turn at nineteen eighty
nine, where Arizona got the bestof Clemson. So it's been a minute
since they've played one another. Youmentioned we're going to break down this Arizona
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team in detail later in the show. Also, I do tell that Don
Munson's going to be joining us here. Yes, you're talking to Richmond Weaver
here. We're excited about having Donon and just the craziness that happens at
this time of the year for Donand obviously all over the map, and
especially when you're in a scenario ofthe tournament games and one not knowing who
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your next opponent could be. Obviously, I mean you have an idea,
but there's also okay, what happenswhen you do advance and how quickly you
have to change your plans and youknow, do you have a plan,
A, plan B, C andD and all of these you know scenarios
playing out that might happen, andyou have to be prepared for any of
those situations that happen. So definitelywant to get some insight from Don obviously
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been calling the Clemson Tigers for along time and has some good insight with
the Clemson basketball team. Looking forwardto that. Our good friend Don Munson
joining us here shortly on the EnglesCountdown to tip Off show. So,
yeah, you mentioned the win againstBaylor. How about that the sixth seed
Clemson takes down the third seed thereseventy two to sixty four, advancing to
the Sweet sixteen. And again,a big part of this game was the
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final two minutes, getting to thefree throw line eight times, knocking all
eight shots down. It looked fora minute like this game was gonna slip
away. Rich Clemson had an outstandingperformance by Chase Hunter, especially at the
end of the half when they madethat big shot there going a halftime with
a lot of momentum, but closingthat game out the way they did.
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What a performance by this team collectively. Just talk about that, the opportunity
to reach the Sweet sixteen on theline and they closed it out like the
senior led team that they are.Yeah, well, when you look at
how this game was going and Clemsonis winning sixty one to forty six with
six minutes and forty four seconds togo, you're feeling very good. And
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then Clemson goes the rest of thegame without scoring field goal, and then
all of a sudden, you're notfeeling too good as Baylor starts getting things
going and they're in a rhythm whichthey hadn't been the entire evening. But
then when it mattered the most,Clemson was able to do just enough to
make some defensive stops. And thenkudos to Clemson for hitting their free throws
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eight of eight there in the lastfew minutes of that game. And then
even more so, it's one thingthat Joseph Gerard the third goes to the
free throw line and drains them.That's expected. Yeah, we get that.
I think he was what second inthe nation and free throw percentage at
one time he led the nation andfree throw percentage, so it's automatic.
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And I would have to say,I love when he goes to the free
throw line, and I think we'vetalked about it before, how he just
steps up there and as the ballcomes to him from the ref it hits
his hands, and the way ithits his hands, he goes he touches
it and then goes ahead and makesit spin and it hits the ground and
bounces back up to him. Andwhen it bounces back up to him,
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he's already in motion, so asit comes up at his waist, then
he just continues to go up withhis arm and then shoots the free throw.
There's no wasted motion whatsoever. Hedoesn't sit there and think about it,
and it just hits nothing but thebottom of the net. Again,
that's one thing for Joseph Gerard tobe able to do that, but it's
RJ godfre you, who is afifty six percent free throw shooter, and
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for him in the clutch moments thereto knock down four free throws, and
that was monumental that he was ableto do that. And obviously it's not
necessarily those free throws that won thegame for Clemson, but I do believe
it's the free throws that allowed Clemsonnot to lose that game. Because you
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can go through a course of agame and pick out several different plays in
terms of how it's going to impactthe to the game. But There's no
question those were huge free throws aby RJ. Godfrey, and that just
showcases that again, having the confidence, and I think some of that was
predicated by what I saw from ChaseHunter, and I'm looking forward to talking
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to Don about it. Also interms of he seemed to be a different
type of guy. We saw thatin the New Mexico game and we talked
about it. Could he do thesame in the Baylor game? And he
did just that. It's the confidencethat he had, the aggressiveness, being
intentional, getting to the rim,not settling for some bad shots, and
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we've seen him do that at timesnow. He did have some careless turnovers
in this game, but he madeup for it in so many other ways.
And Baylor does a good job defensively, but Clemson did an even better
job defensively. Baylor. Coming intothe game, they were shooting thirty nine
point nine percent from beyond the arcas a team, almost forty percent,
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and Clemson held them to twenty fivepercent in this game, and so that
is a big part of why Clemsonwas able to win that game. Yeah,
six of twenty four from downtown,three of fifteen in the second period
there, which is twenty percent.I mean, that's outstanding. And this
is a wire to wire win.Again, Clemson never trailed in this game.
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Hard to believe if we had toldyou that pregame. Hey, look,
Clemson was going to take on Baylor, one of the best shooting teams
in the country, and never trailin the game. I think a lot
Clemson fans even would say, Idon't think that's going to happen. John
Rich, I don't see that happeningthere. But how about this Rich,
And this is something we got tocontinue to monitor is concerning. But the
fact that they continued to overcome PJ. Hall's early foul troubles. They were
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without Haul for much of this game. He only played nineteen and a half
minutes too to some early found trouble, and Brenew said going in halftime that
was one of the key elements tothis game, maintaining that lead with Hall
and even Shefflin as well to theirbig guys on the bench there. How
vital is that for this team toshow that, Hey, without their best
player on their team, their senior, the giant who can do it all
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there from the field. PG Hallon the bench for that long early in
the game to maintain that lead.I thought that was as critical as anything
in this game, no question.It's having the depth and having the other
players on this team be able tostep up. And part of that was
Ian Shefflin, the chef just continueto play really well down the stretch.
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And we didn't see so much ofJoseph Gerard the third there in the second
half being hot, but he didknock down a few shots there in that
first half. But again it wasChase Hunter. And it's funny too that
when you look at coaching and playersand how many times we talk about do
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coaches get too much credit and toomuch criticism? And some of these games,
just like a quarterback does oh yeah, and you know there's this narrative
that goes around that, oh thiscoach. You know, if they don't
win the game is all the coachesfault. And you know if they do
win the game, well, it'salso, wow, that coach did a
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fantastic job, even though not onetime did they go out there and score
basket. Yep, it just didn'thappen. Now, obviously the coach is
important because you're able to have thegame plan set in place, the motivation
set in plus the strategy, allof those things are very important, and
that's why you have these coaches andthen being able to manipulate the lineup and
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obviously make adjustments where needed. Butthere was a play that happened with Ian
Cheflin the chef as he gets fouled, but his back is to the basket,
and so he just throws the shotover his head backwards and it goes
in and he gets fouled, andso he goes through the free throw line.
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And it was so funny because afterthe game, I did text Brad
Burnell and I said, you know, congratulations sweet sixteen. I said,
and finally, I've been waiting foryou to call the circus shot offensive set
for Cheflin for the entire season.Where's it been? Why'd you wait until
they're My point was trying to befunny, and Coach Burnell laughed that it's
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that's not Brad Burnell calling a play. That's just a player making a play.
And sometimes that's what happens in thesegames. It's about players making plays.
And it'll be the same tonight.At the end of the day,
players are going to have to makeplays, and you're going to have to
be on the floor. And thisis what's interesting too, because this is
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a philosophy for Brad Burnell. Whenplayers pick up their second foul, they
immediately go to the bench, andthere's data that actually supports that. And
so, yes, we're going deepinto the stats here, as we will
do a little nerd alert here.But when you look at two foul participation
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in college basketball, so this isa measurement in terms of players that have
two fouls how many minutes they actuallyplay that they're eligible to be playing.
And so Clemson is three hundred andfiftieth in the nation. So when players
pick up their second foul, theyonly play four point two percent of the
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minutes that they would be eligible toplay in that certain period of time.
So you can tell once that secondfoul happens, Brad gets around, Yes,
because obviously you don't want to pickup the third and then obviously down
the stretch you need those guys outthere. But I think right now,
obviously PJ. Hall has to doa much better job of staying on the
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floor and not picking up that secondfoul because it's not about the third foul.
Yes, that's obviously a big partof it. But we've seen Brad
if he gets if players get thatsecond foul, they're coming out of the
game. So PJ early on hehas to do a much better job of
sometimes understanding, hey, next play, move on. And some prime examples
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are, you know, if hegets the ball stolen from him, he
will still try to reach and getthe ball back, and at that point
sometimes, and especially if it's aguard, you just have to be like,
Okay, he got it all right, Now it's time to play defense
and let's get back. Let itgo, don't try to pick up,
you know, a turnover here andthe rest are going to typically a big
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man on a guard, they're goingto call a foul on the big man
versus the guard, and PJ justhas to do a better job of not
chasing also offensive players as they mightget by him, whatever it might be.
And that's how he picked up hisfifth foul in that game and should
just let the layup go. ButI know it's difficult. He's a competitor.
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He wants to win, obviously,and you could see the emotion though
when Clemson was able to get thatwin that he knew it was oh so
close that they could have lost thatgame, and that could have been his
last game in a Clemson uniform,and especially to go out that way where
you're not even on the court andhaving an impact on the game itself.
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Now, obviously he can have animpact as he's on the bench cheering his
team on, but that's obviously notthe same You need to be out on
the court. And so you couldsee the emotion that he was so relieved,
and so I think thankful that he'sgoing to have another opportunity to wear
that jersey late tonight. You mentionedBrad Burnell after the game on TNT.
He said, quote, we werehanging on for dear life at the end,
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but I thought our defense for thirtyeight minutes was unbelievable. And on
that note, the Tigers held Baylorto sixty four points, their third lowest
offensive output of the seats, insix of twenty four. As you mentioned,
rich from behind the ark, Clemsonhit twenty of twenty four of its
free throw attempts, while Baylor wasunable to capitalize. They only hit sixteen
of twenty six, missing three onein one front ends in the second half.
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So again, you talk about fouls, you talk about free throw shooting,
that's often the margin here in Marchmadness, and it could be tonight
is Clemson takes on Arizona with anopportunity for the right to go to the
Elite eight for the second time inprogram history. We've got a big show
ahead here for you. Don Munsonwill stop buying and chat with us here
in a little bit. We'll alsobreak down some of the brackets some of
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the other matchups going on. TheACC is robust right now despite all the
narratives, You've got four ACC teamsstill alive, battling for an opportunity to
reach the Final four, and muchmore on Arizona. The matchups tonight,
we'll break that all down right hereon the Engles count Down to tip Off
Show ninety two point five WSC ninetytwo point five WDS is the Upstate's new
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home with a Clemson Tiger continuing theEagles Countdown to tip Off Show right here
on ninety two point five w eSC. The director of broadcasting for the
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Clemson Tigers, Don Munson, joinsus here. So, Don, can
you pull back the curtain a littlebit? I mean, what has your
week been like with some of theuncertainty and obviously not knowing if the team's
going to advance or not, andthen how it has changed your schedule.
Well, Richman, to be honestwith you, you know you plan so
you have. You got to makeHere's Plan A, here's Plan B,
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here's Plan C, here's Plan D. But you got to make all the
plans. And so it really hasn'tupset my apple cart all that much because
all right, we've kind of aright of my well, what's gonna happen?
You know, we win two gamesin Memphis? Right, how's that
gonna play out? Out? Doesit defect the other broadcast responsibilities that I
have? And thank godness, we'vegot great people that they can fill in
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behind and and you know, youknow Quawk obviously with with what happened over
baseball over the weekend, you gotto see stuff that was just unbelievable.
And he's gonna take my job.I'm gonna get Wally Pipps. Is what's
going to happen there? So uh, some at some point that I'm not
to get behind that baseball Mike again. But now I love it, I
mean just absolutely love it. Theplan is, Hey, I'm I'm planning
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us on us getting the Phoenix.Yes, sir, that's my battle plan.
That's plan A plan as to getto Phoenix. So let's go take
care of business against Arizona and theneither Alabama or North Carolina. We've already
played those guys, so we theyknow us, we know them. All
you got to do is be onepoint better in two games, one point
better and get in Arizona one pointbetter at whoever you're gonna go, and
you'll get to go to Phoenix exactly. It doesn't matter how it looks,
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It just matters what that final scoreis. As we're talking with Don Munson,
director of broadcasting for Clemson that Tigers, and we will say the current
voice of the Clemson Tigers, misterDon months in there and so Don,
but I do have to ask youthough, going back to how you have
to plan and have Plan A andPlan B. But from a play by
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play perspective and prepping, because Iknow you do extensive prep, how is
it from a prep standpoint when youdon't know necessarily what team you're going to
be playing as far as advancing andthen how quickly you have to have everything
ready for a quick turnaround. Yeah, I mean, like we didn't get
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home until three o'clock in the morningon Monday from Memphis, So you know,
I get home at three, I'mup at seven because there's you know,
not only that to get some thingsready for broadcast, but just things
in the house. You know,we're going to take care of what.
You know, Elizabeth and I ismy wife of almost forty years. You
know, how does it affect what'sgoing on underneath our roof and making sure
that things are taking care of themand then coming back over here and making
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some plans. And I didn't findout until about, I don't know,
twelve thirty one o'clock yesterday that Iwasn't gonna fly in until tomorrow. So
that gave me a little bit oftime to come up and take a good
breath of breath of bear. Butyou know, you just you play.
I mean, yeah, I've alreadyI've already planned, I've already done some
look at all three teams that arethat are there, obviously focusing mostly on
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Arizona. It does help that we'vealready played Alabama, We've already played North
Carolina, so I already knows somestuff that is there. Not a whole
lot has changed with those clubs,but you focus on what's ahead of you,
and thank goodness you get a dayin between if you win to start
prepping. You know. Again,yes, so just take care of business
that way, no question. DonMunson, director broadcasting for the Clemson Tigers,
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is our guest as Clemson heading outto Los Angeles to take on the
Arizona Wildcats at seven o nine pm. And so, Don, I do
need just to rewind though, totalk about the games there in the first
and second round, with the winover New Mexico and obviously to get to
the Sweet sixteen. What did yousee different with the team versus how they
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played in that game in the ACCTournament. Well, I mean, obviously
the biggest difference is they made shots. That's just simple. They made shots.
But I think also defensively there wasthere was much better intensity coming into
the New Mexico game and then alsothe Baylor game. The thing that you
knew that they had to do wasfigure out a way to slow those teams
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down, slow them down in transition. But one way to slow a team
down is by putting the ball inthe hole, and Clemson was able to
do that shot. But what fiftyI think against New Mexico, and then
I don't remember the final number againstBeata, but I think that was around
forty eight percent. And you helpboth of those teams to under forty percent
shooting. So when you're making morethan the other guy is making by a
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pretty large margin, then that justmakes life way easier. Clemson trailed in
the two games for a grand totalof thirty seconds, and so that was
the other thing. They were alwaysplaying from out front, and it's difficult.
You know, people think, youknow that it's easy to come from
behind. It's not easy to comefrom behind. I mean even a two
point deficit at halftime. I mean, look at Baylor pater As the club
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that when they were leading at halftimethis year, I think they were nineteen
and three, but when they weretrailing at halftime, they were something like
five and six. And some ofthose, some of those leads that they
were trailing by at halftime were onlytwo or three points. And those weren't
the games that they came back andwon. So these these are games that
when you get to this point,they really are two, three, four
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possessions. That's usually the difference thatthat comes down. And Clemson was just
was very, very fortunate to makesure that those two three four possessions went
in their favor, no question.And it looked like the Tigers had a
little bit different swagger on, bodylanguage was different. They looked confident,
and I think it seemed to be, at least what I could see from
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TV perspective, that Chase Hunter wasthe guy that had all predicated on.
He just looked to be much moreintentional about getting to the rim and wanted
to obviously have a much better gamethan he did in that Boston College game
in the a SEC Tournament, AndI think Chase Hunter's play was a key
catalyst for the Tigers getting to theSweet sixteen. Oh, no question.
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He was embarrassed. It was anembarrassing performance in Washington. There's no two
ways about it. It was.It was absolutely embarrassing. You know.
I think that Devin Gray tim wastelling me he went oh for fifteen in
one game. Yeah, and thatwas the largest margin he can remember any
Clemson Tiger going and O for inSo yeah, was there a different mindset
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with Chase, Absolutely there was adifferent mind Chase set for Chase. But
you know, he didn't put pressureon himself what he did was that he
invested in himself and that he madesure, Okay, I'm going to go
out there and perform, and hedid smart things. You know, New
Mexico. He didn't settle for outsideshots his early baskets. He was taking
it right to the paint, rightto the front of the hole and where
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he could make some easy shots andget himself going, earned himself to the
free throw line. Watching that ballgo in the hole, and it just
it gave him confidence that he neededthe rest of the way. Certainly,
the three that he made against Baylorthere at the end of that half,
you know, kind of a doublepumping with a guy not far off of
him and then able to bury thatshot to put Clemson up ten at halftime,
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you know, not only gave hima boost, but he gave everybody
yes going to the locker room.It was one of the reasons that they
could. I mean, if hedoesn't make that shot, this Clemson hang
on. I don't know, wedon't know the story, but we don't
have to worry about it because hedid. You know, it wasn't the
fact that what if it was,because he did made the shot. So
you know, I think that thatwas good. And afterwards he got a
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chance to talk with him as wewere getting ready to travel home, and
you know, we were just kindof a very proud of you, and
he looked at me said, thisisn't over. He said, you know,
this is great, but this isn'topen. I love that mindset,
no question. As Don Munson,director of broadcasting for the Clemson Tigers,
is our guest as the Tigers gettingready to take on the Arizona Wildcats in
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the Sweet sixteen, and Don oneof the things that also that allowed Clemson
to hang on and they did hangon in that Baylor game. But sometimes
that's how it happens. It canbe ugly. But as you talked about,
all you have to do is scoreone more point. But it was
at the free throw line eight ofeight to finish the game and didn't score
a field goal in the last sixminutes and forty four seconds of that game.
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But how impressed were you that theTigers didn't flinch at the free throw
line, and especially somebody like RJ. Godfrey, Well, you should have
been on the bus after the gamewhen when coach Brownell got down there.
And RJ is always in the waitin the back of the bus, and
before we were pulling out from thearena, he turned around and he looked
at RJ and he said, hey, RJ. This summer, obviously you're
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running a shooting line at camp.The bus had a big had a big
go fall over that big laugh overthat. But you know, then that's
the point. I mean, that'sI guess that's the point that I'm trying
to make too many. Too oftenwe look at the things and this is
just who we are as human.What you didn't do, yes, but
no, it's about what you diddo. That's right. Clemson did what
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they were supposed to do. Baylordidn't do what they were supposed to do,
and that was a difference in thegame. I mean, that's that's
just straight facts. And so youknow, because you did what you were
supposed to do, that gives youconfidence and gives you confidence moving forward.
And don after the game, PJ. Hall and also Joseph Gerard the third
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made sure that they really emphasized howmuch they love and respect Brad Brown.
Now, how important was that?And have you seen that that often the
players really making an emphasis for thosethe partial Clemson fan base that seems to
can continue to give Brad Bronnell grief. Well, I mean, I think
(29:03):
that if you're a head coach andyou're not asking them to do that.
Brad didn't ask them to do thatin any way, shape or form.
But wasn't a plant. You know, it wasn't something that he planted.
And hey, hey when the mediacomes in here, I went, Nah,
that was right from the heart fromboth of them. And to see
one guy that's been here one yearas a transfer and to see another guy
that has completely developed his game yearover four seasons, you know, both
(29:27):
of them say almost identically the samething. Goes to show you what these
kids think about Brad Brunnell and theway that he develops them not only as
players but also as men. Imean, how often do we hear that
coming out of the football facility.You know, I want to as coach
when he says I want to givethese guys the tools for life, Well,
there's nothing different over there in thatbasketball office. Believe me, he
(29:49):
Brad Brannell is giving his kids thetools for life. And Brad Brannell has
graduated. For those that have gonea full four years here at Clemson,
he's graduated. Of his players,one percent of his players have earned a
degree. Uh. And so theseguys are prepared for life. And I
think that all of them really appreciatethat, not the way that he's only
(30:11):
developed them as basketball players, butalso has them ready for when basketball is
over. Because baskets ball is goingto be over, Yes, and for
some way sooner than others, it'sgonna be over. So what you know,
this is twenty two years of yourlife. What are you going to
do with the next fifty two,next sixty two years of your life?
That's that's what's important, no question. As we're wrapping up with Don Munson,
(30:33):
director of broadcasting for the Clemson Tigers, Don, what are the keys
for Clemson to take down Arizona outin Los Angeles? Well, one,
they've got it. They've got tocontrol tempo. They've got to stop transition.
Uh So you know they that thatis one they They can't let Arizona
just just get out and run.This is this is a game that Clemson
would like to see played in thesixties, and I don't think much above
(30:56):
the mid seventies. I think ifit gets if it gets a seventy four
to seventy five points. I don'tthink that's a good thing for Clemson,
to be perfectly honest with you,two that I think obviously Clemson needs to
rebound the ball better. They gotbeaten on the offensive glass by a smaller,
quicker, more athletic Baylor club,and now you're you're facing an Arizona
(31:18):
club that's probably as athletic, butthey're bigger. I mean, they got,
you know, seven foot two sixtyguys that are in there, and
then they come off the bench witha you know, with a seven two
to sixty guy you know as aswell. But I think that those are
probably the the And then be reallyhonest with you, make shots, Yeah,
make shots, bustin that Clemson doesn'tneed to go wild from outside to
(31:41):
the free But I think that partof the game plan has to be for
Hall and Sheflin, in particular,those guys maybe to step out and take
some shots from fifteen feet and beyondto try to draw all the bigs of
Arizona out because those bigs, whenyou watch them play, they don't like
to come out of the paint.But you know, if Shefflin the Hall
can start hitting some shots and forcethose guys to come out and make them.
(32:04):
Then that just opens up everything offensively, opens the paint and that's where
Clemson can can really prevail, noquestion from that standpoint. Well, Don
Munson can't thank you enough for joiningus here, and Don, I would
have to say, hopefully you're notable to call the spring game on April
sixth. Man, that's that's planA. That's those Plan A, B,
(32:28):
C, and D that I cantell you right now. That's plan
A. Yes, starting a filefolder. We want that, I'll open
that. That's the case. Man. It's it's funny because I taught to
Gary Hawn, who you know isobviously retiring after thirty four years calling Stuffarenci
State, and I said, hey, Gary, if we're if we see
one another, that means that oneof us is walking home with the national
championship rings. So let's hope thatthat's the case. I love it and
(32:52):
I appreciate it as always, misterDon Munson, Thank you sir. All
right, all gods children say,go Tigers. Thanks for having me on.
Yes, sir, that is DonMunson, director of broadcasting for the
Clemson Tigers, and yes, wewill say once again. Currently the voice
of the Clemson Tigers as the Tigersgetting ready to take on the Arizona Wildcats
(33:12):
in the Sweet sixteen out in LosAngeles, and we will take a look
at this matchup in a little bitmore detail, but also let's take a
look at some of the other gamesthat are going on in the Sweet sixteen,
and we'll do that next as wecontinue the Ingles count down to tip
Off show right here on ninety twopoint five WeSC ninety two point five wd
(33:32):
S is the Upstates new home forthe Clemson Tigers. What a big night
(33:53):
it is. March Madness continues hereon ninety two point five WeSC. It's
the Sweet six the Clemson Tigers facingoff against the Arizona Wildcats tip off around
seven h nine pm. I lovehow exact the tip off times are every
time of year in March Madness.And be sure you're tuning into ninety two
point five WSC for the call withthe aforementioned Don Munson who joined us in
(34:17):
the last segment to talk a littlebit about this Clemson team. And one
thing, I don't know how muchDon wanted to talk about this, I
know that Brad Burnell talked about it. Rich was the travel component of everything
that's going on here with the ClemsonTigers. The fact that Brad Burnell spoke
about this in his press conference,talk about that as a former coach yourself.
(34:37):
What a challenge that is, notonly getting back at four am from
Memphis, but flying out twelve hourslater, driving up to Greenville for an
hour by the way, that's right, and now you got to get your
body clock reset. You're in Centraltime, now you're back the Eastern Time,
and all of a sudden you're outthere in Los Angeles for the week.
Yeah, it is a difficult challengefrom that perspective, but I do
believe it's the right call to goahead and get out there early as possible
(35:00):
so you can get acclimated because itdoes take a couple of days. And
so Clemson is behind the eight ballin terms of travel versus what Arizona is
having to travel, you know,from how they were and obviously much closer
to Los Angeles and makes no Imean that's obvious. Yes, we get
that. And that's where there willbe a strong contingency of Arizona faithful out
(35:22):
there because it's not far from Tucsonto La so there will be a strong
contingency, and there's already a strongbase of Arizona fans in southern California anyway,
so it'll be stacked against Clemson inmultiple ways from the fan base and
then obviously the challenge of the travelthat has when Clemson coming from Memphis and
(35:45):
then back to the West coast outthere in LA. But I do believe
it was the right call. Goahead and get out there as soon as
possible, and then just try toforce yourself. And that's one of the
things that even like if you travelto Europe or you know, coming back,
you try to it. Whenever youget to that particular time zone,
(36:05):
you go ahead and stay up untilit's like your regular bedtime. If that
makes sense, Yes, yes,so I mean you have to force yourself
that. Yeah, you might bevery tired, but push through it so
you can go to sleep as anormal time, even in that time zone.
So then hopefully your body can catchup as quickly as possible. Hey,
(36:28):
Arizona's got a talented team. OmarBallow leads the list there in terms
of the big man seven footer.We're going to talk about this team a
little more in the next step,but Caleb Love as well. I should
say that's a familiar face for Clemsonout there. They faced off a few
times when he was with North Carolina. Now he's out there in Arizona with
a transfer portal. If you're notcareful, these names will steak up on
(36:50):
you'll be like, hey, Love, I just saw him play for the
Targos, Now he's with the Wildcats. Going to be interesting to see what
each side gleans from each other therein terms of familiarity back in the ACC
they speaking of which the ACC isstill very much alive Richmond in this NCAA
tournament, in fact, that theyjust remain perfect though most Clemson right now,
of course, the big game comingup here shortly on ninety two point
(37:12):
five WeSC tangling with Arizona. You'vegot San Diego State, the five seed
out of the East Region, tanglingwith number one seated Yukon, and that
should be an interesting battle. SanDiego Seed trying to work their way back
to the final four man coach Hurleyand Yukon they look invincible at times right
now, they look the part,and I know there's been a lot of
conversation right now about this rematch.So to speak of the National Championship game
(37:36):
with San Diego State and Yukon completelydifferent teams on both sides. Other than
you do have obviously a couple ofplayers with Yukon there, and then you
also have Jaydon Lee there with SanDiego State, and he's playing extremely well,
but he's undersized against Yukon, SoI don't know how much you can
glean on him being the guy becausehe's going to have a tough matchup against
(37:58):
Yukon, But they do you lookextremely tough to beat, and even in
a scenario where you look at theirbracket and you're like, Wow, they've
got the toughest bracket and this isthe number one overall seed. When you're
talking about Illinois Big Ten champion,you've got Auburn SEC champion now again,
so the team's got knocked out.I get that. But you do have
(38:20):
obviously also Illinois and Iowa State thereat the bottom of that bracket, and
that's going to be an interesting matchuptoo, because Iowa State is the number
one defensive team in the country,in Illinois is the number one offensive team
in the country. So strength onstrength, who is going to give in?
Who's going to have a better game. And so how many times we
(38:44):
talk about defense wins championships, Well, I don't know. I've seen it
too many times where at the endof the day, you have to be
able to score points also, andnot saying that Iowa State can't, but
I do believe that Iowa State doeshave the horses to keep up with Illinois.
But if Illinois gets in the rhythm, they can be very dangerous.
(39:04):
Well, brew your coffee for thatone, especially on the East Coast in
Boston at tano nine pm tip off. I don't quite understand how that aligns
here, but that's the decision ofthe tournament. Unity there's I'm ten o'clock
tip off on the East Coast.I'm so fortunate that the Clemson game is
a seven nine. I was thinkingof you later than that in La Yeah,
I thought for sure we would betipping off at ten o'clock. Well,
(39:28):
the other game out there in theWest Region and this is fascinating too.
So if Clemson does win, you'vegot Alabama, North Carolina, four
and one seed respectively in the WestRegion tipping off around nine thirty nine pm
tonight out there. From the Cryptodot Com arena in La and look,
Clemson has seen these teams, notonly that they have beaten both of these
(39:49):
teams already this season. You don'twant to look too far ahead. Arizona's
will get to an a minute,supremely talented team. There are no guarantees
here, but if you happen topull off one more upset here as they
did against Taylor, you're guaranteed toface a team not only you've played already
this year, won twice, butyou have beaten both of these teams,
one of which both of which actuallycame on the road, on the road.
(40:10):
I'm about to say, John onthe road. That's impressive in itself.
Obviously, beating Alabama in Tuscaloosa isnot an easy task, but it
pales in comparison to the task forthe Clemson Tigers beating North Carolina in Chapel
Hill, because going into that gameearlier this year, Clemson has only done
it one time in their entire basketballhistory. So to be able to get
(40:35):
it that second time, and knowingthat this is a North Carolina team obviously
led by R. J. Davisand Armando Baycott, they're very talented,
but I'm really interested in this game. Also because Alabama, if there's a
team that I do believe can pushNorth Carolina to the brink also here in
the tournament, there's no question it'sAlabama just because of how they want to
(40:59):
get up and run down the floor. So can North Carolina slow them down?
I don't know if Alabama has anybodyto contend with Armando Baycott, so
I think that's going to be abig part of North Carolina's success. But
again, if Alabama can get sometransition opportunities, they will make things very
difficult for North Carolina. And ofcourse you got action tomorrow night as well
(41:22):
that decides who's going to the leadeight from the South Region at Midwest.
It all starts with the highest seededteam left here at number eleven in C
State, another ACC team by theway, twenty four wins on the season,
taking the two seed marqueat On atseven oh nine pm out there in
the South Region tomorrow night at inC State with big old DJ Burns say
(41:44):
he's taken the nation by storm rightnow? Yeah, who's the song?
Hey, mister DJ, That's whatwe're going to be hearing quite a bit
perct because it's DJ Burns and heis a character and I love of watching
him play. His footwork is phenomenal. But this is an interesting stat too,
(42:05):
because you look at INC State andthey are the lowest seed team or
highest seed team, however you wantto term that at a eleven seed,
the only double digit seed there inthe Sweet sixteen. But Clemson was the
only team there that actually beat thehigher ranked seed team to get to the
(42:28):
Sweet sixteen, because in C Stateactually played Oakland, who was obviously a
higher seed than n C State ora lower seed, whichever way you want
to categorize that a number of ways. With that Gonzaga perdue, that should
be fascinating. That's tomorrow night's seventhirty nine pm on TBS. That's in
the Midwest region, and the Zagsare always here in the Sweet sixteen.
(42:51):
But Zach Eatie, as we sawlast week Richmond, he presents a challenge.
We've seen it all year. Ohbest player in the country, no
question. Gonzaga nine straight Sweet sixteens. It's impressive what Mark Feugh continues to
do just revamping his team, andobviously we know that happens in college basketball
now, but just even more so. But can they contend with Zach edy
(43:13):
inside, and he's playing extremely wellright now, so that's going to be
an interesting matchup. And then youlook at the other game that I'm also
very interested in, and that's Dukein Houston, and obviously Houston surviving and
advancing basically, and Duke is theteam coming in seems to be playing extremely
(43:34):
well right now, and how isthat narrative going to play out between Duke
and Houston. It's fascinating Duke Houstontipping off at nine thirty nine pm tomorrow
night on CBS, and then thenight cap again another late when this one
not so egregious in the Midwest outthere in Detroit ten or nine pm.
Number three seeded Creighton against the twoseed Tennessee should be a fascinating battle between
(43:58):
two very talented teams here. Yeah, and I think Creighton is a team
that gets overlooked. And this isa team that's just outside of being in
the top twenty offensively efficiency and alsojust right outside of the top forty in
defense efficiency. And that's two ofthe parameters that you look at as far
as advanced metrics, as far asteams that have an opportunity to win a
(44:21):
national title. So they're right onthe outskirts of being that type of team,
and Tennessee obviously led by Dalton Connect. But if Dalton Connect is off,
Tennessee just has no other playmakers andso that's going to be a very
interesting matchup. It's fascinating. Withthe exception of the East Region, you
could end up with an all accFinal four, three out of the four
(44:43):
teams still alive and kicking in verygood chance for each of these teams to
advance right now. Yeah, wetalked about with Don as he had mentioned
that how crazy it would be thatyou could see a Clemson NC State with
Greg Hahn, the voice of ofthe wolf Pack, as he's going to
be retiring. But as they werejoking, if we see each other in
(45:04):
Phoenix, that means we've got agood opportunity that we're going to be playing
each other. I'm looking around forthe big twelve teams, not seeing a
lot of them here, but we'lldigress on that one here. Coming up
shortly, we will break down therest of this matchup here between Arizona and
Clemson that's up next year. Aswe get you ready for tip off,
Don Munson on the call. Comingup shortly here we'll hand the torch here
to him after our next segment wherewe'll break down Arizona versus Clemson. The
(45:28):
Engles count Down a tip off showspecial March Madness Edition continues here on ninety
two point five WSC. Ninety twopoint five WDS is the Upstate's new home
for a Clemson Tigers, the twentythree win Clemson Tigers tangling with the twenty
(45:54):
seven win Arizona Wildcats out of thePAC twelve tip off coming up. You're
at seven or nine pm on ninetytwo point five WSC. Heard Don Munson
earlier on this show. You'll hearhim here momentarily as we set to hand
the torch off to Don calling thisgame tonight on the Clemson Athletic Network.
Keeping locked in here to ninety twopoint five WeSC for all the action all
(46:15):
evening long and rich as we turnour attention over to this matchup. Look,
it's going to be essential, Ithink for PJ. Hall, first
of all, going against another bigman for Arizona to stay out of foul
trouble. But had about Caleb Loveending up in Arizona now a familiar face
for those who followed the acc andClemson for many years. Hey, this
(46:36):
is a guy that is one ofthe best in the country, and we
saw that at North Carolina last year. Now, he struggled a little bit
so far in the tournament relative towhat we saw during the regular season.
But this guy is dangerous. Hecan get hot quickly, and so obviously
guard play is going to be extremelyimportant here and being able to defend out
(46:58):
on the perimeter and for all intensepurposes. If Caleb Love, if he
goes for forty points tonight, it'sgoing to be very difficult for Clemson to
win this game. So you're goingto have to do a much better job.
And I know, yes, anytimea player goes for forty the likelihood
of that team winning is obviously increased. But I think even more so for
(47:19):
Clemson versus Arizona. You just can'tlet Caleb Love be the guy that is
beating you. And so I thinkit's going to be scenario where you're going
to have to probably do some differentmatchups with Caleb Love to give him some
different looks. Is it Chase Hunterfor a while, is it Jack Clark
for a while, Get a littlebit of height on Caleb Love, and
then Obviously PJ. Hall has tobe able to stay in the game and
(47:42):
not necessarily have to be a guythat's scoring twenty five points. Of course
you'll take that and that'll be agood sign for Clemson, but he just
needs to be out on the courtjust to be able to defend and then
also pull out the big seven footof their ballow out of the pain there
to try to create some opportunities whereChase Hunter can get to the rim and
(48:05):
can penetrate. And then obviously weknow how good Chase is once he can
attack the rim and does a goodjob of not only at times attacking the
rim, but also if he isbottled up, he's able to find the
open man, and that could beJoseph Gerard the third. This is by
far the toughest test for Arizona,and you said the same for Clemson here
in a while, Arizona did beDayton in Long Beach State in the tournament
(48:27):
so far. They did lose toOregon in the PAC twelfth tournament here back
on the fifteenth. They do solost to USC back in March on the
ninth, so they've had some upsand downs here. We'll see what happens
tonight tip off here. Shortly,Don Munson takes over here momentarily on the
Clemson Athletic Networks coverage right here atninety two point five WSC, and we
certainly hope to see you again thisweekend for a possible Elite eight matchup for
(48:52):
our producer Trey Falco for Richmond Weaver, for Don Munson. I'm John Ellis.
Thanks for listening to the ingles countdownto tip off show. Stay tuned
here to ninety two point five WeSCfor the big Sweet sixteen showdown between Arizona
and Clemson. Y'all have a greatevening.
W E. S E F M. Greenville, Spartanburg Anders A time for
the Ingles Countdown to tip Off Show, brought to you Pie Ingles Markets,
low prices, Love this Sabiens,Blue Ridge Electric Cooperative, Harley Davidson of
Greenville, Greer Flooring Center, theSurgery Center at Pella McGhee eating an air
pan by Palmeadow State Armory. NowHere are your hosts sehn Alis, I'm
(00:26):
Bridgman and Weaver. The Clemson Tigershave an opportunity here in a couple of
short hours to make some history.They are in the Sweet sixteen with a
chance to get back to the Eliteeight for the second time in program history.
Would be the highest seated team they'veever beaten in the NCAA tournament.
What a time it is. MarchMadness is in full swing and the Clemson
(00:50):
Tigers and Arizona Wildcats tip off herein about an hour and a half.
Ahead of that, it's the InglesCountdown to tip Off Show. John Ellis
Trey Falco here producing as always inthe great Richmond Weaver Here, get Vina
all the news and notes and nuggetsyou need in advance of this big game.
We were brought to you by ourfriends at Ingles low Prices, love
the savings Ingles Dashmarkets dot com.And it goes without saying, this has
(01:14):
been one heck of a ride forthis Clemson team so far. They beat
New Mexico, they take down Baylorand Richmond Weaver. Now they have an
opportunity to reach the Elite eight.My friend, what a beautiful sound that
is when you can say Elite eightand that opportunity. I know, this
is not an easy task. Thisis the Arizona Wildcats, and this is
(01:36):
a blue blood type of program.I know, maybe not winning as many
national championships obviously as a Kentucky orNorth Carolina or a Duke, but this
is one of those stables that youhear of, or I should say staples
that you hear of when you talkabout college basketball, going all the way
(01:56):
back to the days of Loud Olsen, the head coach that was there for
a long period of time and justa great ambassador of the game. So
this is a storied program and thisis a great opportunity. Clemson seemed to
be with that mindset after the ACCTournament as far as hey, we've got
to turn the page We've got torefocus. We've got to come out with
(02:20):
a little more grit. We've gotto come out with a little bit more
urgency because this is it, andthis is now even more so your opportunity,
especially as heading into the NCAA tournament. John the narrative was, Oh,
Clemson, they're limping in a sixversus eleven New Mexico coming in hot.
(02:46):
Oh, this is upset special,this is everybody was all on board
with New Mexico and I'm not goingto try to rewrite history. And we
talked about it previously on the InglesCountdown to tip Off show before the New
Mexico game that I didn't like thematch up when I saw it right because
I did know that New Mexico wascoming in hot. They were playing really
(03:08):
well, their guard play was reallygood, and maybe their record wasn't indicative
of just how talented of a teamthey were. But not to say that
Clemson couldn't win that game. We'veseen throughout this season that Clemson can compete
with anybody. They beat Alabama onthe road, they had Duke on the
(03:28):
ropes in Durham, should have wonthat game. There's obviously some questionable calls
down the stretch, and then theclose losses at home this year were also
somewhat struggling or somewhat frustrating from afan perspective. But make no mistake,
Clemson is a team that can competewith anybody, and they can compete with
Arizona. But this is obviously atough matchup. This is not a scenario
(03:52):
where you're just going to roll theball out there and hopefully Clemson plays well.
They're going to have to do certainthings extremely well. And then also,
as you know, John, sometimesif you can just have a team
and like we saw in the Baylorgame, and we'll talk about it,
that if they can just have justa little bit of an off night,
if they just are a team thatcan make some mistakes, and some of
(04:15):
it obviously can be part of whatyou do to that team. And I
think that's what we did see inthat Baylor game. It wasn't just necessarily
about all Baylor was playing poorly.Clemson was playing well defensively. Allah what
we saw in that New Mexico game, they were playing very well defensively and
carried over into that Baylor game.But there were also times where I saw
(04:39):
some wide open shots for Baylor downthe stretch as they were making their run,
and then even in that last minutewhen they cut it to two points,
there were some open shots that Baylordidn't make. And those are the
type of plays that I'm talking aboutJohn that hey, if you can have
a scenario where just does the ballbounce your way on a certain night,
and when you get to this point, these teams are so close in terms
(05:02):
of how one is inferior or superiorto the other. And I do believe
roster wise, Arizona does have abetter roster than Clemson. It's just the
reality of it. But that doesn'tmean that Clemson collectively can't play as good
as Arizona collectively. And that's whatwe're hoping for tonight for the Tigers,
(05:24):
no doubt about it. You talkabout the New Mexico game, they held
New Mexico Clemson to the twenty ninepoint seven percent shooting second lois for a
Clemson team and tournament history for anopponent. The record was twenty five point
eight percent back against Auburn in twentyeighteen. That magical run Clemson went through
to the Sweet sixteen that the heartof believe that was six years ago now,
(05:46):
but here we are again with anopportunity to see Clemson. Like I
said, make a little history.They've been the one elite eight in their
program's history. Rich This might resonatewith you. Arizona and Clemson have met
three times. The only time they'vemet in the NCAA turn at nineteen eighty
nine, where Arizona got the bestof Clemson. So it's been a minute
since they've played one another. Youmentioned we're going to break down this Arizona
(06:08):
team in detail later in the show. Also, I do tell that Don
Munson's going to be joining us here. Yes, you're talking to Richmond Weaver
here. We're excited about having Donon and just the craziness that happens at
this time of the year for Donand obviously all over the map, and
especially when you're in a scenario ofthe tournament games and one not knowing who
(06:30):
your next opponent could be. Obviously, I mean you have an idea,
but there's also okay, what happenswhen you do advance and how quickly you
have to change your plans and youknow, do you have a plan,
A, plan B, C andD and all of these you know scenarios
playing out that might happen, andyou have to be prepared for any of
those situations that happen. So definitelywant to get some insight from Don obviously
(06:54):
been calling the Clemson Tigers for along time and has some good insight with
the Clemson basketball team. Looking forwardto that. Our good friend Don Munson
joining us here shortly on the EnglesCountdown to tip Off show. So,
yeah, you mentioned the win againstBaylor. How about that the sixth seed
Clemson takes down the third seed thereseventy two to sixty four, advancing to
the Sweet sixteen. And again,a big part of this game was the
(07:17):
final two minutes, getting to thefree throw line eight times, knocking all
eight shots down. It looked fora minute like this game was gonna slip
away. Rich Clemson had an outstandingperformance by Chase Hunter, especially at the
end of the half when they madethat big shot there going a halftime with
a lot of momentum, but closingthat game out the way they did.
(07:39):
What a performance by this team collectively. Just talk about that, the opportunity
to reach the Sweet sixteen on theline and they closed it out like the
senior led team that they are.Yeah, well, when you look at
how this game was going and Clemsonis winning sixty one to forty six with
six minutes and forty four seconds togo, you're feeling very good. And
(08:01):
then Clemson goes the rest of thegame without scoring field goal, and then
all of a sudden, you're notfeeling too good as Baylor starts getting things
going and they're in a rhythm whichthey hadn't been the entire evening. But
then when it mattered the most,Clemson was able to do just enough to
make some defensive stops. And thenkudos to Clemson for hitting their free throws
(08:22):
eight of eight there in the lastfew minutes of that game. And then
even more so, it's one thingthat Joseph Gerard the third goes to the
free throw line and drains them.That's expected. Yeah, we get that.
I think he was what second inthe nation and free throw percentage at
one time he led the nation andfree throw percentage, so it's automatic.
(08:43):
And I would have to say,I love when he goes to the free
throw line, and I think we'vetalked about it before, how he just
steps up there and as the ballcomes to him from the ref it hits
his hands, and the way ithits his hands, he goes he touches
it and then goes ahead and makesit spin and it hits the ground and
bounces back up to him. Andwhen it bounces back up to him,
(09:07):
he's already in motion, so asit comes up at his waist, then
he just continues to go up withhis arm and then shoots the free throw.
There's no wasted motion whatsoever. Hedoesn't sit there and think about it,
and it just hits nothing but thebottom of the net. Again,
that's one thing for Joseph Gerard tobe able to do that, but it's
RJ godfre you, who is afifty six percent free throw shooter, and
(09:31):
for him in the clutch moments thereto knock down four free throws, and
that was monumental that he was ableto do that. And obviously it's not
necessarily those free throws that won thegame for Clemson, but I do believe
it's the free throws that allowed Clemsonnot to lose that game. Because you
(09:52):
can go through a course of agame and pick out several different plays in
terms of how it's going to impactthe to the game. But There's no
question those were huge free throws aby RJ. Godfrey, and that just
showcases that again, having the confidence, and I think some of that was
predicated by what I saw from ChaseHunter, and I'm looking forward to talking
(10:15):
to Don about it. Also interms of he seemed to be a different
type of guy. We saw thatin the New Mexico game and we talked
about it. Could he do thesame in the Baylor game? And he
did just that. It's the confidencethat he had, the aggressiveness, being
intentional, getting to the rim,not settling for some bad shots, and
(10:37):
we've seen him do that at timesnow. He did have some careless turnovers
in this game, but he madeup for it in so many other ways.
And Baylor does a good job defensively, but Clemson did an even better
job defensively. Baylor. Coming intothe game, they were shooting thirty nine
point nine percent from beyond the arcas a team, almost forty percent,
(11:00):
and Clemson held them to twenty fivepercent in this game, and so that
is a big part of why Clemsonwas able to win that game. Yeah,
six of twenty four from downtown,three of fifteen in the second period
there, which is twenty percent.I mean, that's outstanding. And this
is a wire to wire win.Again, Clemson never trailed in this game.
(11:22):
Hard to believe if we had toldyou that pregame. Hey, look,
Clemson was going to take on Baylor, one of the best shooting teams
in the country, and never trailin the game. I think a lot
Clemson fans even would say, Idon't think that's going to happen. John
Rich, I don't see that happeningthere. But how about this Rich,
And this is something we got tocontinue to monitor is concerning. But the
fact that they continued to overcome PJ. Hall's early foul troubles. They were
(11:46):
without Haul for much of this game. He only played nineteen and a half
minutes too to some early found trouble, and Brenew said going in halftime that
was one of the key elements tothis game, maintaining that lead with Hall
and even Shefflin as well to theirbig guys on the bench there. How
vital is that for this team toshow that, Hey, without their best
player on their team, their senior, the giant who can do it all
(12:09):
there from the field. PG Hallon the bench for that long early in
the game to maintain that lead.I thought that was as critical as anything
in this game, no question.It's having the depth and having the other
players on this team be able tostep up. And part of that was
Ian Shefflin, the chef just continueto play really well down the stretch.
(12:30):
And we didn't see so much ofJoseph Gerard the third there in the second
half being hot, but he didknock down a few shots there in that
first half. But again it wasChase Hunter. And it's funny too that
when you look at coaching and playersand how many times we talk about do
(12:50):
coaches get too much credit and toomuch criticism? And some of these games,
just like a quarterback does oh yeah, and you know there's this narrative
that goes around that, oh thiscoach. You know, if they don't
win the game is all the coachesfault. And you know if they do
win the game, well, it'salso, wow, that coach did a
(13:13):
fantastic job, even though not onetime did they go out there and score
basket. Yep, it just didn'thappen. Now, obviously the coach is
important because you're able to have thegame plan set in place, the motivation
set in plus the strategy, allof those things are very important, and
that's why you have these coaches andthen being able to manipulate the lineup and
(13:35):
obviously make adjustments where needed. Butthere was a play that happened with Ian
Cheflin the chef as he gets fouled, but his back is to the basket,
and so he just throws the shotover his head backwards and it goes
in and he gets fouled, andso he goes through the free throw line.
(13:58):
And it was so funny because afterthe game, I did text Brad
Burnell and I said, you know, congratulations sweet sixteen. I said,
and finally, I've been waiting foryou to call the circus shot offensive set
for Cheflin for the entire season.Where's it been? Why'd you wait until
they're My point was trying to befunny, and Coach Burnell laughed that it's
(14:24):
that's not Brad Burnell calling a play. That's just a player making a play.
And sometimes that's what happens in thesegames. It's about players making plays.
And it'll be the same tonight.At the end of the day,
players are going to have to makeplays, and you're going to have to
be on the floor. And thisis what's interesting too, because this is
(14:46):
a philosophy for Brad Burnell. Whenplayers pick up their second foul, they
immediately go to the bench, andthere's data that actually supports that. And
so, yes, we're going deepinto the stats here, as we will
do a little nerd alert here.But when you look at two foul participation
(15:11):
in college basketball, so this isa measurement in terms of players that have
two fouls how many minutes they actuallyplay that they're eligible to be playing.
And so Clemson is three hundred andfiftieth in the nation. So when players
pick up their second foul, theyonly play four point two percent of the
(15:33):
minutes that they would be eligible toplay in that certain period of time.
So you can tell once that secondfoul happens, Brad gets around, Yes,
because obviously you don't want to pickup the third and then obviously down
the stretch you need those guys outthere. But I think right now,
obviously PJ. Hall has to doa much better job of staying on the
(15:58):
floor and not picking up that secondfoul because it's not about the third foul.
Yes, that's obviously a big partof it. But we've seen Brad
if he gets if players get thatsecond foul, they're coming out of the
game. So PJ early on hehas to do a much better job of
sometimes understanding, hey, next play, move on. And some prime examples
(16:22):
are, you know, if hegets the ball stolen from him, he
will still try to reach and getthe ball back, and at that point
sometimes, and especially if it's aguard, you just have to be like,
Okay, he got it all right, Now it's time to play defense
and let's get back. Let itgo, don't try to pick up,
you know, a turnover here andthe rest are going to typically a big
(16:44):
man on a guard, they're goingto call a foul on the big man
versus the guard, and PJ justhas to do a better job of not
chasing also offensive players as they mightget by him, whatever it might be.
And that's how he picked up hisfifth foul in that game and should
just let the layup go. ButI know it's difficult. He's a competitor.
(17:06):
He wants to win, obviously,and you could see the emotion though
when Clemson was able to get thatwin that he knew it was oh so
close that they could have lost thatgame, and that could have been his
last game in a Clemson uniform,and especially to go out that way where
you're not even on the court andhaving an impact on the game itself.
(17:30):
Now, obviously he can have animpact as he's on the bench cheering his
team on, but that's obviously notthe same You need to be out on
the court. And so you couldsee the emotion that he was so relieved,
and so I think thankful that he'sgoing to have another opportunity to wear
that jersey late tonight. You mentionedBrad Burnell after the game on TNT.
He said, quote, we werehanging on for dear life at the end,
(17:51):
but I thought our defense for thirtyeight minutes was unbelievable. And on
that note, the Tigers held Baylorto sixty four points, their third lowest
offensive output of the seats, insix of twenty four. As you mentioned,
rich from behind the ark, Clemsonhit twenty of twenty four of its
free throw attempts, while Baylor wasunable to capitalize. They only hit sixteen
of twenty six, missing three onein one front ends in the second half.
(18:15):
So again, you talk about fouls, you talk about free throw shooting,
that's often the margin here in Marchmadness, and it could be tonight
is Clemson takes on Arizona with anopportunity for the right to go to the
Elite eight for the second time inprogram history. We've got a big show
ahead here for you. Don Munsonwill stop buying and chat with us here
in a little bit. We'll alsobreak down some of the brackets some of
(18:36):
the other matchups going on. TheACC is robust right now despite all the
narratives, You've got four ACC teamsstill alive, battling for an opportunity to
reach the Final four, and muchmore on Arizona. The matchups tonight,
we'll break that all down right hereon the Engles count Down to tip Off
Show ninety two point five WSC ninetytwo point five WDS is the Upstate's new
(18:59):
home with a Clemson Tiger continuing theEagles Countdown to tip Off Show right here
on ninety two point five w eSC. The director of broadcasting for the
(19:22):
Clemson Tigers, Don Munson, joinsus here. So, Don, can
you pull back the curtain a littlebit? I mean, what has your
week been like with some of theuncertainty and obviously not knowing if the team's
going to advance or not, andthen how it has changed your schedule.
Well, Richman, to be honestwith you, you know you plan so
you have. You got to makeHere's Plan A, here's Plan B,
(19:45):
here's Plan C, here's Plan D. But you got to make all the
plans. And so it really hasn'tupset my apple cart all that much because
all right, we've kind of aright of my well, what's gonna happen?
You know, we win two gamesin Memphis? Right, how's that
gonna play out? Out? Doesit defect the other broadcast responsibilities that I
have? And thank godness, we'vegot great people that they can fill in
(20:06):
behind and and you know, youknow Quawk obviously with with what happened over
baseball over the weekend, you gotto see stuff that was just unbelievable.
And he's gonna take my job.I'm gonna get Wally Pipps. Is what's
going to happen there? So uh, some at some point that I'm not
to get behind that baseball Mike again. But now I love it, I
mean just absolutely love it. Theplan is, Hey, I'm I'm planning
(20:29):
us on us getting the Phoenix.Yes, sir, that's my battle plan.
That's plan A plan as to getto Phoenix. So let's go take
care of business against Arizona and theneither Alabama or North Carolina. We've already
played those guys, so we theyknow us, we know them. All
you got to do is be onepoint better in two games, one point
better and get in Arizona one pointbetter at whoever you're gonna go, and
you'll get to go to Phoenix exactly. It doesn't matter how it looks,
(20:52):
It just matters what that final scoreis. As we're talking with Don Munson,
director of broadcasting for Clemson that Tigers, and we will say the current
voice of the Clemson Tigers, misterDon months in there and so Don,
but I do have to ask youthough, going back to how you have
to plan and have Plan A andPlan B. But from a play by
(21:12):
play perspective and prepping, because Iknow you do extensive prep, how is
it from a prep standpoint when youdon't know necessarily what team you're going to
be playing as far as advancing andthen how quickly you have to have everything
ready for a quick turnaround. Yeah, I mean, like we didn't get
(21:33):
home until three o'clock in the morningon Monday from Memphis, So you know,
I get home at three, I'mup at seven because there's you know,
not only that to get some thingsready for broadcast, but just things
in the house. You know,we're going to take care of what.
You know, Elizabeth and I ismy wife of almost forty years. You
know, how does it affect what'sgoing on underneath our roof and making sure
that things are taking care of themand then coming back over here and making
(21:56):
some plans. And I didn't findout until about, I don't know,
twelve thirty one o'clock yesterday that Iwasn't gonna fly in until tomorrow. So
that gave me a little bit oftime to come up and take a good
breath of breath of bear. Butyou know, you just you play.
I mean, yeah, I've alreadyI've already planned, I've already done some
look at all three teams that arethat are there, obviously focusing mostly on
(22:18):
Arizona. It does help that we'vealready played Alabama, We've already played North
Carolina, so I already knows somestuff that is there. Not a whole
lot has changed with those clubs,but you focus on what's ahead of you,
and thank goodness you get a dayin between if you win to start
prepping. You know. Again,yes, so just take care of business
that way, no question. DonMunson, director broadcasting for the Clemson Tigers,
(22:41):
is our guest as Clemson heading outto Los Angeles to take on the
Arizona Wildcats at seven o nine pm. And so, Don, I do
need just to rewind though, totalk about the games there in the first
and second round, with the winover New Mexico and obviously to get to
the Sweet sixteen. What did yousee different with the team versus how they
(23:07):
played in that game in the ACCTournament. Well, I mean, obviously
the biggest difference is they made shots. That's just simple. They made shots.
But I think also defensively there wasthere was much better intensity coming into
the New Mexico game and then alsothe Baylor game. The thing that you
knew that they had to do wasfigure out a way to slow those teams
(23:29):
down, slow them down in transition. But one way to slow a team
down is by putting the ball inthe hole, and Clemson was able to
do that shot. But what fiftyI think against New Mexico, and then
I don't remember the final number againstBeata, but I think that was around
forty eight percent. And you helpboth of those teams to under forty percent
shooting. So when you're making morethan the other guy is making by a
(23:52):
pretty large margin, then that justmakes life way easier. Clemson trailed in
the two games for a grand totalof thirty seconds, and so that was
the other thing. They were alwaysplaying from out front, and it's difficult.
You know, people think, youknow that it's easy to come from
behind. It's not easy to comefrom behind. I mean even a two
point deficit at halftime. I mean, look at Baylor pater As the club
(24:15):
that when they were leading at halftimethis year, I think they were nineteen
and three, but when they weretrailing at halftime, they were something like
five and six. And some ofthose, some of those leads that they
were trailing by at halftime were onlytwo or three points. And those weren't
the games that they came back andwon. So these these are games that
when you get to this point,they really are two, three, four
(24:37):
possessions. That's usually the difference thatthat comes down. And Clemson was just
was very, very fortunate to makesure that those two three four possessions went
in their favor, no question.And it looked like the Tigers had a
little bit different swagger on, bodylanguage was different. They looked confident,
and I think it seemed to be, at least what I could see from
(25:02):
TV perspective, that Chase Hunter wasthe guy that had all predicated on.
He just looked to be much moreintentional about getting to the rim and wanted
to obviously have a much better gamethan he did in that Boston College game
in the a SEC Tournament, AndI think Chase Hunter's play was a key
catalyst for the Tigers getting to theSweet sixteen. Oh, no question.
(25:25):
He was embarrassed. It was anembarrassing performance in Washington. There's no two
ways about it. It was.It was absolutely embarrassing. You know.
I think that Devin Gray tim wastelling me he went oh for fifteen in
one game. Yeah, and thatwas the largest margin he can remember any
Clemson Tiger going and O for inSo yeah, was there a different mindset
(25:47):
with Chase, Absolutely there was adifferent mind Chase set for Chase. But
you know, he didn't put pressureon himself what he did was that he
invested in himself and that he madesure, Okay, I'm going to go
out there and perform, and hedid smart things. You know, New
Mexico. He didn't settle for outsideshots his early baskets. He was taking
it right to the paint, rightto the front of the hole and where
(26:08):
he could make some easy shots andget himself going, earned himself to the
free throw line. Watching that ballgo in the hole, and it just
it gave him confidence that he neededthe rest of the way. Certainly,
the three that he made against Baylorthere at the end of that half,
you know, kind of a doublepumping with a guy not far off of
him and then able to bury thatshot to put Clemson up ten at halftime,
(26:30):
you know, not only gave hima boost, but he gave everybody
yes going to the locker room.It was one of the reasons that they
could. I mean, if hedoesn't make that shot, this Clemson hang
on. I don't know, wedon't know the story, but we don't
have to worry about it because hedid. You know, it wasn't the
fact that what if it was,because he did made the shot. So
you know, I think that thatwas good. And afterwards he got a
(26:51):
chance to talk with him as wewere getting ready to travel home, and
you know, we were just kindof a very proud of you, and
he looked at me said, thisisn't over. He said, you know,
this is great, but this isn'topen. I love that mindset,
no question. As Don Munson,director of broadcasting for the Clemson Tigers,
is our guest as the Tigers gettingready to take on the Arizona Wildcats in
(27:11):
the Sweet sixteen, and Don oneof the things that also that allowed Clemson
to hang on and they did hangon in that Baylor game. But sometimes
that's how it happens. It canbe ugly. But as you talked about,
all you have to do is scoreone more point. But it was
at the free throw line eight ofeight to finish the game and didn't score
a field goal in the last sixminutes and forty four seconds of that game.
(27:36):
But how impressed were you that theTigers didn't flinch at the free throw
line, and especially somebody like RJ. Godfrey, Well, you should have
been on the bus after the gamewhen when coach Brownell got down there.
And RJ is always in the waitin the back of the bus, and
before we were pulling out from thearena, he turned around and he looked
at RJ and he said, hey, RJ. This summer, obviously you're
(27:57):
running a shooting line at camp.The bus had a big had a big
go fall over that big laugh overthat. But you know, then that's
the point. I mean, that'sI guess that's the point that I'm trying
to make too many. Too oftenwe look at the things and this is
just who we are as human.What you didn't do, yes, but
no, it's about what you diddo. That's right. Clemson did what
(28:18):
they were supposed to do. Baylordidn't do what they were supposed to do,
and that was a difference in thegame. I mean, that's that's
just straight facts. And so youknow, because you did what you were
supposed to do, that gives youconfidence and gives you confidence moving forward.
And don after the game, PJ. Hall and also Joseph Gerard the third
(28:40):
made sure that they really emphasized howmuch they love and respect Brad Brown.
Now, how important was that?And have you seen that that often the
players really making an emphasis for thosethe partial Clemson fan base that seems to
can continue to give Brad Bronnell grief. Well, I mean, I think
(29:03):
that if you're a head coach andyou're not asking them to do that.
Brad didn't ask them to do thatin any way, shape or form.
But wasn't a plant. You know, it wasn't something that he planted.
And hey, hey when the mediacomes in here, I went, Nah,
that was right from the heart fromboth of them. And to see
one guy that's been here one yearas a transfer and to see another guy
that has completely developed his game yearover four seasons, you know, both
(29:27):
of them say almost identically the samething. Goes to show you what these
kids think about Brad Brunnell and theway that he develops them not only as
players but also as men. Imean, how often do we hear that
coming out of the football facility.You know, I want to as coach
when he says I want to givethese guys the tools for life, Well,
there's nothing different over there in thatbasketball office. Believe me, he
(29:49):
Brad Brannell is giving his kids thetools for life. And Brad Brannell has
graduated. For those that have gonea full four years here at Clemson,
he's graduated. Of his players,one percent of his players have earned a
degree. Uh. And so theseguys are prepared for life. And I
think that all of them really appreciatethat, not the way that he's only
(30:11):
developed them as basketball players, butalso has them ready for when basketball is
over. Because baskets ball is goingto be over, Yes, and for
some way sooner than others, it'sgonna be over. So what you know,
this is twenty two years of yourlife. What are you going to
do with the next fifty two,next sixty two years of your life?
That's that's what's important, no question. As we're wrapping up with Don Munson,
(30:33):
director of broadcasting for the Clemson Tigers, Don, what are the keys
for Clemson to take down Arizona outin Los Angeles? Well, one,
they've got it. They've got tocontrol tempo. They've got to stop transition.
Uh So you know they that thatis one they They can't let Arizona
just just get out and run.This is this is a game that Clemson
would like to see played in thesixties, and I don't think much above
(30:56):
the mid seventies. I think ifit gets if it gets a seventy four
to seventy five points. I don'tthink that's a good thing for Clemson,
to be perfectly honest with you,two that I think obviously Clemson needs to
rebound the ball better. They gotbeaten on the offensive glass by a smaller,
quicker, more athletic Baylor club,and now you're you're facing an Arizona
(31:18):
club that's probably as athletic, butthey're bigger. I mean, they got,
you know, seven foot two sixtyguys that are in there, and
then they come off the bench witha you know, with a seven two
to sixty guy you know as aswell. But I think that those are
probably the the And then be reallyhonest with you, make shots, Yeah,
make shots, bustin that Clemson doesn'tneed to go wild from outside to
(31:41):
the free But I think that partof the game plan has to be for
Hall and Sheflin, in particular,those guys maybe to step out and take
some shots from fifteen feet and beyondto try to draw all the bigs of
Arizona out because those bigs, whenyou watch them play, they don't like
to come out of the paint.But you know, if Shefflin the Hall
can start hitting some shots and forcethose guys to come out and make them.
(32:04):
Then that just opens up everything offensively, opens the paint and that's where
Clemson can can really prevail, noquestion from that standpoint. Well, Don
Munson can't thank you enough for joiningus here, and Don, I would
have to say, hopefully you're notable to call the spring game on April
sixth. Man, that's that's planA. That's those Plan A, B,
(32:28):
C, and D that I cantell you right now. That's plan
A. Yes, starting a filefolder. We want that, I'll open
that. That's the case. Man. It's it's funny because I taught to
Gary Hawn, who you know isobviously retiring after thirty four years calling Stuffarenci
State, and I said, hey, Gary, if we're if we see
one another, that means that oneof us is walking home with the national
championship rings. So let's hope thatthat's the case. I love it and
(32:52):
I appreciate it as always, misterDon Munson, Thank you sir. All
right, all gods children say,go Tigers. Thanks for having me on.
Yes, sir, that is DonMunson, director of broadcasting for the
Clemson Tigers, and yes, wewill say once again. Currently the voice
of the Clemson Tigers as the Tigersgetting ready to take on the Arizona Wildcats
(33:12):
in the Sweet sixteen out in LosAngeles, and we will take a look
at this matchup in a little bitmore detail, but also let's take a
look at some of the other gamesthat are going on in the Sweet sixteen,
and we'll do that next as wecontinue the Ingles count down to tip
Off show right here on ninety twopoint five WeSC ninety two point five wd
(33:32):
S is the Upstates new home forthe Clemson Tigers. What a big night
(33:53):
it is. March Madness continues hereon ninety two point five WeSC. It's
the Sweet six the Clemson Tigers facingoff against the Arizona Wildcats tip off around
seven h nine pm. I lovehow exact the tip off times are every
time of year in March Madness.And be sure you're tuning into ninety two
point five WSC for the call withthe aforementioned Don Munson who joined us in
(34:17):
the last segment to talk a littlebit about this Clemson team. And one
thing, I don't know how muchDon wanted to talk about this, I
know that Brad Burnell talked about it. Rich was the travel component of everything
that's going on here with the ClemsonTigers. The fact that Brad Burnell spoke
about this in his press conference,talk about that as a former coach yourself.
(34:37):
What a challenge that is, notonly getting back at four am from
Memphis, but flying out twelve hourslater, driving up to Greenville for an
hour by the way, that's right, and now you got to get your
body clock reset. You're in Centraltime, now you're back the Eastern Time,
and all of a sudden you're outthere in Los Angeles for the week.
Yeah, it is a difficult challengefrom that perspective, but I do
believe it's the right call to goahead and get out there early as possible
(35:00):
so you can get acclimated because itdoes take a couple of days. And
so Clemson is behind the eight ballin terms of travel versus what Arizona is
having to travel, you know,from how they were and obviously much closer
to Los Angeles and makes no Imean that's obvious. Yes, we get
that. And that's where there willbe a strong contingency of Arizona faithful out
(35:22):
there because it's not far from Tucsonto La so there will be a strong
contingency, and there's already a strongbase of Arizona fans in southern California anyway,
so it'll be stacked against Clemson inmultiple ways from the fan base and
then obviously the challenge of the travelthat has when Clemson coming from Memphis and
(35:45):
then back to the West coast outthere in LA. But I do believe
it was the right call. Goahead and get out there as soon as
possible, and then just try toforce yourself. And that's one of the
things that even like if you travelto Europe or you know, coming back,
you try to it. Whenever youget to that particular time zone,
(36:05):
you go ahead and stay up untilit's like your regular bedtime. If that
makes sense, Yes, yes,so I mean you have to force yourself
that. Yeah, you might bevery tired, but push through it so
you can go to sleep as anormal time, even in that time zone.
So then hopefully your body can catchup as quickly as possible. Hey,
(36:28):
Arizona's got a talented team. OmarBallow leads the list there in terms
of the big man seven footer.We're going to talk about this team a
little more in the next step,but Caleb Love as well. I should
say that's a familiar face for Clemsonout there. They faced off a few
times when he was with North Carolina. Now he's out there in Arizona with
a transfer portal. If you're notcareful, these names will steak up on
(36:50):
you'll be like, hey, Love, I just saw him play for the
Targos, Now he's with the Wildcats. Going to be interesting to see what
each side gleans from each other therein terms of familiarity back in the ACC
they speaking of which the ACC isstill very much alive Richmond in this NCAA
tournament, in fact, that theyjust remain perfect though most Clemson right now,
of course, the big game comingup here shortly on ninety two point
(37:12):
five WeSC tangling with Arizona. You'vegot San Diego State, the five seed
out of the East Region, tanglingwith number one seated Yukon, and that
should be an interesting battle. SanDiego Seed trying to work their way back
to the final four man coach Hurleyand Yukon they look invincible at times right
now, they look the part,and I know there's been a lot of
conversation right now about this rematch.So to speak of the National Championship game
(37:36):
with San Diego State and Yukon completelydifferent teams on both sides. Other than
you do have obviously a couple ofplayers with Yukon there, and then you
also have Jaydon Lee there with SanDiego State, and he's playing extremely well,
but he's undersized against Yukon, SoI don't know how much you can
glean on him being the guy becausehe's going to have a tough matchup against
(37:58):
Yukon, But they do you lookextremely tough to beat, and even in
a scenario where you look at theirbracket and you're like, Wow, they've
got the toughest bracket and this isthe number one overall seed. When you're
talking about Illinois Big Ten champion,you've got Auburn SEC champion now again,
so the team's got knocked out.I get that. But you do have
(38:20):
obviously also Illinois and Iowa State thereat the bottom of that bracket, and
that's going to be an interesting matchuptoo, because Iowa State is the number
one defensive team in the country,in Illinois is the number one offensive team
in the country. So strength onstrength, who is going to give in?
Who's going to have a better game. And so how many times we
(38:44):
talk about defense wins championships, Well, I don't know. I've seen it
too many times where at the endof the day, you have to be
able to score points also, andnot saying that Iowa State can't, but
I do believe that Iowa State doeshave the horses to keep up with Illinois.
But if Illinois gets in the rhythm, they can be very dangerous.
(39:04):
Well, brew your coffee for thatone, especially on the East Coast in
Boston at tano nine pm tip off. I don't quite understand how that aligns
here, but that's the decision ofthe tournament. Unity there's I'm ten o'clock
tip off on the East Coast.I'm so fortunate that the Clemson game is
a seven nine. I was thinkingof you later than that in La Yeah,
I thought for sure we would betipping off at ten o'clock. Well,
(39:28):
the other game out there in theWest Region and this is fascinating too.
So if Clemson does win, you'vegot Alabama, North Carolina, four
and one seed respectively in the WestRegion tipping off around nine thirty nine pm
tonight out there. From the Cryptodot Com arena in La and look,
Clemson has seen these teams, notonly that they have beaten both of these
(39:49):
teams already this season. You don'twant to look too far ahead. Arizona's
will get to an a minute,supremely talented team. There are no guarantees
here, but if you happen topull off one more upset here as they
did against Taylor, you're guaranteed toface a team not only you've played already
this year, won twice, butyou have beaten both of these teams,
one of which both of which actuallycame on the road, on the road.
(40:10):
I'm about to say, John onthe road. That's impressive in itself.
Obviously, beating Alabama in Tuscaloosa isnot an easy task, but it
pales in comparison to the task forthe Clemson Tigers beating North Carolina in Chapel
Hill, because going into that gameearlier this year, Clemson has only done
it one time in their entire basketballhistory. So to be able to get
(40:35):
it that second time, and knowingthat this is a North Carolina team obviously
led by R. J. Davisand Armando Baycott, they're very talented,
but I'm really interested in this game. Also because Alabama, if there's a
team that I do believe can pushNorth Carolina to the brink also here in
the tournament, there's no question it'sAlabama just because of how they want to
(40:59):
get up and run down the floor. So can North Carolina slow them down?
I don't know if Alabama has anybodyto contend with Armando Baycott, so
I think that's going to be abig part of North Carolina's success. But
again, if Alabama can get sometransition opportunities, they will make things very
difficult for North Carolina. And ofcourse you got action tomorrow night as well
(41:22):
that decides who's going to the leadeight from the South Region at Midwest.
It all starts with the highest seededteam left here at number eleven in C
State, another ACC team by theway, twenty four wins on the season,
taking the two seed marqueat On atseven oh nine pm out there in
the South Region tomorrow night at inC State with big old DJ Burns say
(41:44):
he's taken the nation by storm rightnow? Yeah, who's the song?
Hey, mister DJ, That's whatwe're going to be hearing quite a bit
perct because it's DJ Burns and heis a character and I love of watching
him play. His footwork is phenomenal. But this is an interesting stat too,
(42:05):
because you look at INC State andthey are the lowest seed team or
highest seed team, however you wantto term that at a eleven seed,
the only double digit seed there inthe Sweet sixteen. But Clemson was the
only team there that actually beat thehigher ranked seed team to get to the
(42:28):
Sweet sixteen, because in C Stateactually played Oakland, who was obviously a
higher seed than n C State ora lower seed, whichever way you want
to categorize that a number of ways. With that Gonzaga perdue, that should
be fascinating. That's tomorrow night's seventhirty nine pm on TBS. That's in
the Midwest region, and the Zagsare always here in the Sweet sixteen.
(42:51):
But Zach Eatie, as we sawlast week Richmond, he presents a challenge.
We've seen it all year. Ohbest player in the country, no
question. Gonzaga nine straight Sweet sixteens. It's impressive what Mark Feugh continues to
do just revamping his team, andobviously we know that happens in college basketball
now, but just even more so. But can they contend with Zach edy
(43:13):
inside, and he's playing extremely wellright now, so that's going to be
an interesting matchup. And then youlook at the other game that I'm also
very interested in, and that's Dukein Houston, and obviously Houston surviving and
advancing basically, and Duke is theteam coming in seems to be playing extremely
(43:34):
well right now, and how isthat narrative going to play out between Duke
and Houston. It's fascinating Duke Houstontipping off at nine thirty nine pm tomorrow
night on CBS, and then thenight cap again another late when this one
not so egregious in the Midwest outthere in Detroit ten or nine pm.
Number three seeded Creighton against the twoseed Tennessee should be a fascinating battle between
(43:58):
two very talented teams here. Yeah, and I think Creighton is a team
that gets overlooked. And this isa team that's just outside of being in
the top twenty offensively efficiency and alsojust right outside of the top forty in
defense efficiency. And that's two ofthe parameters that you look at as far
as advanced metrics, as far asteams that have an opportunity to win a
(44:21):
national title. So they're right onthe outskirts of being that type of team,
and Tennessee obviously led by Dalton Connect. But if Dalton Connect is off,
Tennessee just has no other playmakers andso that's going to be a very
interesting matchup. It's fascinating. Withthe exception of the East Region, you
could end up with an all accFinal four, three out of the four
(44:43):
teams still alive and kicking in verygood chance for each of these teams to
advance right now. Yeah, wetalked about with Don as he had mentioned
that how crazy it would be thatyou could see a Clemson NC State with
Greg Hahn, the voice of ofthe wolf Pack, as he's going to
be retiring. But as they werejoking, if we see each other in
(45:04):
Phoenix, that means we've got agood opportunity that we're going to be playing
each other. I'm looking around forthe big twelve teams, not seeing a
lot of them here, but we'lldigress on that one here. Coming up
shortly, we will break down therest of this matchup here between Arizona and
Clemson that's up next year. Aswe get you ready for tip off,
Don Munson on the call. Comingup shortly here we'll hand the torch here
to him after our next segment wherewe'll break down Arizona versus Clemson. The
(45:28):
Engles count Down a tip off showspecial March Madness Edition continues here on ninety
two point five WSC. Ninety twopoint five WDS is the Upstate's new home
for a Clemson Tigers, the twentythree win Clemson Tigers tangling with the twenty
(45:54):
seven win Arizona Wildcats out of thePAC twelve tip off coming up. You're
at seven or nine pm on ninetytwo point five WSC. Heard Don Munson
earlier on this show. You'll hearhim here momentarily as we set to hand
the torch off to Don calling thisgame tonight on the Clemson Athletic Network.
Keeping locked in here to ninety twopoint five WeSC for all the action all
(46:15):
evening long and rich as we turnour attention over to this matchup. Look,
it's going to be essential, Ithink for PJ. Hall, first
of all, going against another bigman for Arizona to stay out of foul
trouble. But had about Caleb Loveending up in Arizona now a familiar face
for those who followed the acc andClemson for many years. Hey, this
(46:36):
is a guy that is one ofthe best in the country, and we
saw that at North Carolina last year. Now, he struggled a little bit
so far in the tournament relative towhat we saw during the regular season.
But this guy is dangerous. Hecan get hot quickly, and so obviously
guard play is going to be extremelyimportant here and being able to defend out
(46:58):
on the perimeter and for all intensepurposes. If Caleb Love, if he
goes for forty points tonight, it'sgoing to be very difficult for Clemson to
win this game. So you're goingto have to do a much better job.
And I know, yes, anytimea player goes for forty the likelihood
of that team winning is obviously increased. But I think even more so for
(47:19):
Clemson versus Arizona. You just can'tlet Caleb Love be the guy that is
beating you. And so I thinkit's going to be scenario where you're going
to have to probably do some differentmatchups with Caleb Love to give him some
different looks. Is it Chase Hunterfor a while, is it Jack Clark
for a while, Get a littlebit of height on Caleb Love, and
then Obviously PJ. Hall has tobe able to stay in the game and
(47:42):
not necessarily have to be a guythat's scoring twenty five points. Of course
you'll take that and that'll be agood sign for Clemson, but he just
needs to be out on the courtjust to be able to defend and then
also pull out the big seven footof their ballow out of the pain there
to try to create some opportunities whereChase Hunter can get to the rim and
(48:05):
can penetrate. And then obviously weknow how good Chase is once he can
attack the rim and does a goodjob of not only at times attacking the
rim, but also if he isbottled up, he's able to find the
open man, and that could beJoseph Gerard the third. This is by
far the toughest test for Arizona,and you said the same for Clemson here
in a while, Arizona did beDayton in Long Beach State in the tournament
(48:27):
so far. They did lose toOregon in the PAC twelfth tournament here back
on the fifteenth. They do solost to USC back in March on the
ninth, so they've had some upsand downs here. We'll see what happens
tonight tip off here. Shortly,Don Munson takes over here momentarily on the
Clemson Athletic Networks coverage right here atninety two point five WSC, and we
certainly hope to see you again thisweekend for a possible Elite eight matchup for
(48:52):
our producer Trey Falco for Richmond Weaver, for Don Munson. I'm John Ellis.
Thanks for listening to the ingles countdownto tip off show. Stay tuned
here to ninety two point five WeSCfor the big Sweet sixteen showdown between Arizona
and Clemson. Y'all have a greatevening.
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