Oliver Purnell Quotes (89 Quotes)

I think player development will take care of itself with experience. Experience is something you can't put a premium on in terms of developing as a player, so there's nothing we can do about that. We're concentrating on winning a game.

We learned a powerful lesson today.

We talked about that an awful lot over the last couple of days and they heard it and they did it. (The win) means a tremendous amount for a lot of reasons. But it's your first ACC game. The race starts for us today. This is the league we're in. This is what we signed up for. We're no longer satisfied just to be in the league. We're in the league to win.

We learned a painful lesson here today. If you lose focus on the defensive end of the floor, teams can get you. They only had eight steals but all eight of them led to shots we couldn't defend.

It's a conversation we've had before.

He's made a commitment, no question about it. He worked on a number of things and came back a different player.

It exemplifies toughness. They make a run at you and you make a toughness play or two to hold them off.

You don't get opportunities like that very often. I'm not happy about the loss.

I give them credit. They made a couple of great defensive plays down the stretch. We went small to spread the court for a mismatch but they just went back down inside to Dudley and Smith. Their two big guns got the job done for us.

Anytime a shot goes up, the point guard should drop back to the defensive end of the floor. When the point guard drives, the shooting guard should drop back. Those are cardinal rules we have, and we broke those rules. That allowed Miami to just pass the ball ahead and lay it in.

Their backcourt guys kind of dominate the ball, and their offense is run in such a way that, in the end, the right guy is going to take the shot. When they make 3s like they did against Boston College, they become pretty lethal.

I thought they took a pretty good shot from us. They hung in there and did what they had to do.

You're real happy to get a road win in this league at any time. You want to stay out of losing streaks in this league.

Virginia Tech played one of their best games of the year over the weekend and came away with a big win at home and they've got a little momentum going. From that standpoint it will be a tough task. This is a team that is very capable and looks right now that they've hit their stride. It would be a great win for us to get.

That's quite an accomplishment in just three years. But it's not just the steals. He's turned into an excellent defensive player overall.

We played hard and put ourselves in position to win against an excellent basketball team. We took their best shot today. I give them credit for bouncing back from a disappointing loss and coming in here and taking a great shot from us.

This had never happened to me in all my years of coaching. Now it's happened twice in less than two weeks.

I have every confidence come Wednesday night our team will be hungry and focused.

Because they've had good players and good coaches ever since I've been born, and probably when I'm gone they still will. It's a tough place to play.

We couldn't handle their full-court pressure. I didn't think any of our guys did a good job.

If we played tomorrow, they wouldn't be 3 for 18. When that happens, you stay with it and try to make some hay out of the opportunity. You're always slightly surprised when good shooters miss some shots, but it happens. That is why you throw the zone out there.

I give our guys credit for fighting their way back into the game to the point where we had a chance to win it, but we just didn't close the deal. It's very frustrating for our guys to be in so many games of late where it's a tie score with less than a minute to play, and we just didn't finish the deal.

You don't out-rebound a good Florida State team like we did without a lot of intensity.

The first game, magic can happen, and that's what we've got to focus on. We're going to have to win multiple games, that's for sure.

We had one of those nights in basketball where we went stone cold for three-quarters of the game, and we couldn't really score ... we just couldn't score. I don't really want to say we played that horribly without giving Miami's defense credit, because they played pretty good. It was just one of those nights. It happens to you now and then in coaching, but give Miami's zone defense credit.

They're just so darn good. They're gonna be a No. 1 seed in the NCAA tournament and rightfully so.

I thought the game came down to a couple of big possessions. The game came down to us making five or six shots, and we did not do it. We were not able to come away with any long rebounds or loose balls.

We're not a real good team right now. We've got four days to get back to playing good Clemson basketball.

Once again against Miami our inability to make shots hurt us. I thought we got good looks, we got the ball inside. We had 24 offensive rebounds. That's a lot of point-blank opportunities. We just couldn't get it to go down.

They're at home and they've got a little momentum going or certainly looking to get some. From that standpoint, it will be a tough game. Obviously, they beat us at home. So this is a team that is very capable and looks like from their last game going to hit their stride.

They certainly are hitting their stride and living up to preseason expectations. What makes them so good is the wealth of experience they have.

You have to give them credit. They made a couple of defensive plays down the stretch on blocks. Then, at the end, they went inside to Dudley and Smith, and their big guns got in done for them.

It was definitely a mental toughness win tonight. They seemingly took control of the game down the stretch, but our guys just hung with it.

I feel good about the way we played against Georgia Tech. We were really ready to play and acted live-bodied. Georgia Tech threw some things at us and made some runs and our guys stayed the course and never got frustrated.

I do feel we're better prepared, because I think we're playing better. We're a better basketball team now, and as a result I feel a little more confident going against Miami.

We did a pretty good job of moving the Duke defense around, showing a degree of patience. We were patient enough to move them. If you do that, you'll be able to drive the basketball on them.

We decided not to be frustrated. It would have been easy to let some of the frustration from the other night in Miami carry over.

Miami is very good. They are a top-echelon team in the ACC.

We're not real good right now. The challenge for us to is get back to playing Clemson basketball. I'm going to be myself. I'm going to stay fairly positive, but I'm going to get on guys when they don't do what they need to do.