Brad Brownell updates latest with Tigers following road win over Pittsburgh

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The fun is in the winning.

For Brad Brownell and Clemson, they’ve done a lot of that recently.

After a marquee win on the road in Pittsburgh, the Tigers have now won six of their last seven, with that first win dating back to December 21st against Wake Forest.

Looking ahead, four games now separate Clemson from what should be an enormous clash against Duke on February 8th.

The Tigers’ next matchup is Wednesday night in Littlejohn against Syracuse, and Brownell provided his Monday update, breaking down Ian Schieffelin’s status, what makes Jaeden Zackery unique, and more.

Here’s what we learned.

On Ian Schieffelin:

Schieffelin has been dealing with back spasms for quite some time now and has been seen wearing a brace at multiple games, including on Saturday against Pittsburgh. Brownell provided a rather positive update on his progression and commended Schieffelin’s toughness throughout this stretch.

“Yeah, it's more just spasms and tightness than an injury,” Brownell said. “I mean, obviously, he's a warrior. He just plays his tail off. He's really not practicing at all. I think he didn't practice on Thursday, and he just did some non-contact stuff, and a couple of things on Friday just to keep moving. But yeah, I don't know that it'll be much different here for a while, downhill practice today and I'm hopeful that crossing my fingers that everything's going to be fine. But he's a tough kid. I thought he and Dillon Hunter made some very tough plays down the stretch for us at Pitt to win the game.”

On Clemson’s winning ways:

As mentioned above, Saturday’s win over the Panthers was big for the Tigers. Not only are they now a game above .500 in NET rating Quad 1 games, but that matchup was one of the few opportunities left for such a resume booster.

As Clemson looks to make it seven wins in eight games, Brownell thinks it is possible because the Tigers have been able to win in different ways.

“We've won a couple different ways,” Brownell said. “We did not rebound the ball well against Pitt, and they made us pay for that, and our defense was okay. I think our first-shot defense was probably better than the numbers show, but because of the offensive rebounding, it ended up not being a very good defensive performance by us and we had a big-time shooting game where we made 14 threes. We've had several other games where we've guarded really well, haven't shot it as well, but have still been able to win. So I think that's when you have a chance to have a good year, when your team can win in a grinder defensive game, or you can still have enough firepower to outscore a few folks when you need it. So I think we've kinda showed that in this stretch.”

On what makes Zackery special:

Zackery’s play continues to be a key factor to the Tigers’ success. He isn’t the same guard that they brought in last season, with Joseph Girard and Zackery’s playing styles being drastically different from each other.

Still, he’s brought something that Clemson desperately needed in their backcourt, which has opened Chase Hunter to be a more successful scorer.

Brownell alluded to the fact that Girard was as skilled as it gets offensively, but they would have to work around his defensive flaws on a consistent basis.

When it comes to Zackery’s defense, it is quite the opposite.

“Jaeden is an incredibly competitive defensive player,” Brownell said. “He sets the tone for our team, does an unbelievable job guarding the ball, guarding other team's best players and then offensively he just kind of is a guy that'll do whatever you need him to do. He'll make open shots if you need him to do that. He'll drive the ball, he'll move the ball around. He's not a guy that is hunting his shot all the time. He just wants to do whatever the team needs. So they're really different players.”

“But we felt like last year's team with PJ Hall and as much interior scoring as we were trying to play through that, we wanted a shooter, a floor spacer, and Joe Girard was the perfect fit guy, was a good passer and floor spacer. This year's team, we knew that Chase would probably be our leading scorer and be a guy that could really shoot the ball and we wanted to find a guy that could help guard. Chase always had to guard the other team's best player last year. We just didn't feel like that was what was going to be best for him through the course of a long season this year. So we went out and got a guy like Zackery.”

On Syracuse:

Clemson’s next opposition to its winning streak comes to Littlejohn Wednesday night (7 p.m./ACCN), as Syracuse looks to break into .500 territory in ACC play.

Brownell believes that the Orange are rounding into form, as they have been dealing with a litany of injuires to start the season.

"(Syracuse has) good team speed, obviously a completely different team with JJ Starling; I think he's an all-conference type player," Brownell said. "They've won three out of four, and got great bench play. They can play big, obviously, with Lampkin and the freshmen big kid who they kind of went too late against Notre Dame. They have shooting with Chris Bell. They can do a lot of different things. They can score in a low post. They're playing very well right now. It's probably been a hard year for 'Red' (Adrian Autry) because they've just had so many injuries, and when your best player's out, as long as he has been. I know (Donnie) Freeman's been out some, and I'm not sure if he's coming back for our game, but I think they have a talented group, a good collection of players with good depth, and can play a lot of different ways within their versatility of their players. So I just think they're rounding into form, it looks like right now. And some of that's probably just because they’ve gotten some guys healthy and been able to practice and play in a way that Red likes."

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