Brad Brownell reflects on Clemson's Elite Eight run

Now that the dust has settled following the 2024 NCAA Tournament and the offseason chaos that follows, Clemson head coach Brad Brownell had some time to reflect on the great run his group enjoyed this season.

“Elite eight run was was fantastic. Just so proud of our players. We played really high level basketball in the tournament,” Brownell recalled of the recent tourney run at his May press conference. “All three games, beat some outstanding teams, teams that were playing very well and had a chance to go the Final Four.”

Brownell specifically singled out the Alabama loss in the Elite Eight round as a game that simply featured high-level execution by both sides.

“Had the lead in the game — and give Alabama a ton of credit, the shot-making in the game was outstanding. There was a point there in the second half where both teams were just really playing exceptionally well, and give their team credit for making a couple of big time shots to pull away from us in the end. But I’m just really happy for our players.”

Next, Brownell ran through some of his own players, seniors, that left it all on the line to help drag the Tigers to history.

“Obviously, PJ (Hall) in particular because of just the way he he’s approached it all and all he’s had to go through. Chase Hunter, another guy, those guys that have been with me so long, and obviously, were on last year’s team that was left out. Chase just was outstanding in the tournament, played as well as he’s ever played at Clemson, and just super happy for him.

“And then Joe Girard and Jack Clark, guys that transferred in with the idea that this was going to be a special year, and that those guys were going to help us do that and, for them to to be able to experience that was just a lot of fun.”

The Clemson head coach even gave some credit to one of the stars of last year’s squad who helped set the foundation for what was to come.

“So, happy there’s a ton of positive momentum with our program. It started last year with the team that won 14 ACC games and Hunter Tyson’s leadership, I think that gave this team a big boost of confidence and carried on through this season.”

All in all, Brad Brownell is just a really happy camper after finally breaking through with major NCAA Tournament success at his longtime school.

“Just really happy for our fan base, too, to be able to enjoy that couple of weeks. It was awesome just to look back and see everybody celebrating back here. Really, our heads were down, we were so busy that it was hard to almost enjoy it at times. You just were working so hard, and even now, still haven’t been able to possibly enjoy it as much as I would like, but just tremendous accomplishments.”

2023-24 will go down in the record books as one of the great years for Clemson hoops.