Feb. 24, 2004

Recap| Box Score| Notes| Photo Gallery

Maryland Head Coach Gary Williams
Opening Statement:
"Our players did a great job in practice yesterday and they came out ready to play. It is a sign of maturity for our team to put the game Sunday behind us. We had 24 hours to get ready and I was really pleased with the team effort in the first half. The guys coming off the bench -- Chris McCray, Ekene Ibekwe, and Hassan Fofana, were really important. It's good to get some of the younger guys playing. When they were in there, we were able to go over some things on the bench with the starters."

On D.J. Strawberry's starting performance:
"D.J. Strawberry really stepped up. He played great out there in a starting role. He just keeps getting a little better every time. He is one of those players who is going to keep improving while he is here at Maryland. It is great to see somebody working as hard as he does."

On the team's overall performance:
"One of the things we did tonight was shoot the three-point shot. I think we shot pretty well, 4-8 from the three ... that's plenty of threes. We took really good shots. When you do that, you are going to shoot a good percentage. I have been trying to convince the players that if we take less shots, we are going to score more points. We simplified some things and tried to stay steady on what we do best. It was a good all-around [effort]. It is hard to score a lot of points against Clemson. We did a pretty good job of having our defense be consistently tough."

Maryland Guard Chris McCray
On Maryland's depth:
"We have really good players right behind us pushing and making us better. A guy like me is just going to play hard in that situation."

On his 14-point performance:
"Coach [Williams] told me he needed me to do more. I have been giving it all on the defensive end, but I need to help more on the offensive end so I just came out and played aggressive."

Maryland Guard D.J. Strawberry
On his first career start: "[Coach Williams] called on me and I went out there and I just played my normal game. Good things happened for me tonight and we got the win."

Maryland Forward Mike Grinnon
On the state of the team:
"We had a great team practice yesterday. Guys knew how important this game was to stop the bleeding and set a trend for the future. We're definitely going to be ready for Wake Forest on Saturday. The win feels great."

Clemson Head Coach Oliver Purnell
Opening Comment:
"It's one of those games where I don't think either team played well. It was almost as if Maryland was waiting for us to play well before they turned it up and I don't think we ever really did. We didn't handle the press well; we really need to continue to go inside...We kept pleading with our team to go inside more. We took too many jump shots and we weren't making them. Our guys played hard, but we didn't play as smart as we needed to. We gave them too many free baskets on turnovers or on the offensive glass."

On Clemson's game strategy:
"We said before the game that Maryland would come out with a lot of energy, particularly on defensive end and if we could withstand that thrust we would be in a position to win the ballgame. They came out, they blocked a few shots, they had a lot of energy but then the energy kind of flipped and their energy went down a little bit. We had an opportunity but we didn't step into the breech."

"They have a young ball club and sometimes when they get a lead they have a tendency to relax; it's human nature for young teams and young players. That's the thing, we knew that and we played so badly and we couldn't get it together."

On Maryland's defense:
"Their pressure gave us some problems and what I kept saying was that we had an opportunity here and we kept squandering it away. As time went on, we were hoping to get some kind of rhythm against their pressure and take advantage when their energy seemed to be down."

Clemson Center Sharrod Ford
On tonight's performance:
"The main thing is that we just came out kind of flat tonight. Maryland hits us with that first blow and we couldn't come back. We just couldn't recover. We actually started to play with seven minutes left in the first half. But then it was already too late. We kept doing certain things, like turnovers that pushed us back.

On turning the ball over so often:
"Like coach says, we're going to turn the ball over, but we just have to play defense. We've got to just go down the court and score, then play some defense. Since we know we are going to turn the ball over, we should be able to recover. We knew tonight was going to be tough, but we needed to come in here and get a victory. Unfortunately, we were not able to do that."