More basketball impressions

With a limited amount of practice time per week, you are what you emphasize. Generally, you focus on being good at one thing at the expense of something else.

Oliver Purnell's emphasis was lots of running and pressing, and the successful application of that philosophy was a great equalizer in the ACC against teams with more skill and talent.

Seventeen games into Brad Brownell's first campaign -- and how hard is it to believe we're more than halfway through the regular season already? -- it's not hard to see the things he has emphasized in practice.

It's also apparent that two of those areas -- halfcourt offense and halfcourt defense -- are emphasized significantly more under this staff.

To me, the most impressive parts of Brownell's success to date are the number of uncontested shots on the offensive and defensive ends.

A lot of the former, and precious little of the latter.

Coming into the season, it was evident that Brownell and his staff determined their identity would be dogged halfcourt defense. Until the guy gets more talent, that's going to be the reality.

So far this season, no one has cracked 50 percent shooting against the Tigers. By this point last season, four opponents surpassed 50 percent shooting.

Part of it, no doubt, is the reduction of easy baskets given up when teams broke Purnell's press. But the bigger factor, in my mind, is better halfcourt defense.

Tanner Smith said after last night's pasting of Georgia Tech that defense is where this team has made the biggest improvements since early in the season.

"Our offense looks good just because we're scoring points, but we're getting in transition because we're getting stops, and we're getting multiple stops in a row. Anytime you can do that, it just demoralizes a team on the defensive end because it's not fun to play defense if you're not scoring. If we can continue to string six or seven stops in a row, we score on half of those possessions -- you can see what happened tonight."

I asked Smith to elaborate on what, exactly, is so much better about the defense.

"We're playing better rotation-wise. We need to continue to get better on the ball. Sometimes we have a tendency to hand check. That's something I think we need to work on. But as a unit, we're doing a really good job rotating."

Clemson's halfcourt offense was pretty simple under Purnell the last few seasons: Get the ball to Trevor Booker down low, let him do his thing if he's single-covered, or kick it out for an open jumper if the defense collapses. That created a large number of open looks for the guards, and Brownell suspected coming into the season that Booker's departure would mean fewer open shots for Demontez Stitt and Andre Young.

So the fact that the Tigers are getting a large number of open jumpers from the perimeter is a huge credit to Brownell's scheme and his players' improving grasp of it. When you take 39 shots in a game and miss 12 -- including a 17-of-20 clip in the second half -- you're getting a lot of open shots.

Certainly some credit should be given to Jerai Grant, who is occupying a lot more attention in the post than most of us anticipated. But this team's execution of Brownell's motion of offense, with plenty of sets mixed in, can be pretty to watch.

Shortly after Brownell took over last spring, he put his new players through a workout and was stunned at how poorly they shot the ball. Probably safe to say he didn't envision what he saw last night, when the Tigers made all nine of their attempts from beyond the 3-point arc in the second half.

The 69.2-percent shooting clip overall was Clemson's best in history against an ACC team.

"That's about as well as you can shoot it for us, obviously," Brownell said before adding, "or anybody."

-- In some postgame thoughts last night, I mentioned that it's not fair to stereotype Brownell's offensive philosophy as a slow-as-molasses, walk-it-up snooze-inducer.

That's basically what Noel Johnson's father said recently in this article while explaining why his son transferred from Clemson.

The elder Johnson said the "very boring" motion offense favored by first-year coach Brad Brownell was an ill fit for Noel.

"The style of play wasn't for his benefit," said Johnson, whose son was recruited by coach Oliver Purnell, since departed to DePaul. "He needs to be in an up-and-down, transition type of game. They are more of a walk-it-up type of team."

Last night provided a compelling counter to that argument. This bunch can and will force the issue in transition.

I asked Young about it.

"A lot of people get caught up with our motion offense and (think) it's really like a halfcourt offense, us coming down and making screens and reading screens and stuff like that. But initially, we really want to push the ball and possibly try and get easy baskets and try and get inside early."

Here's what Smith had to say:

"Coach isn't going to say, 'Hey, don't go get layups. Don't go push the ball and get easy buckets.' To get those easy buckets, we've got to get stops and clean rebounds. And in the second half, that's what we did."

-- Man, does Stitt look good. Watching the burst he showed during the game, I concluded that maybe he's in better shape than ever after undergoing minor knee surgery in December.

He told me after the game that his knee still isn't 100 percent. That has to make Clemson fans excited to see what happens when it does reach that point.

"It's not there yet. It's slowly getting better, slowly getting back to 100. I feel a lot more comfortable playing on it and creating for everybody else and being able to move like I want."

Brownell had this to say about Stitt:

"When Demontez is shooting like that, it makes him a more versatile player. He’s always been very good at attacking the basket. He’s starting to shoot the ball in pretty good rhythm."

-- Speaking of Grant, Paul Hewitt was yet another coach to sing his praises after the big guy put up 20 and 8.

"Grant is playing really, really well. Right now, he’s one of the best big guys in this league. I’ve always liked Stitt, but Grant is playing exceptionally well. He’s playing the best out of any guys I’ve seen this year.”

LW