No. 6 seed Clemson will take on No. 11 seed New Mexico in the opening round of the West Region of the NCAA Tournament Friday. Tipoff is scheduled for 3:10 p.m. EDT at Memphis’ FedExForum.
Ahead of the game, Clemson players PJ Hall, Chase Hunter and Joe Girard spoke to reporters at Thursday’s NCAA Tournament press conference in Memphis.
Quotes via the Clemson Athletic Department:
Q. You guys were here a couple months ago. Did that go through your mind at all when the announcement was made where you were going? And how do you feel about coming back and playing in a building that you’re sort of familiar with and sort of had a little bit of bad luck there on the floor?
JOSEPH GIRARD III: Especially in March, you want to look at all the little things to give you a little bit of an advantage. You can kind of look at that to our advantage.
But in the end you’ve got to go back out there and play the game. And it definitely is a little bit good to have some familiarity with where we’re going, with the arena, with the hoops, all that stuff. Definitely gives us a little bit of an advantage. But at the end of the day, we’ve still got to go out and play.
Q. With the transfer portal, with everything that goes on in college basketball, we see fewer guys spending four years in college, four years at one school. What do you think of that trend? And how have you personally kind of chosen your paths for how you’ve done things?
CHASE HUNTER: I think it all depends on the player. It all depends on the school and what they go through in their career. I’m a person that’s been at Clemson for four years now, well, five years, and it’s been a long journey.
I just had my own path, and I think it just depends on the player, depends on the school. You could go through things with coaches leaving, players leaving.
And, like I said, just depends on the player and what they go through. Now with the portal, you have an opportunity to go to another school and maximize your college career. Like I said, it just depends on a player and what they want to do in their career.
PJ HALL: Same what he was saying. It all depends on the player and their situation. Obviously Joe was at Syracuse for four years and had a fifth year, so it’s a little different situation for getting into the portal.
But there’s also situations, like where, to an extent there’s too many guys jumping in as well. That’s the kind of thing going on now. I think that’s what’s given strength…
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