CLEMSON — About five weeks ago, as they were preparing for a road game in the area, the Chattanooga Women’s Basketball Team used Clemson’s practice facility at the Swann Pavilion by Littlejohn Coliseum.

The Mocs had a very intense workout. However, it was one that sounded like a lot of fun.

It did not go unnoticed in the Clemson facility. The players heard it and were intrigued by it.

When Shawn Poppie was named Clemson’s eighth women’s basketball coach last week, his new players brought up that practice.

“In trying to get them to understand who I am, I mentioned the story, and everyone of them said, ‘I know.’ I said, ‘You know? You weren’t in there.’ And they said, ‘We heard it. We felt it and we all thought, ‘Wow, that looks like a lot of fun.’ I tell our teams all the time, you are in an open interview all the time and you never know who is watching,” Poppie said.

Everyone was watching on Tuesday, as Clemson held Poppie’s introductory press conference at Littlejohn Coliseum. The story Poppie was trying to tell his team is what his teams will look like, what he expects from his players and what they can expect from him.

Poppie says his Clemson teams will spread the floor and shoot a lot of three-pointers, but he also said they will play man-to-man defense, a character trait that has followed him from his playing days at Limestone to Furman, Virginia Tech and UT-Chattanooga.

“The reality is, there are three hundred and something teams in the country. Everybody wants to win a conference tournament or national championship, so if we walk in there and that’s the goal, then we have the same goal as everybody else,” he said. “I think for us, I call it the ‘It Factor.’ When you come watch us or are around our program, you will feel ‘IT!’

“If you feel ‘IT!’ How are we loving each other? What’s our energy level? How are we competing? Are we doing the things that it takes to win games? The results will take care of themselves. I think when you focus on the little things every single day, and do things the right way, I have full confidence of who we are as coaches and what we are going to do that the wins will come.”

He speaks from experience. In Poppie’s two seasons at Chattanooga, the Mocs compiled a 48-18 record and won two consecutive SoCon Tournament Championships. This past year, they won 28 games, just two years removed from a seven-win season.

Chattanooga was 22-6 the last two seasons in conference play.

“You think back, and four or five weeks, here we are. We left an impression and that is part of that ‘It Factor’ that I am talking about that we hope to bring (to Clemson).”

–photo by Ken Ruinard / USA Today Network 

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