Three days before Clemson basketball was scheduled to play No. 11 seed New Mexico in the first round of the NCAA Tournament, the university sued the Atlantic Coast Conference on Tuesday about its grant of rights and exit fees.

The complaint is an initial legal step in the Tigers potentially leaving the conference; the ACC countersued Wednesday.

On Thursday during a news conference at FedExForum in Memphis, Tennessee, site of the Tigers' NCAA tournament game, Clemson coach Brad Brownell was asked about the potential distraction of the legal actions for him and his team.

"No, to be honest with you, I'm not involved in any of that," Brownell said. "There's a lot of folks on our campus much smarter than me that are leading our university."

Brownell said Clemson athletic director Graham Neff, president Jim Clements and its board are handling the lawsuit, and his focus has been figuring out how to defeat the Lobos (26-9) to make the Round of 32 for the first time since 2018.

When asked if he has an opinion on the lawsuit, Brownell said, "No, it's too important for me to be involved in anything like that."

The sixth-seeded Tigers (21-11) will battle New Mexico Friday (3:10 p.m. ET, truTV) with the winner advancing to the Round of 32 to face the winner of No. 3 Baylor and No. 14 Colgate.

Derrian Carter covers Clemson athletics for The Greenville News and the USA TODAY Network. Email him at dcarter@gannett.com and follow him on X, formerly known as Twitter, @DerrianCarter00

This article originally appeared on Greenville News: Clemson basketball: Brad Brownell on university's lawsuit against ACC