Armed with deep roster, Clemson takes aim at a strong start

Chase Hunter, PJ Hall and Ian Schieffelin are three key returners.

by Ariana Pensy - Correspondent - Fri Oct 13 12:30:14 GMT-04:00 2023

CLEMSON - After narrowly missing March Madness earlier this year, the Tigers are ready to bounce back and have a strong 2023-24 season.

Clemson coach Brad Brownell is confident in the depth in this team. It starts with senior center PJ Hall. The Spartanburg native had another strong season, averaging 15.4 points per game and improved his three-point game to make 40.2% of his three-pointers. However, one thing that Hall and the rest of the team can improve on is offensive rebounds. Even though he played two more games last season than the 2021-22 season, he had two fewer offensive rebounds. Brownell says the coaches have already started discussing how to address this issue while maintaining their defensive rebound success from last season.

“We have talked about being a better offensive rebounding team. I would sign up for last year’s defensive rebounding percentage again. I’ll take second or third in the ACC in defensive rebounding right now,” Brownell said. “But we need to pursue the ball more offensively. We need to be more aggressive, and we are talking about that, working on that just to help us get a couple more easy baskets.”

The depth of this team also relies heavily on younger players like Chauncey Wiggins and Asa Thomas. Wiggins played an average of 8.9 minutes per game last season in his 27 appearances. Thomas comes highly recruited out of Lake Forest High School, where he averaged 17.1 points per game. Many different colleges, including Marquette, pursued him, and he ultimately chose Clemson. Players like them are the reason Brownell believes the Tigers will be able to have ten or more players play significant minutes in their games this season.

“I think this is the kind of team that we can (have ten or more players play),” Brownell said. “That will be helpful to be able to get guys a few extra minutes, some of your starters, because I do think our sophomores and some of those guys will be more than ready to play and play well.”

The ACC is undoubtedly a strong conference for men’s basketball. In the NCAA Tournament last season, they were represented by five teams - Duke, Miami, NC State, Pitt and Virginia. Miami made it to the final four before being eliminated by Connecticut. Thus, if Clemson wants to be competitive in this conference, they will need to start strong.

“We’ve just got to try to handle our business. I think we’re playing a very difficult schedule, a lot of good teams away from home, very hard start to our ACC schedule. So, we’ve got to be on point right away, and we know we lost a game or two last year where we were favored and that ultimately was problematic for us. So, hopefully that’s lesson learned,” Brownell said. “But, there’s a lot of games. You’re also playing a lot of games, and the games come quick, and it’s hard for teams to be mentally ready every time, and that’s what we’ve got to get ourselves to that point, where we’re ready to attack every time out.”

Brownell informed the media that sophomore guard Josh Beadle, who was expected to have a larger role this season, will have surgery after he was in a car crash last week.

“Josh Beadle, unfortunately, was in a car accident last week and he’s lucky that it wasn’t worse than it was. But he did suffer a broken nose and a concussion,” Brownell said. “And so, he’s going to be out a couple more weeks probably. He needs to have surgery next week. So, that’s a little bit of a setback.”

The one bright side from injuries is that some younger players are getting more opportunities to step up. Some of these players include Wiggins and Thomas.

“Chauncey Wiggins has obviously gotten a lot of reps and Asa Thomas has gotten a few more reps with the first group when we’ve needed it,” Brownell said. “It’s certainly a situation where we’re hopeful to get Jack (Clark) back. His experience, his size, physicality, he brings another level of experience to our team and I just think he has a chance to have a good year if he can get healthy and get some reps with our squad.”

In addition to battling injuries and improving the younger talent, Clemson also has to fill in the gap left by Hunter Tyson. Tyson was drafted in the second round by the reigning NBA champions, the Denver Nuggets. He was the first Clemson Tiger since 2017 with Jaron Blossomgame to be drafted into the NBA.

“Obviously just super excited for Hunter (Tyson),” Brownell said. “He’s living the dream and he’ll do whatever he can to help that team, contribute, and I hope he goes back to his freshman year here where he still had his confidence. Sounds like they’ve got some confidence in him, so that’s great.”

Clemson has an exhibition game against Newberry College on Wednesday, November 1 (7 p.m.) before starting off the regular season at home against the Winthrop Eagles on Monday, November 6 (7 p.m.). This will be the first matchup against these two in nearly a decade when Winthrop beat Clemson 77-74 back in November of 2014.