Head coach Brad Brownell’s teams aren’t known for the roster overhauls that the spring of 2025 required.
In the first game of the season, that didn’t matter at all. Clemson’s 88-38 win over New Hampshire on Monday night was the team’s largest margin of victory in a season opener under Brownell in his entire career.
New teams bring changes, but there will be a lot of the same that the Tigers will look like compared to previous teams. From defense to some players returning, fans will recognize that even if the players have changed, Brownell’s system hasn’t.
That system is one built on grit.
Even though Clemson routed the Wildcats in the Littlejohn Coliseum opener, Brownell still thinks that the Tigers have a long way to go. Especially in a loaded ACC conference, the team has important out-of-conference matchups that could cause trouble, like BYU and Alabama.
“We still got to figure everybody out,” Brownell said after the game. “You could see at times, we broke a few things off, and I got frustrated a couple times because we needed to stay in offense. We need to learn how to grind, and we’re going to have to do that against better competition.”
In the win, all 12 available players saw the court, and 10 players played 15 minutes or more. Compared to previous Brownell seasons, where starters could play more than 45 minutes a game, the Clemson head coach said that depth is going to be one of the best weapons that the Tigers will have.
“We have a lot of different players that can play,” Brownell said. “It’s really hard as a coach, you know, ‘All right, who’s doing it tonight?’ Some of it is who’s playing well. Tonight, we were able to give everybody about the same amount of minutes, which was good.”
For the Tigers on Monday night, redshirt freshman Ace Buckner stole the show, scoring a team-high 18 points. Another player off the bench, Carter Welling, had 10 points and five rebounds of his own. Two additional starters, Jake Wahlin and Nick Davidson, had points in the double digits.
Buckner believes that the depth of playing 10 or 11 guys a contest will have a wearing effect on opposing teams.
“I think we are a very skilled team,” the guard said. “I feel like one through 12, or one through 11, however many played today, I feel like everybody can do something positive, impact the game, so it’s going to be fun, for sure.”
Brownell believes that the team’s depth will be a lot different, saying that the person at the scorer’s table “is going to be busy.”
“I think it’s fun in a lot of ways for our fans because you’re going to get to see what the guys can really do,” the head coach said, “and I think that it’s a fun way to play.”
The team’s depth helped keep a high-paced defense against the Wildcats. Plenty of full-court presses, double teams and rebounding success were attributed to how quickly the Tigers were able to move around.
Clemson outrebounded New Hampshire 45-30, recording an additional four blocks in the paint, which helped lead to the win.
“I think it can be a team that can, you know, really get up in people and disrupt people,” Davidson said. “That’s been a point of emphasis with the coaching, really getting into people and then taking them out of their offense.”
“We got a lot of guards with length, size and speed,” Dillon Hunter said. “So just disrupting the other team, not letting them get as many possessions as they want and trying to keep the ball with us as much as we can.”
Hunter and forward RJ Godfrey are the only two from this year’s team who were a part of the Tigers’ Elite Eight run two seasons ago, which was the best finish for Clemson under Brownell in his 16-year tenure. However, he’s never reached three consecutive tournaments in his time with the Tigers so far.
In his senior year, Hunter would love to make that happen.
“It would mean the world,” the senior said. “My past two years, we went to the tournament, so just that feeling, I want to feel that again. Even the young guys, like going to the Elite Eight, me and RJ telling them about the experience all the time, going to L.A. and things like that — traveling. So, I just want them to experience that and for their future careers. Like, once you get that experience, it really feels like ‘man, this basketball thing is easy, like it’s not really stressful in certain game situations.’”
“That’s one of our goals, we talk about it every day, and we try to compete every day,” he continued. “We’re definitely aiming for that experience for the young guys.”
The Tigers will return to action at home on Friday night, when they will host Gardner-Webb in an out-of-conference matchup.
