Clemson is coming off of an extremely successful year, finishing 23-11 and making it to the Elite Eight as a 6 seed, and hope to carry that momentum into this season. They have some important returning leaders, but also some key newcomers that will make or break their season. Can Brad Brownell lead the Tigers back to another tournament appearance?

Returners:

Clemson, while losing their two scoring leaders from last year, PJ Hall and Joe Girard, still have big time returners to lead the team. It all starts with guard Chase Hunter, who averaged 12.9 points and 3.2 assists last year. He played his best basketball in the tournament, with 21 points and 6 assists vs. New Mexico and 20 points and 6 assists vs. Baylor. He tracks to be the leader of the team and have an even larger offensive role. Their other returning starter is fan favorite Ian Schieffelin. The big man averaged 10.1 points and 9.4 rebounds last year, with two double doubles in the NCAA tournament. He is a physical presence who will do even more this season with the departure of PJ Hall.

They also return a few important role players, guard Dillon Hunter and forward Chauncey Wiggins. Dillon is the younger brother of Chase Hunter, and only averaged 2.3 points last year, but is a good defender who can do a little bit of everything as a backup guard for Clemson. Wiggins had a larger role last season, averaging 5.4 points per game, with a standout 19 point performance vs Memphis and 15 point performance vs South Carolina. He is a 6’10 WING who is a strong shooter, at 35% from 3 last season, and projects to start at the 3 for the Tigers. An interesting returner story to monitor is Jake Heidbreder. Jake transferred to Clemson for last season from Air Force, but redshirted due to back injury concerns. He averaged 15.1 points while shooting 40% from three at the Academy in the 22-23 season, so we will see if he can be a large contributor for the Tigers in the upcoming season. The final returner who likely won’t be much of a factor is redshirt freshman Asa Thomas, a 3 star recruit from the 2023 class.

Transfers:

The biggest piece of their transfer class is in-conference transfer Jaeden Zackery. From Boston College, Zackery will take over as the point guard for the Tigers after averaging 11.3 points and 4.2 assists last season. He is a great game manager and shot 40.5% from three last season, as well as being a strong defender.

Their other three transfers are all big men, with the first being grad transfer Myles Foster. Foster is only 6’7, but is a powerful scorer at the rim, who averaged 12.4 points and 8.1 rebounds at Illinois State last season. He will play as a depth piece behind Schieffelin. The next two are pure centers, brought in replacing PJ Hall. 6’11 Viktor Lahkin tracks to be the starter, after averaging 9.2 points and 6 rebounds per game at Cincinnati last year, highlighted by an early season performance of 26 points and 11 rebounds against Eastern Washington, followed by performances of 14, 15, 19, 19, and 17. The big thing to watch is whether he can stretch the floor effectively, as he has been inefficient. Finally, Clemson is bringing in 7’1 Christian Reeves from Duke, who hasn’t played any significant minutes there, but may need to play support behind Lahkin.

Recruits:

The Tigers have no top 100 recruits (according to 247 Sports), but have three just outside of that number. The headliner is 6’7 forward Dallas Thomas, who may be playing some solid minutes depending on the effectiveness of their transfers. Thomas is joined by two guards, Ace Buckner, who is following his dad’s footsteps playing for Clemson, and Del Jones. Jones will play as a backup point guard and attempt to break into the rotation, while Buckner will play more as a combo guard, and also will be somewhat buried on the depth chart.

Season Outlook

The Clemson Tigers have high expectations now, coming off of their first Elite Eight since 1980. While I don’t quite think they will meet last years standard, I expect them to make it to the tournament, especially in the ACC, which has a fair few teams that are quite weak. However I don’t see them as a team that will compete for the ACC championship. Fifth or sixth in the conference feels like the most realistic landing zone for this team, which has a high floor but low ceiling. This floor is from their established players, Hunter, Schieffelin, and Zackery, but their ceiling is pulled down because they don’t have any guys I see being surprise stars or that will be a LOT better than they were last season. All that being said, the Tigers should be going dancing.

(P.C. The Clemson Insider)