Clemson Tigers Basketball Season Preview
The college hoops season is right around the corner, and Busting Brackets is here to whet your basketball-starved appetite. Over the next five weeks, we are publishing season previews team by team, conference by conference, to offer a glimpse into the upcoming season. Busting Brackets is giving you the lowdown on the biggest storylines, offseason changes and x-factors for each team and each league as we roll into the 2012-13 season. Our complete season preview archive can be accessed here. Buckle up, peeps.
Clemson Tigers
| Last Season | 16-15 (8-8 ACC) Lost to Virginia Tech in first round of ACC tournament |
| Key Returning Players: | Devin Booker, F Milton Jennings, F Rod Hall, G T.J. Sapp, G |
| Key Additions: | Damarcus Harrison, G (BYU Transfer) Jaron Blossomgame, F (Chattahoochee HS) Landry Nnoko, C (Montverde Academy) Adonis Filer, G (Notre Dame Prep) Jordan Roper, G (Irmo HS) Josh Smith, C (Olympic HS) |
| Key Losses: | Andre Young, G Tanner Smith, G Catalin Baciu, C |
| Top Non-Conference Games: | Nov. 22 vs. Gonzaga (Old Spice Classic) Nov. 23 vs. Oklahoma or UTEP (Old Spice Classic) Nov. 28 vs. Purdue Dec. 2 @ South Carolina Dec. 8 vs. Arizona |
| Top Conference Games: | Jan. 5 vs. Florida State Jan. 8 @ Duke Jan. 20 @ NC State Jan. 24 @ Florida State Feb. 10 vs. NC State Feb. 17 vs. Miami (FL) Feb. 28 vs. North Carolina Mar. 9 @ Miami (FL) |
| Breakout Player: | Devin Booker. His brother and former teammate, Trevor, actually had his least effective season with the Tigers as a senior, so the younger Booker knows second-hand that being a senior alone does not guarantee improved play. Devin will try to buck the family trend in his final season at Clemson with the weight of the team’s success riding on his shoulders. Third-year Tigers head coach Brad Brownell will need marked improvement out of his senior big man for his team to compete in an improved ACC. Booker is the team’s leading returning scorer (10.5 ppg) and rebounder (7.0 rpg) and is one of only two players on the team with past NCAA tournament experience. In order to have a breakout season, Booker must drastically improve his mid-range game. He shot under 40-percent from 15-feet and out last season which allowed defenses to play off him at the elbow and short corner. A major difference between he and his older brother: Trevor eventually had a show-me mid-range jumper that opposing defenses had to contest. It’s your turn to develop one too, Devin. |
| X-Factor: | Frontcourt Star-power. No team in the ACC will be more [over] reliant on a frontcourt tandem than Clemson will on Devin Booker and Milton Jennings. The talented duo owns the only NCAA tournament experience on the roster and the requisite leadership needed for the team to make a statement in the ACC. The Tigers return eight lettermen from last season; excluding Booker and Jennings, the other six are all returning sophomores. What’s more, Clemson has 12 first- or second-year players on its roster, the most since freshmen became eligible in 1972. With inexperience, especially in the backcourt, Clemson will turn to its senior frontcourt tag-team to keep the program afloat in 2012-13. Veteran guards Tanner Smith and Andre Young—the teams two leading scorers last season—both moved on to professional careers in Europe, so the Tigers will be shaky in the backcourt from day one. This marks the second straight season Brownell and his staff must replace its top two scorers from the previous season. Last year’s retooling efforts didn’t go so well. For that to change in 2012-13, Booker and Jennings will have to play like men possessed. |
| Best Case: | Booker and Jennings are stars, each earning second-team all-conference merits. A refined mid-range jumper (from the elbow and short corner) diversifies Booker’s offensive arsenal, while the smooth-operating Jennings improves his scoring inside. Rod Hall and TJ Sapp bolster a backcourt that exceeds expectations, and the guard duo builds on the experienced gain as freshmen last season. KJ Daniels, an under the radar player to watch out for, has a monster jump as a sophomore and fortifies one of the premiere frontcourts in the ACC. With marquee non-conference wins over Purdue and South Carolina, plus an upset win at home over Arizona, the Tigers roll into the ACC and finish .500 in league play. The ACC is as deep as its been in quite some time, so Clemson would be hard-pressed to do better than 20-win season and nine wins in conference assuming everything goes right. An NCAA tournament berth is unlikely with this bunch, as is a deep ACC tourney run. |
| Worst Case: | Devin follows in the footsteps of Trevor and has a letdown senior season. Jennings’s continued inconsistency on offense prevents Clemson’s frontcourt from ever becoming an elite ACC front line. The absences of Young and Smith, the team’s top two perimeter defenders (they combined for 3.4 steals per game last season) severely hurts Clemson’s defense, which ranked 50th in the nation in adjusted defensive efficiency. Booker and Jennings are saddled in foul trouble for much of conference play as Clemson’s flimsy perimeter defense allows opposing guards to penetrate at will and live in the lane. Three-point shooting is a glaring problem for the Tigers, which shot just 32-percent from behind the arc last season (second-worst clip in the ACC). Young and Smith, the team’s top two outside shooters, were the only reasons why that figure wasn’t noticeably worse. Clemson finishes last in the league in 3-point shooting, and the lack of a reliable outside shooter allows opponents to pack in their defenses. After a shaky non-conference showing, Clemson returns to the ACC and is steamrolled by an uptick in competition. The Tigers finish well under .500 overall and a dismal 5-13 in conference play |
| Projected Finish: | 16-14 (7-11 ACC) Lose in quarterfinals of ACC tournament |