ACC Basketball: Ranking all 15 head coaches in 2023 after recent changes

9. Brad Brownell – Clemson

Another Indiana native, Brownell was born in Evansville and later played his college ball at DePauw. His coaching career really took off during a long stint under Jerry Wainwright at UNC Wilmington. Brownell would succeed Wainwright to begin his own head coaching career and led both those Seahawks and Wright State to NCAA Tournament appearances. He would accept the Clemson job in 2010 and will enter his 14th season at the helm next year.

Winning at Clemson is not easy, especially with all of the powerful basketball programs in this conference. You could look at his resume and be disappointed to see just three trips to the NCAA Tournament, especially with how last year’s team faltered and fell short on the bubble. However, he did take the Tigers to the Sweet Sixteen in 2018 and has usually had Clemson in the middle of the pack in the league.

Somewhere in the middle of the pack seems right for Brownell, who hasn’t really impressed at Clemson but has done enough to maintain his job all these years. We don’t know what exactly the future holds for this program, but this is a football school that does decent work in basketball somewhat regularly, and that’s probably enough for now. At the very least, Clemson’s 14-6 mark in conference play this year was the best of Brownell’s 13-year tenure.