ACC Basketball: Each team’s best acquisition out of 2023 transfer portal
Joseph Girard III – 6’1 Guard – Clemson Tigers
Joseph Girard III joins the Clemson Tigers rotation as a graduate transfer after spending his first four seasons with the Syracuse Orange. He’ll look to provide a similar spark for the Tigers’ as he looks to sport a different variety of orange to close out his collegiate career on the hardwood.
Girard instantly boosts Clemson’s perimeter attack with his ability to knock down shots behind the arc with efficiency. He finished 4th in the ACC in 3-pointers made in 2021-22 (89 3-pointers made) and 5th in the conference in 2022-23 (88 3-pointers made). While he certainly improved on his shooting numbers across his four seasons, his best 3-point shooting seasons came in 2021-22 (40.3%) and 2022-23 (38.1%).
He knocked down a career-best 2.7 3-pointers along with 7.2 3-point attempts in 2022-23 and it showed in his overall growth scoring the ball as a small guard. Now, he sits at 13th all-time in 3-pointers made (297) in ACC basketball history with a chance to do more damage with the Clemson Tigers.
He’s certainly a prospect that’s found his consistency scoring the ball inside the arc, using his size and frame at 6-foot-1 to his advantage, and finding ways over the years to become an effective scorer in the backcourt.
He finished with a career-high 31 points across 42 minutes this past season in an overtime victory over the Richmond Spiders in a game that saw him shoot 12-of-24 from the floor, 4-for-11 from deep, and 3-of-5 from the free throw stripe. As he grows into a new role, look for him to add some defense to his repertoire as well.
Girard will certainly need to bring the intensity defensively to go along with his prowess scoring the basketball offensively. He put together his best scoring average from a career point-of-view this past season with Syracuse, posting 19.0 ppg but they managed to go 17-15 in 2022-23. He’ll look for greener pastures in Coach Brad Brownell’s defensive-minded rotation in 2023-24 as Clemson’s biggest acquisition out of the transfer portal.