Clemson Basketball Not Looking Into Any Midseason Additions Entering New Year

The college athletic world is changing day by day, and the Clemson Tigers have another facet that will play a factor towards its basketball program: mid-year additions.

It’s not the freshmen that enter in the middle of the season, either. This idea mainly consists of players overseas that can arrive to play for given semesters while being older, and typically more experienced, than a typical college freshman.

Now, G-League players can go back to college, which was seen with Louisville guard London Johnson in October that began the domino effect of other programs doing so, especially with factors like injuries and redshirts playing a factor.

However, Clemson head coach Brad Brownell says that his team will not pursue that, saying that he doubts that the program will look into any of that. Brownell instills plenty of culture into his players in the offseason as well, making it a poor fit if another player comes in to ruin rhythm.

“I don’t know if we’re going to do that,” he said after Sunday’s win over Cincinnati. “I really haven’t gotten into it with my staff. My staff hasn’t come to me with, like, some guy that they feel like we need to add to the roster. I think it can also do some harm, so you got to juggle it.”

The response comes after the loss of true freshman Zac Foster, who tore his ACL, who was being a major rotational piece for Brownell for the first 12 games of the season. Another guard, Butta Johnson, has been nursing an injury since South Carolina last week, only playing eight minutes in Sunday’s win.

The losses caused both Dillon Hunter and Jestin Porter, the starters, to play over 31 minutes each. Ace Buckner, the only other guard that played for the Tigers against the Bearcats, had 27 minutes as well.

Earlier this year, before the season began, the topic was mentioned to Brownell as well, and he spoke about how it ruins the borderline of college athletics with the rise of NIL.

“That part of it bothers me a little bit,” he said in October. “I don't love that part of it, but I understand why the NCAA’s kind of allowing it. We’ve kind of opened that door with the international situation, and now this is the next step. Everybody’s pushing every boundary that they possibly can.”

However, he hinted at the idea of using it, during which there were talks with a former G-League player that decided to go elsewhere.

“I mean, you got to do what you got to do to be competitive, you know,” Brownell said, “so it’s something we’ll look at.

The Tigers were in touch with former G-League guard T.J. Clark earlier in the month in case depth issues occurred. However, he decided to choose Ole Miss, leaving the team slim at the guard position.

Johnson is expected to be healthy when Clemson is back in action on Dec. 31, when the Tigers will be back in action against Syracuse. However, it goes to show in the state of collegiate athletics that anything can be possible.

For Brownell and his team, the consideration of adding a new player, if that were the case, would not be an easy change for the player, his program or the current players on the roster.

“Getting a guy here, getting him acclimated and trusting him enough, you know, that’s not easy either,” Brownell said.