Clemson's Brad Brownell Talks Butta Johnson's Importance, Injury Status

Butta Johnson's lingering groin injury continued to loom large for the Clemson Tigers this past Sunday, as head coach Brad Brownell and his team were forced to navigate a narrow win over Cincinnati without one of their primary backcourt pieces for essentially the entire second half.

Johnson, who suffered the injury after a hard fall in the first half against rival South Carolina the previous game, managed just eight total minutes against the Bearcats, contributing two rebounds and one steal. He logged only three seconds in the second half, entering for a must-foul situation.

Brownell said the team especially felt Johnson's absence, as Clemson's guard rotation was already stretched thin after true freshman Zac Foster tore his ACL against South Carolina, sidelining him for the remainder of the season.

"I think Butta's injury or just really not being able to play in the second half hurt us as much as he didn't really do much," he stated. "It's just another live body with an experienced ball handler and decision maker for us. Dillon [Hunter] I thought at times got tired, we asked him to do a lot."

The Tigers relied heavily on Dillon Hunter in Johnson and Foster's absence, playing a season and game-high 34 minutes. He finished the contest with 10 points, seven rebounds and four assists.

Brownell went on to emphasize that having Johnson available for even an additional 10 minutes could have helped keep other players fresh late in the game, as injuries forced adjustments to the team's usual five-in, five-out rotation.

"I think our lack of guard depth tonight was an issue. We needed Butta to play another 10 minutes just to help keep guys fresh," he continued. "That's how we've been playing, now all of a sudden we have to figure some things out because we don't have two guards."

Luckily for the Tigers, they don't play another game until the last day of this month, when they face off against Syracuse in New York.

With that, Brownell hopes that Johnson will be back and fully healthy by then.

"I hope so," he told the media. "He practiced yesterday for the first time [since his injury], and it was a little limited. We were just trying to see what we could get out of him. I was hoping for 15 minutes. They basically came to me at halftime and said, 'Hey, he's done.'

As Clemson looks toward the remainder of the season, questions about guard depth remain.

Meanwhile, mid-season additions have become more common across College Basketball, with teams like Dayton bringing in 22-year-old Sean Poudet, who previously played overseas, and Ole Miss adding T.J. Clark, a former G-League and Mexican league player who Clemson had reached out to before his commitment.

However, Brownell believes that while adding a player midway through the season is possible, it's very unlikely that the team will make a major decision like that.

"I don't know if we're going to do that," he concluded. "I haven't gotten into it with my staff, and my staff hasn't come to me with some guy that they feel like we need to add to the roster. It can also do some harm, so you have to juggle it. We'll see, but I doubt it."