Clemson Women's Basketball Receive Unfortunate News About Mia Moore's Eligiblity

The Clemson Tigers could be without their best player on the hardwood from last season that played for the women's basketball program.

Clemson guard Mia Moore was denied her sixth year of eligibility earlier this week, according to Shawn Poppie. | Brett Davis-Imagn Images

When Clemson women’s basketball head coach Shawn Poppie had his offseason media availability on Wednesday, he came bringing some news about one of the program’s best players last season.

And it wasn’t the best thing to hear. 

Guard Mia Moore has been looking for an extra year of eligibility, and her waiver was denied this week. The Clemson guard led the program in points, assists and steals last season in her second year with the program. 

“We waited, however many days, to hear that news,” Poppie said. “Now, we’re in the process of putting an appeal together. So, we’ll figure out what happens.”

Moore finished her fifth season of college basketball with 13.3 points, 4.7 assists and 1.3 steals across 32 games for the Tigers in 2025-26. The numbers helped her pick up a second team All-ACC honor after the season, which ended in an NCAA Tournament appearance. 

There’s still more that Poppie and his staff will need to look at before going into the next steps, though. 

“What does that look like? I don’t know, it’s still, again, very new. We had numerous talks,” he said. “That’s not why we ended up having this press conference; it was to talk about this upcoming team. 

Then, just happened to be the news broke the last couple days of her initial waiver being denied.”

The appeal will be centered around a game that she played in her redshirt freshman season, which put her over the threshold of being able to get another redshirt. She didn’t play in the 2021-22 season due to a medical redshirt in the first place. 

Moore was featured in four games for her first team, Mississippi State, the next season. She played 12 minutes the entire year, but it included five minutes in an outing against UAB in November 2022. 

That was enough for her not to be able to have the redshirt, although Poppie disagrees. 

“That’s not how the NCAA has seen it,” he said. “So, we've got to take a deeper dive into an appeal and see what happens. It’s about as deep as I can get.”

It’s a consistent issue that collegiate sports have seen across all levels, due to the blurred lines that occur when a redshirt year is mentioned. Whether it’s junior-college, an injury issue, or minutes being played, they’ve tended to go the other way and keep them in the game. 

Unfortunately, not for Moore just yet. 

“Going into it, I felt confident because there had been a handful that had had that, where they get that waiver back, and for a lot of different reasons,” Poppie said.  

He is upset that, through all this, Moore missed the WNBA draft line. So, it would mean that her only option would be to play overseas. Poppie wants to get a definitive answer before it’s too late. 

“That’s ultimately what we’re supposed to be in this for, right?” he said. “Is to make sure that they’re getting the most opportunities that they deserve.”