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Message: [QUOTE="Rooster C., post: 5331866, member: 10168"] Clemson finished year one under new head coach Shawn Poppie with an overall record of 14 - 17 (.452) and a conference record of 6 - 12 (.333) so not great but considering it was pretty much a total rebuild not terrible. They obviously began and ended the season unranked. Poppie convinced the two freshmen he inherited to stay as well as getting two others back who had entered the portal. He did a decent job finding players in the portal as well but the one thing he did differently than most of the first year ACC coaches was to bring several players from his former team in with him. While it was a step up from Chattanooga for those players it probably helped stabilize things a bit in year one since those 3 players were familiar with his coaching structure. He also grabbed a player from Mercer who he was obviously already familiar with coming from the same conference as Chattanooga. Clemson ended their season in the ACC tourney with a surprising 17 pt defeat over Stanford followed by a 2 pt overtime loss to Louisville. Not a bad showing for Poppie's first ACC conference tournament. What was lost: 9 players. Like a couple of the other first year coaches (VT, Miami) most of the players were lost to graduation and most of those were "one year rentals" picked up through the portal. Having said that all the starters but one are now gone including leading scorer L. McQueen (5'8" G 13.5ppg). Also gone are T. Miller ( 6'2" F 8.2ppg), S. Evans (6'0" F 5.7ppg), A. Poole (6'2" F 5.3ppg), M. Cluse (5'10" G 5.0ppg), A. Porter (5'4" G 2.2ppg), M. Ott (5'10" G 1.3ppg), and seldomly used bench players J. Griggs, B. Ranallo (transfer to Ohio), and K. Kellermann. What remains : The lone starter M. Moore (Sr. 5'6" G 10.8ppg) and #2 scorer. Also back are 2 key reserves brought along from Chattanooga H. Kohn (Jr. 5'9" G 9.2ppg) and R. Thompson (Sr. 5'10" F 6.0ppg). Additionally bench player M. Miller is also back (So. 6'2" F). Four returning players is not much but is to be expected and will be a core from which to start building. Incoming transfers : 6 players in total and here's where it starts to get interesting. T. Johnson-Matthews (Sr. 5'9" G 14.5ppg) from DePaul, M. Lee (Sr. 6'5" C 12.6ppg) from Marist, R. Rose (Sr. 5'7" G 12.5ppg) from Wofford, D. Hinds (Gr. 6'2" F 9.3ppg) from fellow ACC team WF, H. Perriman (Sr. 6'2" G/F 8.6ppg) from Tulsa, and R. Augustinaite (Jr. 6'0" G/F 5.2ppg) from fellow ACC GT. Only one of those will be returning after this season. Incoming freshmen : 3 players. #64 H. Harris (6'1" G/F), #100 A. Jackson (5'8" G), and J. Butler (6'1" G/F). The back court could be very interesting this season. Moore will obviously return as starter and Kohn will likely be the first guard off the bench along with Thompson. Clearly Johnson-Matthews from DePaul and Rose from Wofford will be the other 2 starting in the back court. Johnson-Matthews was a bit of a Jekyl-and-Hyde player last season playing lights out at home and just awful on the road so we'll see how that works out. Rose is a special player and I believe could really be a difference maker for Clemson. She does it all - points, rebounds, assists. She may play the 1 or the 2 or some of both. Against P4 opponents she played her absolute best and even Duke's defense couldn't shut her down. People who don't know who she is will find out soon enough. The front court will consist of Hinds or Periman (or both) and Lee as needed. I also expect freshman Harris to get a very long look and expect returner Miller and the other 2 freshmen to see limited action from the bench. I feel like Clemson could take a step forward this year and when Shawn Poppie was hired after 2 years of winning over 70% each year he coached at Chattanooga perhaps the administration was looking at the possibility that he could become another Wes Moore. That would certainly be a great hire if it turns out anywhere close to that. Obviously it's too early to know but I do know Moore had many, many more years at Chattanooga and still had a better win rate than Poppie. Clemson had a couple of obvious problems last year. One was that they were 2 - 7 on the road in conference play and those wins were WF and SMU so that's not saying much. Granted nobody expected them to win at Duke, NC State, Louisville, FSU, or GT but losing by 13 at Pitt and 29 at BC is not good. The biggest problem Clemson had last year was a lack of size in the front court. They had no player taller than 6'2" on the roster. In today's game in general you have to be able to match up in the post with other teams (especially within your conference) unless you have an extraordinary back court. Although that was somewhat addressed with the addition of Lee she has never played at this level before. Worse than that, both Hinds and Lee have serious shortcomings. Hinds commits way too many fouls and if she hasn't corrected that by her senior year I doubt things are going to change. Lee is both a terrible shot and prone to massive numbers of turnovers. Hinds has her share as well......as does Periman. I'm not talking 3 or 4 to's here but 6, 7, 8, 9 even more - in a single game! That's a disaster in the making! The lack of a solid front court was their Achille's Heel last year and I'm afraid until that's taken care of - especially this season - they will be destroyed in the paint. Every decent opposing post player they went up against last year had a dbl-dbl against them and nearly all of those were losses. I don't see that changing. Although Poppie has shown he can recruit and is doing so again (but even better) for 2026, it's a slow building process with 7 of 13 players not returning after the season. So that leaves the portal once again and while he's done a pretty good job in navigating it so far without being able to land any big fish it's hard to see any major leaps in winning overall. And they still don't have any good post players on the horizon. I doubt we'll see a huge improvement this year but with the GT and SMU coaching changes/re-boots as well as significant drop offs to BC and Cal and probably no improvement at WF it's likely to be about the same. Look for them to finish 14th once again and no post season play. [/QUOTE]

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