Pair of Clemson hoops starters banged up, working their way back
The 2020-21 Clemson basketball team has the potential to be Brad Brownell’s deepest team yet, but the Tigers need to get a couple of key pieces healthy in order for that to happen.
Clemson guard Clyde Trapp and forward John Newman, starters off of last year’s squad, are working to get back to 100 percent as they recover from knee injuries, Brad Brownell recently told The State.
Trapp played through some soreness this past season after tearing his ACL last June, while Newman had to get his knee scoped recently after tweaking it late last season. The Tigers are also hoping to get senior forward Jonathan Baehre healthy for the start of the 2020-21 season after he re-tore his ACL in February.
“I really like our team. As much as anything, we need to get healthy,” Brownell said. “Clyde is still kind of trying to get healthy from his knee surgery last year. Jonathan Baehre working on his. Anticipating him having a chance to be ready to go by the beginning of the season, which would be good. John Newman got a scope recently, so he really hasn’t had a chance to do a lot this summer. So I think getting those guys back and healthy and in good physical condition is going to be important because they’re really good players.”
Newman started all 31 games for the Tigers last season, averaging 9.5 points and four rebounds per game. Trapp started 19 of 21 games after returning from a torn ACL and averaged six points and four boards per game.
Newman’s injury occurred during Clemson’s final game of last year during the ACC tournament.
The rising junior scored 11 points, with three rebounds and two assists against Miami in the ACC tournament but tweaked his knee in the process. The coronavirus led to Newman not having the procedure done to clean up the knee until last week.
“There was discomfort. I’m sure if we’d have played Florida State he was going to try to play. They didn’t think it was going to be too bad,” Brownell said. “Then they just tried to give him some time to make it feel better but it never felt 100 percent. So they went in there last week and cleaned it up and hopefully he’s going to be good to go when we get close to school starting.”
Brownell expects Newman’s recovery to be about six weeks. He did not offer a timetable on when Trapp should be 100 percent.
“Clyde’s just been getting past everything with playing on a knee last year six or seven months after ACL (surgery). I thought he really gutted it out trying to do the best he could and did well for us and did some good things for us. But to just get him completely healthy and getting used to playing without a brace and getting the brace off,” Brownell said. “He’s had to do some things with rehab with it in the offseason to try and help it, and it hasn’t been easy. Because of COVID it wasn’t easy for a while because you couldn’t really go anywhere. But he’s making good progress and I expect those guys to all be healthy.”
