Clemson men’s basketball coach Brad Brownell talks grad transfers, losing Aamir Simms
Basketball season is around the corner and the ACC held its annual basketball tipoff event Tuesday in Charlotte. Clemson’s men’s basketball head coach Brad Brownell along with senior Naz Bohannon, a grad transfer from Youngstown State, and senior Hunter Tyson were on site and spoke with the media. Here are a few highlights of what they had to say:
Clemson Coach Brad Brownell
On losing Aamir Simms: Aamir was a significant loss. Terrific player who had an unbelievable career at Clemson. As much as the points and rebounds, it was his personality. It was the way he approached practice every day, his work ethic, his smile, his personality, it just rubbed off on everyone. We’re going to miss a lot about him. Obviously, there’s no one player that you’re going to go recruit or sign that’s going to be like him, but I do think we have brought in some guys like Naz here and David Collins that are experienced and older players. We’ve got a guy like Hunter Tyson who’s been in our program for four years and understands our culture and what’s important to Clemson to win and be successful. These guys have been very open. They really get along well. In terms of the productivity, I think it’ll be a bunch of different guys. PJ Hall (will get) an opportunity to play center full-time for us. But, it’ll be a bunch of different guys contributing to the points and rebounds. I think the attitude, the personality part is just going out and getting good guys, and we’ve done that. We’ve got guys that like each other and are respectful of the older players. I think our young guys are respectful of the older players. We just have ... a good morale. We have a good feeling in our program and team, and some of that is because of guys like Aamir Simms.
On the men’s basketball program’s development: “I think we’ve done a good job over the last decade of building our brand and improving our program in all areas. The facility improvements that we did five years ago are really starting to pay off. I think it shows that Clemson wants to be good in basketball. The first five years that I was on the job, it was hard. Two of those years, we didn’t have an arena. That’s never easy for players in your program. We played a year up in Greenville. There was a lot that went into it and I think we worked really hard to build our program, build our brand, develop a culture where kids are having good experiences. We’re being productive. We’re winning games. We’re graduating players and when you bring in guys like Naz or David Collins on a visit, they get to see what Clemson has to offer, I think it’s impressive. They’ve seen success on the court, you know, Sweet 16, NCAA tournament. They see guys graduating. They see a good place to go to school and get a grad degree like Naz is going to get. I think they come around and meet your players and they see you’ve got good guys in the program. So, there’s stability. There’s a culture of success and work and hopefully, guys like Naz and David, that was a big part of why they chose Clemson.”
On Naz Bohannon’s work ethic: “He’s a very good competitor and he wants to do things the right way. He’s been extremely coachable. He also has a very good presence about him. He’s a grown man that’s done a lot. He’s been through a lot in his life, been through a lot with all he’s achieved on the court in Youngstown, so our guys respect that. As much as anything, our guys respect the way that he treats them and they treat him, so I think it gets back to our culture and how I think our kids really like one another. He’s going to be fine as a player. That wasn’t anything we were worried about. His job and the way we recruited him is to do just what he said. He’s a guy that’s done a lot of different things. He’s scored some, he’s rebounded a lot, he’s passed it, he’s made assists. He’s going to be a versatile guy that helps us as much with his personality and his maturity and his approach to practice as he is with all the things he’s going to do on the court. Those are the intangibles that maybe aren’t sexy but they’re important to winning. He and David already brought a maturity level to our team that we needed.”
On replacing Clyde Trapp’s backcourt production: “Clyde was a good player. He had a very nice senior year and was getting better and better. Obviously had a major injury his junior year that he had to play with, torn ACL. We do have experience guards, Nick Honor and Al-Amir Dawes have both made big shots for us. They’ve both hit game-winning shots. They’ve both been starters. They both have played a lot of minutes. We played them together some last year. We may start them this year. I don’t know, we’ll see. Alex Hemingway’s an experienced guy that’s started a few games and can really shoot the ball, so our experience lies in our backcourt in terms of guys that have played. Certainly, Clyde is different because he was a bigger wing that really rebounded the ball defensively and took care of the ball, was a really good passer. We tried to address some of that with David Collins, a grad transfer from South Florida who’s 6-foot-4, 215, a big, strong wing, so we thought he could help us a little in that area. Again, we had a really good year last year, went to the tournament. A lot of it was because of Aamir Simms and Clyde and Jonathan Baehre, our three seniors, so those guys are going to be missed, but that opens up opportunities for other guys. We’re hopeful that those guys are ready to take a big step.
Grad transfer Naz Bohannon
On his expectations coming to Clemson: “My expectation as a Tiger is to come in and obviously fit in and play my role and do everything I can do to help win. If coach tells me this game, we need you to focus on rebounding, then I’m going to focus on rebounding that game. If it’s passing this game or the next game, he might want me to score a little more points, just fitting into that agenda and doing what coach wants me to do to help the Tigers win.”
On why he chose to come to Clemson: “For me, I would just say respecting everything that coach did with the program and going into the portal and researching what it was that I was looking for in a school. I could respect the culture that he has in place and the staples that the program stood for. So, once I got on the phone with coach Brownell and talking to the assistants, Coach Dean and even meeting some of the guys, it was a no-brainer for me.”
Senior forward Hunter Tyson
On balancing academics and athletics: “I think that just goes back to how I was raised. Growing up, my parents really instilled a good work ethic into me and always talked about how important academics were as well as success on the basketball court and just working hard in both, so that’s why I think I’ve been able to be named to the ACC all-academic team several times.”
On the culture of Clemson men’s basketball: “If it’s one thing we’re going to do, we’re going to work hard and treat people the right way, so we just try and get better every day. We really focus on ourselves. We don’t pay attention to any outside noise, what people might be picking us and talking about us. We really just focus on each other and try to get better every day.”
This story was originally published October 12, 2021 at 8:59 PM.
