Q&A: Shawn Poppie talks breakthrough season for Clemson WBB, new portal additions
Clemson women’s basketball is coming off a breakthrough year, highlighted by an NCAA Tournament appearance in coach Shawn Poppie’s second season.
Poppie spoke with The State in May at the ACC’s spring meetings to give the latest on his program. This conversation has been edited for brevity and clarity.
How’d you tackle building your 2026-27 roster this offseason?
SP: “Well, at first it was player retention. It’s who’s coming back, who’s not? ... Obviously, it was unfortunate for Hannah Kohn to go into the portal as someone who’s been with us for quite some time. But it made sense for where she decided to go, to get back into Florida (where she’s from) and probably drop down a level. We wish her nothing but the best at South Florida.”
“The wrinkle, candidly, has been Mia Moore. We applied for a waiver, and we’re still waiting. To try to build a roster with Mia and without Mia is a huge difference, but I think we’ve done a phenomenal job adding pieces.”
“We may not have got a ton of big-time names, but time will tell, because I think we’re gonna be really darn good. ... For us, it was about fit. And then you’ve gotta think of the financial piece and how to balance that. I think we’ve hit a home run with what we needed and also the kind of people we’re bringing in.”
Tell me a little about the 5 transfer players you signed
SP: “We wanted to play a little quicker. We tried to identify a point guard that could play with Mia or without Mia. We identified Mackenzie Nelson very early on. She has familiarity in the sense of, obviously, we’ve played against her. But what she signed up for at Virginia Tech, under Kenny Brooks originally, is the blueprint of what we’re doing at Clemson. I think it was a good match.”
“Taylor Johnson-Matthews, we had to replace her size at the guard position and identified Taliyah Henderson as someone who could fit that role. The five games she played 15 minutes or more (at UNC), four of those games she scored double-digits. Some of it was just opportunity, right? For minutes, she was going against Indya Nivar, who gets drafted and then makes a roster in the WNBA.”
“We knew we were gonna have to replace Demeara Hinds, Hadley Periman and really the whole (post) crew. But we wanted to just get longer in general. And I think the additions of Edie Clarke and Jenna Lawrence and Yakiya Milton were the last pieces to that puzzle. We’ve added a lot of length and skill that mesh.”
Among your returners, anyone you’re expecting to take a big step up?
SP: “Holland Harris is definitely one of those. Going back a year in time, I probably thought she’d play a little bit more, but we knew she was a developmental kid. And Raven Thompson had a really darn good year — and was a senior at that. I was able to give a lot more attention to Holland in the spring, and she’s really taken a huge jump. ... I think she’ll have an opportunity to help us a lot more next year and get more opportunity to play. She’s the one that sticks out the most.”
“Amaia Jackson is coming along, too. She was a young freshman that played last year behind Mia Moore, who had a phenomenal year, and Rachael Rose, who’s a vet.”
Reflecting on the steps you took last year, what are you most proud of?
SP: “We don’t have to talk about it anymore. Last year’s group, we tried selling it to them from the summer. But it took a while for them, meaning our locker room, to realize they could accomplish what we thought they could do internally. ... For them to get over the hump, win 21 games, have a lot of firsts, get to an NCAA Tournament and be 0.1 seconds away from the second round? It’s no longer, ‘Hey, this is what we’re trying to get to.’ This is now the standard, and it’s only Year 2.”
“The group we had, I’m not sure we’ll be able to replicate that (closeness) again. ... There’s no doubt that crew will stay connected for a lifetime. It’s what you’re trying to create every year. That group did it, and they saw the success of it. Now, we’ve gotta live up to that while we continue to get more and more talented.”
Have you felt the benefits of an early NCAA Tournament appearance and what that can do for a program?
SP: “There were more calls to us than us to them this portal season. As kids entered the portal, there was a lot more interest in Clemson. That NCAA Tournament game, however it goes, win or lose, we still reap the rewards of it because of how much attention the game got. ... We hadn’t gotten a ton of attention in the national news, the national media, so people got to see who we are and what we’re building.”
“We also signed a really good high school class. Even without Trinity Jones, it still ended up being a top 15 recruiting class. That started really the national attention, how we played throughout the year added to that and I think then it really advanced into the transfer portal season.”
You mentioned finances earlier. Do you feel like Clemson is giving you enough to be competitive in building a roster?
SP: “It’s forever changing. ... First and foremost, I appreciate (Clemson AD) Graham Neff for his support and continued fight for women’s basketball. ... Are we going to be in the top three or four in spending in the ACC this year? No. But I do think we can compete with those teams with the kind of kids we got? Absolutely.”
“I think there’s gotta be constant communication. We’ve gotta continue to evolve and move and change and be creative, all while we keep the main thing the main thing. I think that’s what makes Clemson special.”
“Do I think we’ve gotta continue to work on it? Absolutely, because there’s a lot of money being spent out there. But I do think we’re doing things the right way, and we’re getting the right people we can compete with at a very high level.”
