By Will Vandervort.

When Clemson opens up the 2014-’15 basketball season on Friday night at Littlejohn Coliseum against Florida A&M, head coach Brad Brownell will be doing something he is very familiar with during his time in Tigertown – he will be looking for a new go-to scorer.

In each of his five years as the Tigers’ coach Brownell has had to replace his leading scorer from the previous year. After his first year, it was Demontez Stitt, who averaged 14.5 points per game. After year No. 2 it was Andre Young, who cashed in with 13.3 per night. The following year he needed to replace Devin Booker and his 13.1 per outing and this year he has to find someone to succeed K.J. McDaniels’ 17.1 points per game.

“We are trying to figure out who is going to be our primary go-to guy,” the Clemson coach said.

In situations it will probably vary from night-to-night. Though Clemson returns eight lettermen from last year’s 23-13 team, no one coming back scored more than 9.7 point a game.

Point guard Rod Hall is the top scorer coming back, while fellow guard Demarcus Harrison is next with 7.8 points per game, guard Jordan Roper averaged 7.4 points per outing and post player Landry Nnoko scored 6.5 a night.

“In certain games it might be Nnoko and in other games it might be a guy like Roper, Demarcus, it could be Rod Hall, who can take over at times. I do think we have a few more options, but there will also be times when you appreciate the fact that you have a guy that you know you can throw the ball to him and he can make a play,” Brownell said. “K.J. certainly was that for us last year so that is certainly one of our challenges.”

As the Tigers play these early games—they will also play Winthrop with a quick turnaround on Monday—Brownell wants to go through the process of learning about his team and getting a better understanding of who plays well with whom.

“What guys feel comfortable making plays late in the game? There have been some guys that have and there are some guys on our team that have probably been out there, but they have not been asked to do as much as they will be asked to do this year.”

Besides the cast of characters who played well as role players with McDaniels last season, Brownell is hoping some of his younger players like Austin Ajukwa, who started to come on the NIT, and Jaron Blossomgame game will become more consistent scorers this season.

He also is interested in seeing what freshmen Donte Grantham and Gabe DeVoe bring to the table once the ball is tipped off for real.

“Donte Grantham, who is a good freshman player for us, is a very good passer so I do think he is going to help facilitate our offense that way and the ball will move,” Brownell said. “I do think we will run a little more motion offense this year. We ran a little bit of motion last year, but I’m hoping to run a lot more this year than maybe the last two years.

“I think the last two years we had to isolate more to Devon Booker and K.J. Those guys were probably better in isolation situations so we geared our offense towards them. Now I think with this kind of lineup and this group we have a little added passing. I think we can move the ball a little bit better and hopefully continue to maintain some flow in our offense through motion.”

And who knows, maybe then someone will present themselves as the scorer the Tigers need.