One-third of the Clemson basketball roster is made up of players who began their college careers somewhere other than Clemson.

Brad Brownell landed his first non-JUCO transfer last May when point guard Avry Holmes chose to spend the final two years of his college career at Clemson.

Holmes, who will start at point guard for the Tigers this season, was voted to the WCC All-Freshman Team and named Honorable Mention as a sophomore.

Assistant coach Steve Smith said Holmes will add a different dynamic to the point guard position that multi-year starter Rod Hall brought to the table.

“Avry is going to shoot the ball a little more, so I think people will have to guard him. They’ll have to go over ball screens,” Smith said. “Won’t be as much attacking the rim from that spot.”

There will be some drop off on the defensive end, but not much.

“Avry Holmes is a pretty good defender. He’s a tough, competitive kid,” Smith said. “Probably won’t be as good as Rod was, with all the experience that Rod had, but (Holmes) does do a good job on the ball and defending the ball, as well.”

The Clemson staff is comfortable with letting Holmes run the show.

“He handles the ball, he handles pressure pretty well. He sat out last year, so he knows mostly what we’re doing, what we’re trying to do, offensively,” Smith said. “He has a pretty good feel of how to score and when to get his shot off. I think he’ll do a pretty good job of that and running the team.”

Smith added, “Even if he’s not making his shots, he does a good job of that.”

Shelton Mitchell, a Vanderbilt transfer, won’t be allowed to compete for minutes until next year. Along with Robert Morris transfer Marcquise Reed, Mitchell will have three years of eligibility remaining after this season.

Assistant coach Richie Riley called Mitchell a true point guard.

“With his speed and ability to get down hill, with his size, he’s going to add another dimension to what we do next year, help us play faster,” Riley said. “He’s going to work on his jump-shot, keep improving that. The thing that people don’t understand, he’s not a bad shooter, he just doesn’t take a bunch of them.”

Reed is a scorer. He had 21 points against Clemson when Robert Morris played at Littlejohn last winter.

“If the sucker hadn’t gotten into foul trouble, it was going to be hard. He played like 24 minutes and was 9 of 14 from the field. We struggled to guard him, and we’re one of the best defensive teams in the country…part of that is because he scores on all levels.

Brownell has signed two junior college transfers during his tenure at Clemson. The first was Ibrahim Djambo, who signed with Clemson out of Three Rivers Community College in Missouri. With the 2015 class, the Tigers also brought in Legend Robertin, a power forward out of Chipola Junior College in Florida.

Damarcus Harrison was the first non-JUCO transfer to sign with Brownell at Clemson. After spending his freshman campaign at BYU, Harrison played his last three seasons in Tigertown.

“The transfer market, with over 600-700 each year, it’s something in recruiting you have to adjust to,” Riley said, “And it’s something that, moving forward, we’re going to do a little more of…if it’s the right one. It has to be right.”