CHARLOTTE — Over the past few years, Clemson head basketball coach Brad Brownell has had a lot of success identifying and securing talent in the transfer portal.
Transfers like Viktor Lakhin, Jaeden Zackery, Joe Girard and Jack Clark played key roles for the Tigers in the back-to-back appearances in the NCAA Tournament over the past two seasons. And there have been more.
However, with the college landscape having experienced another major shift with the advent of the revenue-sharing model, Clemson has phased out its NIL Collectives, which will make it a little more difficult for Brownell to secure that talent.
“It will be challenging at times, no doubt about it,” Brownell said during the ACC Tipoff on Wednesday. “At the end of the day, finances are a part of recruiting decisions.”
With Clemson being a football school, Dabo Swinney’s program receives an overwhelming amount of the $20.5 million rev share money. That leaves Brownell with much less money to work with when compared to ACC foes like North Carolina, Duke and Louisville. The Heels were projected to devote around $7 million to this year’s basketball team, while the Tigers were projected to get in the neighborhood of $2 million. That is a substantial gap.
However, Brownell still found a way to add six transfers to his roster over the offseason, including former Nevada star Nick Davidson, who was one of the more heavily sought-after players in the portal.
With his program getting less rev-share money than some of its ACC counterparts, Brownell is hoping that some of that can be offset through Clemson Ventures, which helps with third-party NIL deals.
“I’m hopeful that we are going to be able to do some things with Clemson Ventures to help support us, as well as have some rev share numbers that give us a chance to recruit and retain good players,” Brownell said. “Because you can’t be successful without really good players.”
There is one thing Brownell is sure of, and that is that his program doesn’t generally have to be the highest bidder. The offers just need to be competitive. Do that, and let everything else the program has to offer do the rest.
“I do think the Clemson experience is such that we don’t have to be the highest paying offer for some guys, but we certainly want to treat our guys well,” Brownell said. “And to make sure that we have fair market value to keep good players.”
Photo courtesy of Nell Redmond/ACC Photo