In the moments after Oliver Purnell told his players he was leaving Clemson for DePaul University in Chicago, Demontez Stitt called for a players’ only meeting.

Former Clemson standout Tanner Smith remembers that night pretty well. There was a lot of tension on the team. The returning players from the Tigers’ NCAA Tournament squad were upset that Purnell had left them just when it seemed the program was where it needed to be.

Clemson had just finished another successful season under Purnell, who took the Tigers to their third straight NCAA Tournament and their fourth straight 20-win season. It was one of the greatest runs in school history and it was only about to get better.

But Purnell was ready to move on. Fortunately for Clemson, Stitt wasn’t.

“Demontez was the first guy to step up and say we are staying together and no one is going anywhere,” said Smith, who like so many others on Wednesday was mourning the loss of Stitt, who suddenly died at his Charlotte, North Carolina home on Tuesday night. He was 27 years old.

“I thought that meant a lot. No matter who was getting hired, who was coming (to coach) and who was taking over the program, he was all about the team and was about Clemson and all about us sticking together and doing it again for his senior year,” Smith continued. “He really led by example that year.”

When Brad Brownell was hired as Clemson’s new coach a few weeks later, Stitt was one of the first players to introduce himself as well as lend his support to his new coach. Years later, Brownell credited Stitt as a main reason why the Tigers won 22 games in his first year, which included the program’s first NCAA Tournament win since 1997.

Brownell said Stitt was the leader of the team. He had control of the locker room. Every guy on the team looked up and respected him as a player, as a teammate and as a friend.

“When Coach Purnell left, it was really a shock for everyone. The reason most of the guys came to Clemson was because of the staff, so when he left, many guys contemplated leaving and going to another school,” said Clemson teammate and close friend Zavier Anderson. “Many guys could have easily transferred to a BCS school, but we had that meeting where Demontez and others voiced their opinion about giving the new coach a chance.

“We followed Demontez’s lead and he led us to the first tourney win for Clemson in what I believe was fourteen years at that time.”

Stitt averaged a career-high 14.5 points and 4.3 rebounds per game in his final year at Clemson, earning him All-ACC honors.

“He was always the guy in the middle of that little huddle at the beginning of games and obviously was a guy we looked up too,” Smith said. “He was fun to play with. He was one of those guys when he was on the court you feel more comfortable. He was a guy that competitively was really hard to guard and was really hard to stop. He was always coming at you. I just gained a lot of respect from watching him play.”

In the ACC Tournament, Stitt led the Tigers to a 70-47 win over Boston College, and then scored 25 points against North Carolina in the semifinals. The Tar Heels eventually won the game, 92-87, in overtime.

“He just had an infectious smile that made you want to be around him,” Anderson said. “The energy he brought every day, whether it be the locker room, court, tutors or back at the apartment, it just made you want to be around him. He was so passionate about everything in life and in the locker room it was no different.”

Smith said Stitt always made things fun. He was always kidding around and trying to make guys laugh.

“Coach Brownell probably would not want to hear this, but during walk through we always played a quiet game of tag. So we would be in the locker room and Demontez would pick who would start it,” Smith said. “During walk though, if there was like a screen, and we all knew ‘who was it,’ so during the play you hoped you didn’t get close to the guy that was ‘it.’ If you were ‘it’ at the end, there were definitely some consequences.

“It was always really funny and Demontez came up with that. Again, it is probably something Brownell will not want to hear about, but it was really funny and was something that I will always remember.”

Anderson says he will never forget about the time Purnell misspelled “expect” on the white board during one of his pre-game speeches.

“He spelled it ‘expet.’ Then we went out and won the game, and after the game Demontez comes into the locker room yelling, ‘Expet that!’ He used ‘expet’ for the rest of our time at Clemson,” Anderson said.

The thing that stands out to Anderson the most was Stitt’s leadership. He said one of his favorite memories of Stitt came during their one season under Brownell. Stitt had injured his knee and was going to have to have surgery. He was going to miss a few games.

“I got put in the starting lineup,” Anderson said. “I was the type of player that rarely got nervous before a game, but I guess he sensed I was a little nervous before this one. He talked to me and calmed me down and just told me to go out and do what I always do.”

Anderson went out and had a career-night against Savannah State, as Clemson won 61-40. It was the first of eight straight wins that year.

“Granted, it was against a lower level team, but he still showed what type of leader he was for our basketball team that year,” Anderson said.

Smith said Wednesday was a tough day for him and his former teammates because they know they lost someone special in all of their lives. Stitt was more than just a teammate to them, he was a part of the family and he was instrumental in each of their successes. To Smith, they lost a brother on Wednesday.

“When you go through battles together and you go through tough times and you go through really good times, you learn a lot about each other,” he said. “He becomes more than just a teammate. He becomes somebody you truly care about, somebody you look out for, somebody who looks out for you.

“This is definitely a sad day. He will be missed, and not only by me, but every teammate that he had and everybody that came in contact with him.”