Brad Brownell has been flat out getting done on the recruiting trail.

After adding several key pieces from the transfer portal following Clemson’s magical run to the Elite 8, Brownell also landed a commitment from a high-profile legacy recruit in Trent Steinhour last week.

Steinhour (Lake Norman, Mooresville, NC) is the grandson of Clemson legend Randy Mahaffey, a first-team All-ACC player in 1966-67 and the 6-foot-10, 200-pound big man becomes the first verbal pledge of the Tigers’ 2025 recruiting class.

“There’s an amazing staff there,” Steinhour told The Clemson Insider. “I really like the area, the campus, the facility and the players who went through there like PJ Hall. He’s obviously an amazing player. And they were showing me some highlights of him and film of him, how he grew up, from freshman year to junior and senior year.”

Watching Hall grow as a player throughout his four-year career at Clemson is something that really resonated with Steinhour, as he sees a lot of similarities in his game.

“That’s how I would play,” Steinhour said. “But if I could play like that depends on how hard I work and things like that. They kind of showed me a path that I could take, I guess like PJ’s and that’s a good future to have. Obviously, he’s had a lot of success.”

At the same time, the culture Brownell has worked so hard to cultivate inside his program also stood out.

“They’re really together, really built in as they want to win and want to win together,” Steinhour said. “No one on the team was selfish, as you can see. That’s got a lot to do with the coach. How he coaches the team and sets an example for players. So I think he’s got a really good culture there for the players, in playing as a family and being a family.”

South Carolina, Virginia Tech and Wake Forest were some of the other schools showing a lot of interest. He also had offers from Georgia and Penn State. However, Steinhour has known for a little while now where his heart was.

“I’ve been thinking about committing to Clemson for a while now, probably a month or so,” Steinhour said. “I went down about a month ago before school, and I was like, ‘Mom, I’m ready to commit.’ And she was like, ‘think about a little bit more. Make sure you’re sure.’

Steinour averaged 15.7 points, 10.5 rebounds and 4.3 blocks per game during his junior season. He is widely considered a Top 200 talent, one of the top players in the state of North Carolina and his style of play seems to fit perfectly with how the Tigers like to play.

“Getting tons of rebounds every game, lots of offensive boards, put backs, things like that,” Steinhour said. “Just playing hard, running the floor. I think I run the floor pretty well, and play hard. I can shoot the ball a little bit, play inside, and overall I guess I bringing energy, doing the hard work and wanting to win.”

“I think I’m a pretty skilled player. I’m still working on a lot of that. Things that I can do every game is play as hard as I can. Going after every rebound. I can play as hard as I want, I think that is something that that I can control. I can’t control every shot.”