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Brad Brownell got his first big commitment yesterday when the nations #9 PF (Rivals, #14 Scout), 6'9" Bernard Sullivan, from Charlotte (North Mecklenburg - Davidson Day), threw his cards in with the Tigers. He has been recruited by the rest of the ACC, but not much by Duke/NC. It was just this past AAU season that he really went up the lists nationally.

Of course we dont keep up with basketball recruiting as much here, but I have listened to those who do and they say that he is a good fit for the 4-1/3-2 motion system that Brownell uses and will play the 4 position that Booker vacates. His jump shot of course needs some work for the college level, as his film didn't impress me whatsover there, but his ballhandling skills are good, and ya'll know we pretty much sucked at ballhandling last season.

The commitment lessens the sting of our big recruiting losses this summer, somewhat, and is probably the best big guy we're going to get for now. Clemson should take 2 more players at minimum for 2011. I'm hoping for a PG.

With the 23rd pick. Maybe the Pro team can get Trevor to play hard for a full game? Minnesota must not or they wouldnt have just traded him to Washington.

Clemson gets 1st round picks in all 3 major sports for the first time since 1987.

(pic courtesy http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/2009/dec/20/rebels-hammer-centenary/)

Murphy Holloway (Ole Miss bio), a 6'7" forward from Irmo has announced that he will be leaving Ole Miss and has been heavily rumored to announce his decision to transfer to Clemson very soon.  Even Kornblut, who is probably in tears at this point, has confirmed such so all indications point to this deal coming through for the Tigers.  The South Carolina native reportedly wants to get closer to home and Mississippi is not likely to release Holloway to another SEC squad.  It is widely rumored that family issues including Holloway's young baby in SC are the motivation for the transfer, as he appears to he happy in Mississippi and has not qualms with the coaches or any situation for the Rebels. 

Holloway helped the Rebels in '09-'10 with over 10 PPG and 7.6 RPG.  Holloway played in 65 games and logged over 1500 minutes in his two seasons in Oxford.  In his senior season at Dutch Fork High School, Holloway earned was named South Carolina's Mr. Basketball and the Gatorade 4-A SC State Player of the Year for the season.  Major recruiting services ranked him as one of the Top 70 players in the nation coming out of high school.

Murphy is a player who leaves it all on the court and plays to win the game.  I have yet to hear or read anything negative about this young man and am excited about the possibility of him coming to Clemson.  While we realize that he enjoyed his time at Ole Miss, we are eager to see this big man in orange and hope to hear confirmation about this move to Clemson from Holloway himself soon.  A player of this stature gives Clemson an instant presence inside and MH will surely be an asset to this program.

'09/'10 Highlights:

Fast forward to the 1:40 mark to see some Holloway highlights here:

With Brownell being hired at CU today and confirming that two of his assistants, big man coach Mike Winiecki and manager Lucas McKay, will definitely be joining him, what do you expect out of the Tigers in 2010-2011?

His top assistant, and best recruiter (it appears) Billy Donlon will end up the next Wright State head coach.

He stated today that he runs a very multiple defense, varying from tight man/man to 2-3 and 1-3-1 zones, and runs a motion offense like we currently run, just better, though strictly half-court. Clemson ran mostly man/man and our usual zone press under OP so I don't see a big adjustment for our current players schemewise.

We lose Trevor Booker and 15ppg with 8-9 rebounds per game, and at the moment I doubt Devin Booker will leave. OP was the reason Devin wanted to go. Whether Thornton re-signs is irrelevant for next season expectation-wise in my opinion. If a few players pick up their game, and whomever steps in at the 4 puts up a respectable number (8ppg, 5-7 reb) then we should be fine.

I would say that 20 wins is not unreasonable given Brownell's track record along with the ACC losing several marquee players (Delaney, Scheyer, Vasquez, etc.) from higher-finishing teams. 9-7 in the ACC is possible, which means a NCAA berth as well.

What say you?

(See bottom for contract details)

Brownell is currently the head coach at Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio. He's been there the last 5 seasons, winning 20 games in each of those years after posting 4 straight 20-win seasons at UNC-Wilmington. He's been to the Dance 3 times, losing all 3 in the 1st round. He's rumored to have accepted the Clemson job today after his 2nd interview.

Brownell graduated from DePauw in 1991 and went into coaching immediately thereafter, working under Jim Crews at Evansville (currently at Army). From there he went to Indianapolis for a couple years before going to UNC-W as an assistant under Jerry Wainwright (just fired at DePaul). Under Jerry, UNC-W went to 2 NCAA Tournaments from 1994-2002, beating #4-seed USC in the 1st round in 01-02 and giving Wainwright the Richmond job. Brownell was promoted to UNC-W head coach after Wainwright left, and took his 1st and 4th teams to the NCAA Tournament, winning the regular season and CAA tournaments both times.

The Maryland loss was on a shot from half-court. In the GW loss, UNC-W blew an 18 point lead in Atlanta. After asking for a raise from UNC-W, and being denied, he left for Wright State.

In his first season at Wright State, he won them their first Horizon League Championship over Butler and a school record 23 wins, but lost to #3 seed Pitt 79-58.

The rest on Brownell shows he's at least a decent recruiter (2010 class with 4 guys rated 80 or higher by ESPN) , with more ties in the Ohio area than in NC, and they play decent defense (61st Def. Eff by Kenpom), but they play a half-court game and very slow tempo (316th). His teams really take the air out of the ball, but play with discipline and hustle. Those are two things I would like to see out of our current players.

He's young, and is known as a pretty good X's and O's coach, and if he brought in the right staffers to recruit into Atlanta I think I would support this hire by TDP. He runs a 3-2 motion set with man/man defense and a bit of 2-3 zone to mix it up. He runs his 3-2 with the PF/C in the high post, perfect for Milton Jennings. Damien Leonard would fit his offense perfectly as well. I doubt his scheme would be a huge adjustment for our players and we could possibly win immediately with it.

Morning Update: Just to have it all here in one place, Clemson released their statement announcing that Brownell accepted the job, as we reported last night before the major outlets. His press conference is slated for 4pm on TigerCast. Other highlights of Wright State can be found here.

Final Update: Its been revealed that Clemson was offering Rick Stansbury over 2 million per year and it was the Mississippi State buyout that made Clemson balk on the whole ordeal, the latter we knew already. OP got 2.2 million from DePaul and was making 1.6 million here.

Terms of Brownell's Contract include $900K per year, roughly $533K more than he was making at Wright State, though considerably less than what they offered Stansbury or were paying Purnell. Brownell was recommended by Rick Barnes, that much we knew, and also Jay Bilas and Digger Phelps, who TDP consulted on the deal.

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Well after two days, the search is confirming my suspicion that AD Terry Don Phillips is an idiot. I only know of one candidate so far that has or will be interviewed that I would definitely approve of taking this job.

TDP, however, has decided to punt. I'm trying to calm myself and keep repeating that they are only interviews and mean nothing, but the candidates so far mentioned likely caused incoming recruit Marcus Thornton to officially ask for a release from his LOI with the spring signing period upcoming. The timing does allow for the new coach to re-recruit Thornton, but if he is released, as is customary in basketball, he is no longer bound to us for 2010-2011. In light of those confirmed by media outlets, it does not appear likely we'll get him back.

TigerIllustrated has reported that 5 candidates have been interviewed and which they'll confirm, while our sources indicate another has or will interview today/tomorrow.

1. Wofford's Mike Young - nearly beat Wisconsin in the NCAAs this year, finished 26-9. SoCon coach of the year.

2. Wright State's Brad Brownell - 84-45 at Wright State, one NCAA appearance. 4 straight 20-win seasons at UNCW. Plays a motion offense and aggressive man and zone defense, not a bad X's and O's guy. Of the four, this is the only one I could see myself getting behind.

3. Jacksonville's Cliff Warren - GT assistant 2000-05, went from 1-26 in his first year to 4 straight winning seasons, and 2 NIT bids. Fail.

4. Former BC coach Al Skinner - Certainly a courtesy interview, no chance at getting this job from everyone I've spoken with.

5. Old Dominion's Blaine Taylor - one at-large NCAA bid in 06-07 and an automatic bid the year prior as conference champions. Stanford assistant from 1998-2001. 2 NCAA bids as head coach at Montana prior to that.

and our sources say that Baylor head coach Scott Drew will interview today, they also say that Ron Bradley will definitely not get the job. I've "heard" that Jeff Capel (OU) prefers the Wake Forest job to ours, but they appear to have settled on at least one candidate already in Jeff Bzdelik, so it appears that he could be for the taking for the right price.

Our sources also say that Clemson called Bobby Knight and asked his opinion of UAB coach Mike Davis, and Bobby was not enthused.

We reached out to former NCSU head man Herb Sendek, and he turned down the request. Apparently Herb can recognize a cluster**** from afar.

Opinions on the interviews thus far? Am I the only one feeling a nuclear meltdown coming? Why bother interviewing these candidates if you are going to go after the big fish?

It was a good run.  Oliver Purnell came in as a man who had built programs at his previous stops.  He steadily improved basketball at Clemson and gained a posse in the upstate of South Carolina.  Now he has moved along for riches and another challenge at DePaul.  One thing that OP did at Clemson that I really am impressed with is getting people to care about basketball.  For years, this program was written off by everyone.  Now Clemson fans are beginning to demand NCAA tourney wins instead of simply hoping to avoid the ACC play-in game (affectionately known as the Larry Shyatt Invitational).

My thoughts on the matter tend to be less emotional than many, and can understand OP's  plight and the decision making process that has evolved his career (and bank account) as of late.  Purnell, for better or worse, pulled Tiger basketball from absolutely pathetic to stable and competitive.  OP improved this program from barely achieving double digit wins in his first season in T-Town to annual contender, carding 20+ wins for most of his Clemson career.  There is no doubt that both parties (CU and OP) benefited from the Old Dominion grad's time in God's Country.

So, you may ask, why is OP leaving.  Several items stick out in my mind for Oliver's departure, and these will be explored as we move along after the jump.

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I watched TDP's presser yesterday afternoon and must say that while I have not been anti-TDP in the past, he's losing his support from me. He seemed totally unprepared for the press conference and given his track record in recent coaching searches, I have zero confidence that he will find a coach that can carry Clemson to another level in basketball. He spoke to the AD at DePaul and knew that negotiations were occuring, then said today that he was blindsided by OP leaving?

"No one hates losing Oliver Purnell more than I. We're on solid foundation. We're going to do a national search. We're going to go with a person who we think can build on this foundation. Coach Bradley has agreed to be the interim head coach. Coach Bradley will have an opportunity to interview for the job. I told him this morning there are no guarantees. But he will have a bona fide oppoertunity to interview. But... it will be a very thorough search."

 Yeah I bet, TDP setting us up to hire Bradley as HC?

On whether there was a counteroffer by CU.

"When Oliver called me, he had already made his mind up. Their AD called me but when he called me late last night he had already made his mind up."

OP went on to say that it happened at about 1:30 am last night, it was on the internet and we posted it within 30 minutes. OP having his mind made up already is quite interesting and in contradiction to what LW reported today, but TDP did say that we made some offer that was cost-of-living based in comparison to DePaul's.

I dont see why anyone in this world would pay OP 2 million per year with his postseason track record, but thats another issue. DePaul picked up the relatively large compensation package that OP was owed, it was not the 250K buyout thats been reported. OP was due to get alot of deferred money.

Chicago's reaction to the OP hiring has not been terribly enthusiastic either.

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