(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.
| 2002–2003 | UNC-W | 24-7 | 15-3 | Colonial Ath.Assoc. Champions | NCAA 1st Round loss to Maryland 75-73 |
| 2003–2004 | UNC-W | 15-15 | 9-9 | 7th | |
| 2004–2005 | UNC-W | 19-10 | 13-5 | T-2nd | |
| 2005–2006 | UNC-W | 25-8 | 15-3 | Colonial Ath. Assoc. Champions | NCAA 1st Round loss to GW 88-85 |
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.
| 2006–2007 | Wright State | 23-10 | 13-3 | Horizon League Champions | NCAA 1st Round loss to Pitt 79-58 |
| 2007–2008 | Wright State | 21-10 | 12-6 | 3rd | |
| 2008–2009 | Wright State | 20-13 | 12-6 | 3rd | |
| 2009–2010 | Wright State | 20-12 | 12-6 | 2nd to Butler (duh) |
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.