Brad Brownell’s recent insistence that everything is up for discussion to try to get Clemson’s men’s basketball team out of the most prolonged funk it’s been in this season led to another change to the Tigers’ starting five.
This one actually yielded some positive results.
Clemson took a three-game losing streak into Saturday’s home game against Pittsburgh, but it was after the first of those setbacks at Notre Dame on Jan. 12 that Brownell replaced point guard Nick Honor with Alex Hemenway in the starting lineup. The reason, Brownell said, was to get a little more size in a backcourt that’s on the smaller side when the 5-foot-10 Honor and fellow guard Al-Amir Dawes, at 6-2, are on the court together.
Hemenway made the backcourt a little bigger, but there wasn’t much production from the 6-4 guard against Boston College and Syracuse. Hemenway had just six points on 2 of 8 shooting in those losses and finished with more fouls (5) than rebounds and assists combined (4).
So Brownell made another move against Pitt, inserting Chase Hunter in Hemenway’s place. Clemson (11-8, 3-5 ACC) got a game-high 19 points from Dawes, 16 points from PJ Hall and 10 points and seven rebounds from fellow guard David Collins, but Hunter also provided spark in just his second start of the season to help Clemson snap its longest streak of the season in convincing fashion.
Hunter said he found out Thursday from Brownell that he’d be starting.
“Really, I just wanted to go out with the same mindset of the things I was doing before with the past games,” Hunter said. “I didn’t want to do anything differently. Just go out there and play hard.”
The Tigers shot nearly 50% from the floor and the 3-point line to post their second-largest margin of victory this season, and Hunter was a key cog in that. Making his first start since Clemson’s game against St. Bonaventure in the Charleston Classic back in November, Hunter made four of his five shots and went 4 of 4 from three-throw line to finish with 13 points. He also pulled down five rebounds and dished out three assists in 30 turnover-free minutes, his most extended playing time of the season.
It was a continuation of Hunter’s strong play over the last couple of weeks. The junior guard was shooting nearly 58% over the previous four games (11 of 19), including an 11-point effort on 4 of shooting in Clemson’s midweek loss at Syracuse.
“Just believing in myself,” Hunter said. “My coaches have been believing in me. They’ve been telling me to keep shooting, and that’s what I’ve been doing.”
Brownell has said in the past he likes having a scoring option like Hunter coming off the bench, but the Tigers’ coach said Hunter deserved to start Saturday. It was only the 10th time in his three seasons at Clemson that he was part of the starting lineup.
“Couldn’t be more proud of him the way he’s played not just tonight, but the way he’s hung in there in his three years here,” Brownell said. “Highly recruited kid that started the first game of his career and then got hurt.
“Something that you’re passionate about, you just don’t give in. And he hasn’t done that. He’s just continued to work and be coachable. I’m just really happy that he’s been playing better the last month.”
Hunter has made a strong case to stay there Tuesday when Clemson hits the road for its biggest test of the season at No. 6 Duke.
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