The future identity of Clemson’s men’s basketball program began being forged last season with the emergence of PJ Hall.
Last season didn’t go as planned for the Tigers, who battled attrition throughout the 2021-22 season en route to a 17-16 overall record and bottom-third finish in the ACC standings. But Hall, the Tigers’ 6-foot-10 center, developed into a force on the interior that Clemson wants to continue heavily utilizing going forward.
With five new scholarship players in the fold for next season, this summer, which will include some games against international competition in France early next month, was supposed to give the new version of Tigers their first real chance to get used to playing through their star big man. Instead, Hall is on the mend again, leaving Clemson coach Brad Brownell to adjust on the fly.
“For me, the frustrating part is here’s PJ and now how do we play around PJ with all these other pieces?” Brownell said. “We’re going to go to (France) and we’ll play without him and try to figure some things out that way, but when he gets back, he’s going to be back in there. So now we need to figure out how to play with him again and who gets what and what can we do?”
After having surgery this spring to repair his fractured left foot, Hall sustained another setback when he dislocated his kneecap during a recent practice, which also required surgery. Now the earliest Hall is expected to be back in action is November.
In the meantime, Brownell said rising sophomore Ben Middlebrooks and Ian Schieffelin will fill in for Hall. The two were manning the center position on opposite 5-on-5 teams last week during practice periods that were open to the media.
Freshman forward Chauncey Wiggins teamed up with Schieffelin in the frontcourt. Veteran forward Hunter Tyson played on the wing while freshmen Josh Beadle and Dillon Hunter rounded out that team. Joining Middlebrooks on the other team were Chase Hunter, Alex Hemenway and freshmen Chauncey Gibson and RJ Godfrey.
It’s not the most ideal situation, particularly when it comes to depth at the position. While Middlebrooks played in 26 games as Hall’s primary backup last season, Schieffelin, a more natural forward, is undersized for the position at 6-foot-7. True freshman Chauncey Wiggins could play there in a pinch, though the 6-9, 205-pounder is more suited for the power forward spot.
For now, Clemson is left to try to make the best of another adverse situation in its frontcourt.
“Ian maybe could play some (power forward) at times, but he’s now he’s just mostly going to be a 5 with Ben,” Brownell said. “I don’t know if guys are going to move up and down positions a little bit just based on somebody’s got to kind of move over this way all the time now.
“Those are adjustments that we have to make that are a little unfortunate because of the injury, so we won’t maybe get all the information that we lacked in terms of how we’re going to play with PJ.”
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