The Clemson basketball team has gotten off to a nice start in the 2024-25 season. Granted, the two opponents the Tigers have faced thus far, Charleston Southern and Saint Francis, haven't exactly been blue-blood programs, but still, head coach Brad Brownell has seen his team put forth two impressive performances to open the season. And much of that success has been due to the play of a group of transfers who've filled some important roles.
Newcomers Jaeden Zachery, Viktor Lahkin, Myles Foster, and Jake Heidbreder are all playing well for the Tigers. Each one brings something important to the table.
Zachery, a new face who previously played at Boston College, has been an excellent all-around guard. He's putting up 11.0 points per game thus far which is third on the team. Additionally, he's tops on the team with 4.5 assists per game. But it's also been his defense that's been impressive as he's leading the ACC with 3.5 steals per contest.
Zachery has a terrific defensive rating (an estimate of the number of points a player allows per 100 possessions) of 86.3. That's an impressive number for a point guard considering that point guards are usually tasked with guarding the ball more often than any other player on the court.
Meanwhile, the big man Lahkin, an import from Cincinnati, is playing incredibly efficient basketball in limited minutes. He's averaged only 17.5 minutes per game yet he's scoring 10.0 points and pulling down 4.0 rebounds per game. What's more, he's blocking 1.5 shots per game to lead the team.
Coming into the season, there were questions about how the Tigers would replace the departed 6-foot-10 all-time Clemson great, PJ Hall, and the 14.2 points, and 5.3 rebounds he averaged last year. While Lahkin is much more of a traditional big man than the versatile Hall was, he's showing that he can be almost as productive statistically.
Now, at some point, Lahkin's minutes will need to increase. Against elite competition, he's going to be asked to give the Tigers even more than he has thus far in the first two games and it will be interesting to see if he can handle a greater workload against better teams.
At Cincinnati, he never averaged more than 23.5 minutes per game in any of his three seasons there. Will Clemson be able to get more than that out of its starting center this year? That will be something to monitor as the season progresses.
As for Foster, a newcomer from Illinois State, and Heidbreder from Air Force (who redshirted with the Tigers last year), they have been Brownell's two key reserves.
Foster, a 6-foot-7 forward, is averaging 8.5 points per game in just 13.5 minutes. That's incredibly efficient. In fact, when you extrapolate that out over 40 minutes, that's an average of 25.2 points per 40 minutes, which is tops among all Clemson players in the regular rotation.
Meanwhile, Heidbreder has been a three-point sniper, something Clemson desperately needed to add this year. So far, he's knocked down five of the eight 3-pointers he's hoisted (62.5%) which is tops among all Tigers with more than two 3-point attempts this year.
Last season, Clemson was 101st nationally in 3-pointers made per game with 8.2. This year, though it is a tiny sample size, Clemson is trending in the right direction from behind the 3-point line. Averaging 11.5 makes from deep per game, the Tigers rank 41st nationally. Hopefully, that can continue into ACC play and if it does, Heidbreder will likely be a huge reason why.
Now, it bears repeating that we still don't know what this Clemson team will ultimately be. The season has gotten off to a soft start with two games against programs that aren't likely to be in the NCAA Tournament mix come March.
Soon, though, Clemson faces a sneaky-tough road game at Mountain West Conference contender Boise State. Then, early next month, No. 23 Kentucky comes to Littlejohn Coliseum just four days prior to the start of ACC play which comes in the form of a road trip to Miami.
In other words, business will soon pick up for Brownell's squad. When it does, though, these transfers will need to keep doing their part to help the Tigers get off to a strong start and position themselves to be in the mix for a tournament bid later in the season.