There’s no better team building exercise in college basketball than an overseas summer exhibition tour. The problem for Clemson coach Brad Brownell is that the bulk of his team’s projected starting lineup won’t be available when he takes the Tigers to Italy later this month.
Senior big man Carter Welling is still in the early stages of recovery from surgery to repair a torn ACL suffered during the ACC Tournament in March and won’t be available until after the season begins. Sophomore guard Zac Foster is closer to returning from a similar surgery, but still isn’t ready for game action while his backcourt mate, redshirt sophomore Ace Buckner, is rehabbing from a procedure to repair a shoulder issue.
While all three will make the trip to Rome, Florence and Como, which begins on July 27, they’ll miss out on the opportunity to bond with their new teammates on the court. More significantly, their absence will prevent Brownell from getting an early indication into what his Tigers will look like in 2026-27.
“It’s a little unfortunate, especially because we’re light at guard this summer. So it’s been a little wonky,” Brownell said. “When you don’t have enough perimeter players, it gets a little difficult in practice.”
Playing shorthanded might not be an optimal situation during the summer, but it could potentially turn into a benefit in the fall because of the extra minutes Clemson’s younger players will get in the practices leading up to the trip and in games once they get to Italy.
The primary beneficiaries will be freshman guards Harris Reynolds and Amare James.
The 6-foot-5 Reynolds is a consensus four-star prospect who was named the Metro Atlanta Player of the Year by the Atlanta Tipoff Club after leading St. Pius X Catholic to an undefeated 4A state championship. He is a high-volume scorer with the ability to play both backcourt positions. James, who is an inch taller at 6-foot-6, also helped an Atlanta area team win a state title, averaging double-figure scoring for 6A champion Wheeler High.
“They will play a lot (in Italy),” Brownell said of his rookie guards. “They’ll play together in different ways and that’s something, we think, that will help us.”
Brownell is especially high on Reynolds, a player he described as having “a super quick twitch, with good speed.”
“I like the fact that we’ve had to throw a lot at him so far,” the Clemson coach said. “Zac and Ace aren’t out there, so he’s got the ball in his hands a lot. He’s trying to learn and he’s doing well. I think he’ll be a really good player for us.”
As important as it is for Reynolds to get a head start on his development, it’s not the only concern for Brownell and his staff this summer. Because of the uncertainty surrounding Welling’s health, an even higher priority is being placed on identifying potential frontcourt options.
Welling, the Tigers’ top returning scorer and rebounder at 10.3 points and 5.4 rebounds per game, won’t be available until at least the start of the ACC schedule in December. There are plenty of candidates to fill the void in his absence, as the roster includes six other players 6-foot-9 and above. The problem is that there isn’t a lot of experience among the group.
Trent Steinour is a slender 6-foot-10, 218-pound sophomore who appeared in only six games last year. But even that’s six games more than 6-foot-9 Blake Davidson, who sat out his rookie season as a redshirt. Dallas Thomas is more of a wing than a big and Will Stevens, a 6-foot-10 freshman rated as the No. 1 prospect in North Carolina by On3Sports, is just beginning his adjustment to college competition.
Their performance in Italy will go a long way toward determining how much they’ll be able to contribute this season. Just in case, Brownell has brought in two veteran transfers to help take some of the pressure off his young bigs. Dylan Faulkner was a first-team All-Southern Conference selection who averaged 17 points, 8.6 rebounds and 1.7 blocks at Samford in 2025-26 while Fuchs, more solidly built at 245 pounds, posted nearly a double-double (12.7 points and 7.8 rebounds) at San Francisco.
“We’ve got three young big guys that are all still developmental,” Brownell said. “We didn’t know what it was going to lead to with Carter’s injury, so we went out and got two big guys we felt we needed from a size standpoint with mature bodies and experience to help get us through.”
Although both Buckner and Foster are expected to be back for the start of preseason practice, Brownell also took similar precautions on the perimeter by adding shooters Cole Certa from Notre Dame and Liutauras Lelevicius from TCU, both of whom are big enough to play the wing in a smaller lineup.
“What’s unique about our team this year is that the guys who are the returners are young players,” Brownell said. “Ace Bucker, Zac Foster, Dallas Thomas, Trent Stienour, those guys are all sophomores. We’ve had proven older players who were system guys and knew how we do things that have helped me and been great leaders. This year’s team we had to find some of those older guys to help with all that. But it’s good, because some of the new guys are getting good reps and we’ll see what happens”
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