Brad Brownell shares latest on Alex Hemenway's injury status

Clemson Tigers shooting guard Alex Hemenway has been dealing with a lingering plantar fasciitis injury that looks like it may have stunted what was becoming a highly productive season.

After Clemson’s close win over Virginia Tech, head coach Brad Brownell gave a quick update on Hemenway’s injury status. However, he does not know when he’s going to be available yet.

“He did a couple of things this week,” Brownell said. “We hoped it would kind of be a little better than the results from, you know, what he’s doing with the trainers and the doctors and staff. So, we pretty much knew right away that he’s not gonna play against Virginia Tech. I would say he’s probably unlikely for Pitt and beyond that I still don’t know.”

Clemson plays Pitt on Saturday, January 7th. The Tigers will have until the middle of the week after that before playing Louisville. From what it sounds like, though, Hemenway’s injury hasn’t been improving the way the team had hoped.

“Obviously, these guys, they do things to test it, right, and if it goes well you go to the next stage and if it doesn’t you stay where you’re at. He didn’t really move to the next stage, so,” Brad Brownell concluded.

This season, Alex Hemenway has averaged 9.8 points, 2.5 rebounds, and 1.5 assists per game. At 12-3 and 4-0 in the ACC, Clemson sits atop one of the best basketball conferences.

The potential for NCAA Tournament expansion

Earlier this week, The NCAA Transformation Committee made multiple recommendations. One of the headline-grabbing recommendations was to look at expanding postseason tournaments by as much as 25%.

If this were to happen in college basketball, that would mean expanding the field to 90 teams, with tons more access for power conference teams to make the NCAA Tournament. However, Sports Illustrated’s Ross Dellenger doesn’t expect this to come to college basketball.

“To reiterate: Each sport’s oversight/governance group must support the recommendation and adopt the change to expand their championship tournament,” Dellenger tweeted. “Many in the basketball world are NOT in support of expansion. We’ll see.”