By Sam Walters
On Tuesday, March 26th, Clemson University athletic director Graham Neff announced hiring Shawn Poppie as the eighth women’s basketball head coach.
The Crescent City, Illinois native joins the Clemson Tigers with an esteemed resume, leading his team at the University of Tennessee Chattanooga to their second Southern Conference championship in 2022. Additionally, Poppie served as an assistant coach and associate head coach at Virginia Tech, where the team set records for conference wins and ranked-opponent wins and recorded six straight winning seasons.
Poppie, his wife, and his three children head down to Death Valley to join the Clemson Family and take the helm of the recently disappointing Tiger squad. The team went a low 12-19 over the 2023 season, winning only five of their 18 conference games and ending at 13th in the ACC. Even with star Amari Robinson, who averaged over 17 points per game, the Tigers couldn’t find any routes to success.
On March 12th, Neff announced that the Tigers were parting ways with head coach Amanda Butler, who was the coach for Clemson in their 2023 season. Two weeks later, the Tigers find a more-than-suitable replacement to help get the team back on track, as Poppie is known for helping teams dominate and rise to greatness.
