Chris Clemons is college basketball’s secret superstar

Chris Clemons is now in the top-10 on the NCAA’s all-time scoring list, but how did college basketball’s most unknown star fall so far below the radar?

Chris Clemons is the greatest college basketball player you never heard of.

With a season-high 48 points in a win over Hampton Wednesday night, the Campbell senior guard passed Danny Manning and Oscar Robertson to move into ninth place on the NCAA’s all-time scoring list (2,978 points).

When the Fighting Camels take the floor on Saturday against Presbyterian, Hersey Hawkins (3,008 career points) is well within striking distance. Keydren Clark (3,058 points) and Harry Kelly (3,066 points) are in quick range after that. Clemons has a decent chance to catch fifth place Doug McDermott (3,150 points) by the time the season ends.

Clemons is clearly a great talent, even with the caveat he’s been playing against lesser competition in the Big South. But he has had some good games against tougher competition during his career, notably including 45 points against Georgetown earlier this year and 39 points against Penn State in the 2017-18 season opener.

So it’s worth wondering if Clemons was a huge recruiting miss for bigger schools.

Listed at either 5-foot-9 (247Sports) or 5-foot-10 (Rivals) and 180 pounds, out of Millbrook High School in Raleigh, North Carolina, Clemons was not ranked by 247Sports and Rivals had him as a three-star recruit in the class of 2015. Campbell appears to be the only offer he got, with fellow Big South school Gardner-Webb the only other school with known interest. With a nod to that lack of interest, which had to be partially rooted in his lack of size, Clemons committed to Campbell early in his senior season at Millbrook.

Clemons was the nation’s leading returning scorer each of the last two years, after averaging 25.1 points per game in 2016-17 and 24.9 points last year. He considered entering the NBA Draft each of the last two years, even going through workouts with the Boston Celtics and Denver Nuggets in 2017 then the Brooklyn Nets and Cleveland Cavaliers last year, but he’s definitely fighting a size stigma as NBA scouts evaluate him.

Clemons grew up idolizing Allen Iverson. But a 44-inch vertical, which allowed him to dunk in high school, invites comparisons to three-time Slam Dunk champion Nate Robinson. Fellow 5-foot-9-er Isaiah Thomas, the shortest player to make multiple NBA All-Star teams, also fits as a comp for Clemons (recent injury trouble aside).

After taking over 42 percent of Campbell’s shots as a sophomore in 2016-17, Clemons has accounted for just shy of 34 percent of the team’s shots (494 of 1,454) through 25 games this season. He has steadily improved as a 3-point shooter, from 35.4 percent during that sophomore season to 37.1 percent last year to 38.2 percent this season. This season, for what it’s worth, Clemons is averaging a career-best 5.5 rebounds per game.

Clemons is, of course, a very high-usage player (38.2 percent this season, second in the country), which makes 2.7 turnovers per game a little more palatable. It would be nice to see more assists (3.0 per game this season) and a better assist-to-turnover ratio (1.12 so far this season), but the former category is pretty dependent on teammates and the latter category would improve naturally.

Clemons’ size invites scrutiny of his defense, and his Defensive Box Plus-Minus (a measure of defensive points contributed per 100 possessions relative to an average player) is in negative territory. NBA scouts are surely aware of his shortcomings on the defensive end, but in today’s league that’s hardly a death knell for Clemons’ draft stock.

The Fighting Camels are 15-10 this season, and it’s incredibly unlikely the Big South will get an at-large NCAA Tournament bid. So any hope to see Clemons in the Big Dance rests on Campbell winning the conference tournament.

In 2019 NBA mock drafts, good luck finding Clemons among the 60 picks. That could change in the next four-plus months, but it seems a potential top-five scorer in NCAA history will have to get noticed in summer league to reach his NBA dream right away.