PORTLAND, Ore. — Before first-year coach Flynn Clayman was a face that hundreds of thousands of Americans noticed hunched whereas over addressing his workforce in the locker room after High Point’s 83-82 win over fifth-seeded Wisconsin in Thursday’s first spherical of the NCAA males’s basketball match, he was a rising assistant at one of Utah’s six Division I universities.
Now one of the high faces of mid-major basketball as the Panthers put together to face fourth-seeded Arkansas in Saturday’s second spherical at the Moda Center (7:45 p.m. MT, TBS).
The vitality of the 37-year-old coach has caught the consideration of the school basketball followers throughout the nation, prompting even former NBA nice and TNT broadcaster Charles Barkley to quip that he hopes to make use of his unused fourth season of school eligibility for the Panthers as a result of “that guy makes me want to play.
Clayman arrived at High Point, the small town in North Carolina with a private Methodist-affiliated university of the same name, less than three years ago. But his star was rising well before, when he met his wife Katie — now also a High Point assistant women’s basketball coach — during his first job first as a graduate assistant at Southern Utah.
Even then, the Thunderbirds were saying some of the same things his current players said about him — but in the nicest way possible.
“I say he is form of insane,” said Rob Martin, the Panthers’ senior point guard who had 23 points and 10 assists with just one turnover in 36 minutes against the Badgers.
“He’s an incredible coach,” he added, with a laugh. “He brings it every day; our guys love him. We work exhausting. Super proud of him for believing in us, trusting us to go on the market and make the performs.”
Insane? Martin quickly walked back the line, adding that it was in jest.
But the cat was out of the bag.
“What Rob stated, coach Flynn is insane,” said Cam’Ron Fletcher, a senior transfer from Xavier who spent time at Florida State and Kentucky as a freshman. “I can say that I really feel like he could have lots of success at this stage as a result of of that.
“Him and (Arkansas coach John Calipari) got a lot of similarities. I can see coach Flynn having a lot of success being a head basketball coach because of that, him being insane.”
Back in 2017, the former journeyman participant at Colorado State and Troy took a job as a graduate assistant at Southern Utah whereas engaged on a grasp’s diploma in Cedar City, the place former SUU head coach Todd Simon supplied him a job as an entry-level particular assistant for round $12,000 a yr after the two crossed paths on the membership circuit.
“I liked his story and determination,” Simon advised KSL.com. “Finding hungry young coaches and helping their journey is a passion of mine and he fit that mold.
I could see he was smart, passionate and had a knack and persistence for what it takes to recruit,” added Simon, who is now in his third season at Bowling Green.
SUU was his first full-time gig. Spending time on Simon’s employees as a particular assistant, assistant coach and finally affiliate head coach from 2017-23 set Clayman on a star-making path.
It’s additionally the place he met his spouse Katie, a former dual-sport basketball participant and monitor and area athlete at Oregon who spent 4 seasons as a Thunderbirds assistant that included a WAC regular-season title and NCAA Tournament journey in 2023.
Marrying one other coach — Katie Clayman is at present an assistant with the High Point ladies’s workforce that confronted Vanderbilt in an NCAA Tournament first-round sport Saturday in Nashville — has been key to his early success, too.
“It’s just been perfect,” he stated of their relationship. “I love the game of basketball. Then to find a woman that I love more than the game of basketball, I thought that was impossible. But it happened. It’s probably part because she loves the game, too.”
Clayman went 2-1 as interim head coach in the College Basketball Invitational for the Thunderbirds, which adopted a 24-13 marketing campaign that included a 12-6 file int inheritor first season in the Western Athletic Conference and a wild win over frontrunner Utah Valley in a WAC Tournament semifinal. He additionally helped herald stars like Tevian Jones and John Knight III, and guided SUU to the program’s highest rating in each the NET and KenPom in program historical past.
In three seasons since former Western Illinois coach Rob Jeter was employed, the Thunderbirds are 32-62 with a 15-39 file in the WAC and most not too long ago the No. 272 NET rating, which is sort of 200 spots decrease than No. 75 High Point.
Clayman, in the meantime, took the affiliate head coach job at High Point, ran the Panthers’ offense en path to the first NCAA Tournament look in 2025, and was promoted to move coach the day after Alan Huss took the affiliate head coach and coach-in-waiting job at Creighton final April.
Since then, he grew to become the first workforce from the Big South to win back-to-back convention regular-season titles since Coastal Carolina in 2011 and marched to a 31-4 marketing campaign in his first full season.
And he did all of it whereas being himself.
“I just try to be authentic in who I am,” he stated. “I love the game. I want what’s best for these guys.
“When I’m on the market getting mad about issues, it is as a result of I would like them to win and I would like them to have that have they’ve had.”
