He stood in front of his Bristol Central High teammates in the locker room at Mohegan Sun Arena, all 7-feet, 2-inches commanding their attention before the coaches came in with their halftime adjustments.
Staring in the face of a second-straight undefeated season, a state championship in his final high school game, Donovan Clingan wasn’t playing up to the standard of dominance he and his team had gotten used to. He missed a few layups and had eight points as his team held a narrow, 22-20, lead over Northwest Catholic.
‘“My fault, I didn’t do what I needed to,”‘ coach Tim Barrette heard Clingan preaching to his teammates as he entered the room. ‘”I promise you, we’re up two, we’ll push this out to 15 by the end of the third (quarter). I’m gonna assert myself.”‘
The team knew what it could expect from Clingan in the second half. After all, that season he averaged 29.9 points, 18.1 rebounds, 6.1 blocks and 3.1 assists per game.
“And then three dunks later we’re up 20,” Barrette said.
With his future head coach Dan Hurley in attendance, Clingan scored 17 points in the second half and finished with 25, plus his 24 rebounds, to lead Bristol Central to its first state title since 1990.
“He’s not just a leader, he left a legacy. And it wasn’t because we won all these games,” said Barrette, who remains a very close mentor of Clingan’s. “He had expectations every time we stepped on the floor, we weren’t supposed to lose. And he answered the bell every time. That’s kind of what he thrives on. Expectations-wise, he’s got a lot to live up to this year and he knows it.”
The expectations were high and the target he carried was huge in high school. Both remained through his freshman season at UConn as he took on a much different role as a backup to Adama Sanogo, still proving himself one of the most efficient defenders in college basketball despite the limited minutes. He no longer had to stand and preach in the locker room, his value came through in his personality – fun and alive, perfect for his role.
There will need to be an additional layer this year.
Sitting in his locker in Houston with his national championship hat on backwards, a Final Four towel over his shoulders, sunglasses on and a diamond chain around his neck, Clingan recalled a conversation he had with UConn legends Ray Allen and Emeka Okafor moments before: “They were just telling me to live in the gym this summer and I’ll be able to take over this program one day,” he said.
Seven months later, that day has come. The expectations have never been higher, the target never larger.
The ‘angry giant’
Early in the offseason, Hurley called Clingan into his office along with Alex Karaban and Tristen Newton, the three main rotation players returning from the national championship run. He’d done the same thing with Sanogo, Jordan Hawkins and Andre Jackson Jr. before last season, to identify them as leaders and set his expectation for their respective roles.
“The returning Big Three, they gotta carry the burden that Jordan, Adama and Andre carried last year. They can never have a bad day, emotionally or relative to coming in and doing the work,” Hurley said, noting that vocally, all three need to improve.
Replacing the vocal role of Jackson, who Hurley regards as one of the greatest leaders he’s ever coached, won’t be natural for any of this year’s three but they’ll need to find a way that works for them, especially with a large group of freshmen expected to adjust quickly and make an immediate impact. As for Clingan, Hurley doesn’t just want the kid who’s unafraid to stand in front of his teammates and hold himself accountable, he wants the big man to be able to have difficult conversations with his peers, tell them what they need to hear.
“Everybody loves to coach him and everybody loves being on the team with him because he’s so alive and he’s so much fun to be around. I would say the evolution for him is demand the ball and demand that his teammates play up to a certain level,” Hurley said in late September. “Sometimes you’ve got to be the bad guy too, you just can’t be kind of a jolly giant. Sometimes you’ve got to be the angry giant.”
“While talking to him recently, I think he’s been more vocal,” Barrette said. “He has it in him, he’s just gonna be pushed to get it out, I think – I know Dan will find some way to get that out of him.”
Clingan, a projected lottery pick in the 2024 NBA Draft, is the foundation in Hurley’s championship blueprints: a big man who can finish and draw attention of the opponent to open space for shooters around him. His role, as Sanogo’s was, is critical as UConn prepares to play one of the most challenging schedules in all of college basketball. It all begins Monday vs. Northern Arizona.
The target
Clingan had no choice but to be vocal after he strained his foot in a September practice. Forced to the sidelines, to sit whenever possible, it was torture for him.
He missed just one practice over four years at Bristol Central, and it was one he wasn’t allowed to attend. His team had played at East Catholic in Manchester the night before and he ended up laying on the tile floor with a triple-digit fever. So the coaches told him to take the next day off, they had some time until their next game. As much as Clingan tried to convince them to let him practice, as Hurley became used to this fall, they weren’t budging.
“So this practice was forced to miss,” Barrette said. “Other than that, he would not have missed one single day over four years.”
But there he was at UConn, forced to get his cardio and flexibility work done in the pools as he still prepares to double his minutes and the season quickly approaching. He missed about a month and returned to practice a week before the Huskies’ season-opener.
Not wanting to risk any further injury, especially cautious when it comes to big men and feet, UConn will likely start low and increase Clingan’s minutes incrementally as he works his way back in the early games. But they’ll need him ready for the big-time nonconference matchups, first against Indiana and either Texas or Louisville in the November Empire Classic, then a potential game of the year at Kansas Dec. 1 and four days later against North Carolina.
Every opportunity will be one for Clingan, who averaged 6.9 points, 5.6 rebounds and 1.8 blocks in just 13.1 minutes per game as a freshman, to prove himself as one of the best frontcourt players in the nation as he looks to make the expected second-year jump.
“Going into my freshman year – (Clingan) probably handled it better than I was – my head was spinning. I didn’t know what I was getting myself into, I was not ready for it,” said Creighton’s 7-foot-1 center Ryan Kalkbrenner, the reigning Big East Defensive Player of the Year. “But that freshman-to-sophomore year jump was probably the biggest jump I made from one year to another in college basketball, I think it’s the biggest jump a lot of people make so (Clingan’s) got a chance to get a lot better this year.”
Over the summer, in addition to his coaches at UConn, Clingan often counted on Barrette to get some extra work in with him at his old stomping grounds. He focused mainly on improving his core strength and foot speed but, as he looks to become recognized as more than just a lob threat offensively, Clingan was sure to work on his ball handling and even developed a jump shot.
The Huskies’ loaded schedule presents several must-see frontcourt matchups between Clingan and six others (three from the Big East) on the watch list for the Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Award, which goes annually to the best center in college basketball.
“I’m trying not to let the pressure of that get to my head,” Clingan said. “Obviously I realize that my role has changed a little bit from last year and the team’s gonna need more out of me. Just because it’s preseason and people say ‘best center,’ it doesn’t mean anything. I haven’t played a game yet this year, I haven’t been able to show anyone what I’ve been able to do and what I’ve been working on.”
Back in Bristol
The hole Clingan left at Bristol Central, even more than that of Jackson at UConn, was nearly impossible to fill.
He would show up at 3 p.m. on game days to sit with the freshman coach during the early game, holding a white board and drawing up plays. Then he’d move up to the stands for the JV games, where it was common for him to strum his air guitar after a made 3-pointer. When time came for varsity, Clingan suited up in his No. 32 jersey (which will never be worn again at the school) and was consistently dominant.
“He’s been a great rallying point for our blue-collar town, because he is where he is due to work ethic. And that’s what this town represents,” Barrette said.
Players did their best to emulate what Clingan had done the year before, taking accountability, having their teammates’ backs. “He changed the entire culture of my program,” Barrette said. Clingan stayed in contact with the team, coming to practices and helping coach. He tried to attend as many games as he could during the season, though any public appearance at this point caused crowds to swarm.
While being angry or demanding isn’t naturally part of his temperament, Clingan knows what it means to be relied on. A natural leader by example, he knows how to be there for his teammates, and he knows how to represent something larger than himself.
To Barrette, it all proved true when Clingan showed up at the team’s regular Christmas Eve practice four days after beating Georgetown at Gampel Pavilion. He sat and watched, then drove to pick up pizza for the team lunch and joined to eat.
“His leadership role is not even done and he’s out of high school, he’s a college star,” Barrette said. “He was just MVP of the Phil Knight Invitational three weeks earlier and he’s picking up pizza at a local establishment to have lunch with our guys.
“You talk about a leader, you can’t define it more than that.”
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