High Point University President Nido R. Qubein announced the hiring of Flynn Clayman as the new men's basketball head coach on Friday, April 11th, 2025. Clayman becomes the 15th men's basketball head coach in program history.
As a first-year head coach, Coach Clayman continued High Point’s success at the mid-major level guiding the Panthers back to the NCAA Tournament for the second straight season in 2025-26. As the 12-seed, HPU made history with its first-ever tournament win with an upset over No. 5 seed Wisconsin, 83-82 to make the Round of 32. This was HPU's first win over. Power 4 team.
The Panthers hoisted the Big South championship trophy and cut down the nets for the second time in program history and become the first Big South team to win back-to-back tournament championships since Winthrop from 2019-21. Coach Clayman was the first head coach in Big South history to win the Big South Championship in his first-year since 1998-99. HPU finished the season with a Big South and program record, 31-5, breaking the program and conference record of 29 wins set by High Point last season and Winthrop in 2006-07.
Clayman guided the Panthers to their third straight Big South Regular-Season title and No. 1 seed entering the Big South Tournament. In league play, HPU set a program record going 15-1. High Point has registered three straight 27-win seasons, which is the most consecutive seasons by a Big South member in conference history and the seventh 20-win season in program history. High Point's 27 regular-season wins was the most in Big South and program history, breaking the previous record set by the Panthers in 2024-25 (26).
On the home court, the Panthers have protected the extraordinary Qubein Center with only three losses, posting a record of 48-4. In back-to-back-to-back seasons, the Panthers set the non-conference win record since becoming Division I in 1999, recording 11 wins in 2023-24, and 12 wins in 2024-25 and 2025-26.
Coach Clayman was voted a finalist for the Joe B. Hall National Coach of the Year, given to the top first-time head coaches in college basketball. He was voted the Big South Co-Coach of the Year following the regular-season and early in the season he was voted the Field of 68 Mid-Major Coach of the Week.
High Point finished the season 6th in the CollegeInsider Mid-Major Top 25 and have been in the poll for 55 consecutive weeks which is the longest streak in Big South program history, beating Winthrop’s 48 game streak from 2005-2007. HPU also ranked in the Field of 68 mid-major rankings, finishing 7th at the end of the season. In the final weeks of the season, High Point was receiving votes in the Associate Press poll and received as many as 14 votes on March 15, the most ever by a Panthers team.
Throughout the 2025-26 season, High Point performed in the top 25 in national statistical categories finishing out the regular-season as 1st in steals per game (10.9), 1st in scoring margin (19.7), 4th in assist/turnover ratio (1.74), 3rd in free throws made (19.9), 3rd in scoring offense (90.0), 3rd in fastbreak points (18.88), 19th in effective field goal percentage (56.6%), and 20th in field goal percentage (49.1%).
Prior to becoming HPU's head coach in 2025-26, Clayman spent the two previous seasons as the associate head coach and offensive coordinator at High Point University and has helped compile and overall record of 56-15 with a 27-5 Big South record. Clayman helped lead the Panthers to their first ever-NCAA tournament appearance as the No. 13 seed and matched up against No. 4 seed Purdue. Clayman helped turn around an under .500 program and guided the Panthers to back-to-back outright Big South Regular Season titles for the first time in program history. High Point became the first team in the Big South since 2011 (Coastal Carolina) to win back-to-back outright regular season titles.
Clayman helped lead an offense that finished 3rd in the NCAA in
KenPom rankings for raw offensive efficiency, trailing only Duke and
Gonzaga, and ahead of 2025 NCAA National Champion Florida. Clayman directed the top two offenses in Big South history the past two seasons and has been a part of five straight twenty win seasons, the last three as Associate Head Coach. Clayman has been an assistant coach for 123 wins at High Point and Southern Utah the last five seasons, which is the 13
th most in the country.
During the 2024-25 season, HPU finished with an overall record of 29-6, a 26-5 regular-season record and a 14-2 league record.
In the Collegeinsider.com Top 25 poll, High Point reached as high as No. 5 on February 5, 2024 and finished the 2024-25 regular season on March 17, 2025 ranked No. 8. High Point also received votes in the Associated Press poll four times during the 2024-25 season, receiving as many as four votes in the poll on March 3, 2025.
Prior to High Point University, Clayman was the Associate Head Coach at Southern Utah and spent six seasons at Southern Utah University. In the summer of 2022, Clayman was promoted to associate head coach after serving as the assistant coach from 2019-2022 and a special assistant from 2017-2019. Clayman recently finished out the 2022-23 season as the interim head coach where he led the
Thunderbirds to a 2-1 record at the College Basketball Invitational (CBI) postseason tournament.
During the 2022-23 season, Clayman helped guide the
Thunderbirds to a 24-13 record with a 12-6 record in the inaugural season in the Western Athletic Conference (WAC). The team finished third overall in the WAC regular season, earning a No. 3 seed in the conference tournament. The
Thunderbirds advanced to the conference championship game and finished as the runner-up. The
Thunderbirds received a bid to the CBI postseason tournament as the No. 4 seed, and advanced to the CBI semifinals before getting knocked out by Eastern Kentucky in double overtime. For the third straight season, Southern Utah posted the programs highest NET and KenPom ranking with multiple weeks in Mid-Major Top-25.
In the summer of 2022, Clayman was named one of the "Most
Impactful Assistant Coaches in Mid Major College Basketball" by Silver Waves Media. Prior to the 2021-2022 season, he was selected for the Big Sky Conference Big Sky U Aspiring Head Coaches development program, as selected by administrators across the conference.
Clayman played an integral role in the programs recruiting and player development, resulting in the programs first and only three First Team All-Big Sky players,
Tevian Jones (2021 & 2023) and John Knight III (2022). Clayman's additional responsibilities included game planning and academic liaison.
Prior to coaching at the collegiate level, Clayman was the AUSA Hoops head coach in Sydney, Australia from 2015-2017. He helped 30 players from Australia make it to NCAA Division I programs such as LSU, Creighton, Stanford, TCU, and USC among many other schools.
While still playing professionally, Clayman's first coaching experience came as an assistant coach for BTI Basketball Club in the summer of 2015, an AAU club out of the Los Angeles, coaching former Utah Jazz Player, current OKC Thunder player, and 2019 Ivy League Player of the Year, Miye Oni.
Before diving into coaching, Clayman played professionally for four years overseas from 2012-2016, making stops at the Republic of Georgia, Brazil, and Israel. While playing with the Republic of Georgia, he was named the
Eurobasket.com Rookie of the Year and an All-Star Selection. Clayman was
amongst the top three in the Ecuadorian League in three-point field goals and points per game average.
Clayman started his collegiate career at Colorado State University and played under head coach Tim Miles from 2007-2009. He transferred to Troy University in 2009 where he played two seasons for 500-win head coach Don Maestri. In 2010, the Trojans won the Sun Belt Regular Season Championship and played in the NIT. He went on to play a final season (2011-12) at the University of the Cumberlands in Kentucky where his team won the Mid-South Conference Championship and reached the National Tournament in Kansas City. During that season he led the NAIA in three-point field goal percentage at 48.1%.
Clayman earned his Bachelor of Social Science in 2016 and a Master of Interdisciplinary Studies in Sports Conditioning and Performance, Communications, and Leadership in 2022.
A native of Los Angeles, California, Clayman attended Venice High School where he played for two-time NBA champion assistant coach for the Los Angeles Lakers, Rasheed Hazzard, who served under Phil Jackson. Flynn is married to HPU women's basketball assistant coach Katie Clayman, and they have a son, Quinn.
