Two seasons ago, Clarence Daniels was playing for Lake Region State College.
This week, he’ll be putting on an Oklahoma City Thunder jersey in the NBA Summer League.
With a meteoric rise from his days in Devils Lake, Daniels is a shining example of the success that can stem from playing for a junior college. He took a slightly unconventional route to get where he is: He transferred to LRSC from a Division II school, taking a gamble on himself and his abilities.
It worked. Now, after participating in the NBA G League Elite Camp and pre-draft workouts, he’s on his way towards the stage every basketball player dreams of.
“You think when you get here, you’re at peace. You’re like, ‘Ah, I finally made it,’” Daniels said. “But when you look back and think about everything that you’ve been through, you just appreciate it and sometimes even want to go back for the sake of nostalgia.”
Though Daniels has made many stops on his athletic journey — from a childhood in Minnesota, to playing for colleges in the states of Montana, North Dakota and New Hampshire — the one in Devils Lake was the catalyst that sprung his career into motion. He enjoyed a breakout campaign during the 2021-22 season, which led him to reach the national radar.
His achievements are now something he gets to share with Jared Marshall, the longtime men’s basketball coach at LRSC. And it makes all the hard work worth it.
“I knew, watching him play, he was a special kid,” Marshall said. “And it wasn’t always easy sometimes, getting eyes on him and getting people to take notice. When somebody finally believed in him like I did, and then New Hampshire, he made the most of it.”
Growing up in Minnesota
Daniels hails from the Minneapolis area, in a suburb called Brooklyn Park. He played all the basic sports: football, basketball, baseball and soccer. He even played badminton.
When he was a young kid, his mom had the Michael Jordan documentary “Air Time” on a cassette tape. And that was what first sparked his interest in basketball. His parents didn’t force anything down his throat, but they planted the seed from an early age.
“I used to watch it like every day after kindergarten or first grade,” Daniels said. “And I used to go outside, and I was Jordan doing the reverse layups, doing all the moves I’ve seen. And it just kind of built from that.”
His first primary passion, though, was football. It was mainly his dad who got him into it, signing him up for his first actual, organized tackle football tournaments. But as he grew older, he gravitated more towards basketball.
“I wanted to do [football] so bad, but I just kind of lost passion for it,” Daniels said. “And basketball was more fun.”
And so Clarence Daniels the basketball player was born.
His first collegiate stop
Marshall initially recruited Daniels while he was still a high schooler at Maranatha Christian Academy. Marshall said he had a good relationship with Daniels’ coach, Jeff Wall, and had recruited multiple players from that school before.
But Marshall couldn’t get him to Devils Lake.
“In my head at the time, I was like, ‘Oh, it’s community college. Everybody talks bad about it. I’m not going JUCO,’” Daniels said.
So instead he went to Montana State University Billings, a Division II program. After growing up east of North Dakota, he flipped around and went to school west of it.
Despite the valuable opportunity, Daniels found himself in a logjam. As a freshman in the 2019-20 season, he was behind star players like Brendan Howard and Tyler Green in the depth chart. He played in 28 games, but only started five. He averaged a moderate 4.5 points per game and 3.2 rebounds per game. He made only 12 of his 30 free throw attempts.
“Beggars can’t be choosers,” Daniels said. “I’m just sitting there. Whenever they’re tired, or in foul trouble, or not necessarily playing well, and I would go in and get those minutes — which I was extremely grateful for to get that experience as a freshman because some guys, they don’t play or they redshirt.”
With some roster turnover the following year, Daniels had his sights set on increased playing time.
Then COVID-19 happened. So everything was thrown out of whack. Daniels stayed at Billings for his sophomore year academically, but there was no official basketball season. The team kept practicing and playing scrimmages, though, which Daniels said consisted of “beating each other up.”
He recalled a specific closed scrimmage from that season. Daniels wasn’t utilized much in it. And he didn’t understand why.
“I remember I got real sad,” he said. “It wasn’t making sense to me. I’m one of the hardest workers on the team. And my reward should be playing time. Why am I not playing?”
After that, Daniels said, he packed up all his stuff from his locker. And he told himself, “I’m not coming back.”
Transfer to Lake Region State College
Marshall hadn’t forgotten about Daniels.
He heard Daniels was looking to make a move, so he reached out to Billings coach Mick Durham. Marshall wasn’t allowed to directly contact Daniels until he got his release.
It was actually another LRSC player who helped convince Daniels to come to Devils Lake. His name was Beijan Newbern, and he was a Royal during that strange 2019-20 season where no official games were held. He had also been a teammate of Daniels at Maranatha Christian Academy.
“He would call me and be like, ‘Man, come over to Lake Region!’” Daniels said. “‘Come over to Lake Region!’”
So the idea was already on Daniels’ radar. And once Marshall was allowed to talk to him, he gave Daniels a phone call.
“You’re gonna be a leader on the team, coming from where you came,” Daniels remembered Marshall telling him. “You’re gonna be one of the guys that everybody looks up to. So you have that responsibility, but I can’t promise you anything… I can’t promise you playing time. I can’t promise you you’re gonna start. I can’t promise you’re gonna go DI.”
Marshall has been doing this job for a long time, and has recruited many players. He said he’s learned, through the years, that it’s better to underpromise and overdeliver than vice versa, with every player still needing to earn their spot on the team.
But very quickly, it became apparent to Marshall that Daniels was just a little different from most of the kids that come through LRSC. During a summer tournament, Marshall recalled getting up early to work out at the hotel one morning. When he got down to the weight room, Daniels was already there, doing some post-workout yoga.
“Not a lot of kids do that kind of stuff,” Marshall said.
A coach like Marshall was a mutual fit for Daniels, who said he allowed him to be himself and was excited to have him. It was a leap of faith, Daniels said, because typically, players go to a JUCO first in order to move on to a university.
“In my head, I’m doing the reverse. I’m giving all this up to go step down,” he said. “So I’m like, ‘Is it worth it? Is it gonna pan out?’”
The doubts were only exemplified the first time that Daniels actually stepped foot in Devils Lake. Driving back to Minneapolis from Billings, he recalled stopping along the way to visit his new school.
He saw Devils Lake, in all its simplicity, up close for the first time.
“I remember we toured the campus, and I’m just like — I’m comparing it, obviously, to a university — I’m like, ‘Oh my God, I made a mistake,’” Daniels said. “At first, I was nervous.”
Breakout season
Daniels’ outstanding 2021-22 season began with what he described as a “rock bottom” moment.
The Royals had a preseason scrimmage against Mayville State University. Despite stepping down a level from his previous school, success didn’t immediately come easily for him.
Daniels said he didn’t score a single point in that scrimmage. He was even getting dunked on. It wasn’t a good performance at all.
“I’m thinking, ‘These guys aren’t good. Blah, blah, blah. I came from DII; I should be able to kill them,’” Daniels said. “Little did I know, I was probably at the top of their scouting report.”
Daniels was abruptly awoken to how competitive JUCO could be. His opponents knew how good he was, and they weren’t going to just roll over. He said the experience taught him to respect everybody on the court.
“It was just super humbling for me,” he said. “It’s not sweet. Just because those guys are NAIA, just because you’re JUCO — everybody’s out here trying to take somebody’s head off. Everybody’s out there trying to kill the person in front of them.”
So the team had another preseason scrimmage, this time against the University of Mary. He went into the game with a completely different mindset.
“I told myself, ‘At the end of this scrimmage, everybody’s gonna know who’s the best player in this gym,’” Daniels said. “And I just went in there, and I had a breakout game. Really just destroyed them from the beginning of the game, all the way to the end.”
His dominance carried into the regular season. He went on to average 20.5 points per game for LRSC, shooting 53.8% from the floor and 76.6% from the free throw line. He added 11.1 rebounds per game.
Daniels led the Royals to a 20-12 season.
“He was a very coachable person,” Marshall said. “It wasn’t always sunshine and rainbows between me and him. I got after him because I knew pretty early how special he could be, and how good we could be because of him.”
Through the team’s ups and downs, Daniels said he and Marshall always trusted each other. Marshall was the first coach to truly give Daniels a chance, and the first coach under which Daniels really thrived at the collegiate level.
“Having a coach who believes in you and your game, has confidence — that’s half the battle,” Daniels said. “Because I felt like I was always good, but I’ve never had a coach like Marshall who trusted me. And he’s the one who started this [success]… It stems with him. He was the first coach I’ve had who said, ‘Just be you.’”
It was a different lifestyle for Daniels during his year at LRSC. Even Billings, the most populated city in Montana, had felt like small-town living compared to his home city of Minneapolis. Devils Lake was a major shift.
“At first, it was a change of scenery. There’s nothing really there going on,” Daniels said. “But I felt like that was everything I needed. I needed to be in a quiet place where there wasn’t too many distractions, and the only thing you can do is focus on basketball and school.”
And his success on the court, he said, came from taking advantage of the time he had. Academics at LRSC were relatively easy compared to that of a university, so he found himself with a lot of free time. Thus, if he wasn’t at practice or doing school work, he would usually retreat to the gym or the weight room.
“You could play video games. You could do things that you’re not supposed to be doing because you have so much time. You can get bored out there,” Daniels said. “You can do one of two things: You could help yourself get to where you want to go, or you can be a knucklehead and do knucklehead things. I knew what I wanted to do before I stepped foot at that school. So that wasn’t even a question or up for debate.”
The season culminated in Daniels being named the Mon-Dak Athletic Conference MVP and an All-American.
“It all ended up working out,” he said. “I’m extremely grateful for Lake Region, and it has a really warm place in my heart.”
Moving on to Division I
Throughout Daniels’ sophomore season for the Royals, Marshall was making phone calls and sending emails. Daniels quickly got plenty of DII interest, but Marshall was confident he would get a strong DI offer with time.
Daniels said he mostly waited until the end of the season to assess his offers and figure out his plan. He didn’t let it burden him during the season. He transferred relatively late in the process, but he got his wish all the same. He accepted an offer from the University of New Hampshire to play Division I basketball.
His coach there, Bill Herrion, he described as being a “nutcase” and “kind of crazy.” But his transition to the DI level went well. During the 2022-23 season, he averaged 15.7 points and 10.4 rebounds per game.
“If [Herrion] wasn’t at practice yelling every single time for me to go crash two boards or get a rebound, I wouldn’t average a double-double,” Daniels said. “He just really emphasized playing hard, like hard-playing guys. I already knew how to play hard, but he brought playing hard to a whole nother level.”
But after that season, Herrion didn’t get his contract renewed. The whole coaching staff left. So Daniels entered the transfer portal.
“I had every reason to leave,” he said.
Because he’d already transferred from a DII school to a JUCO, NCAA rules stipulated that he couldn’t transfer again without sitting out a year. It was something he seriously considered. He thought about sitting at a big school while staying in shape, and then trying to play the following year.
But he’d had so much success in his first year at New Hampshire. He said he was one of only around five players who averaged a double-double. He couldn’t just stop now.
“People go with what’s trending, what’s hot,” Daniels said. “So if I were to sit out a year, people forget who Clarence Daniels is. So I was like, ‘I’ve got momentum right now.’”
He stayed at New Hampshire. And the Wildcats found their new head coach in Nathan Davis.
“He was kind of the opposite of Coach Bill,” Daniels said. “He wasn’t intense. He wasn’t crazy. But not every coach is like that. Everybody has their own way of going about things. He spread the floor and gave me the opportunity to showcase my game. So I appreciate him for that.”
Somehow, Daniels got even better. The 2023-24 season was his final one at the collegiate level. It also happened to his best.
He raised his points per game to 19.4, totalling more than 600 points in that season alone. He added 9.6 rebounds per game. He fell just short of averaging a double-double per game — in, notably, an increased amount of playing time — but still did enough to win the America East Player of the Year. He shot 45.8% from the floor and 80.4% from the free throw line.
New Hampshire had a solid 16-15 season, but didn’t quite reach March Madness. The Wildcats lost to No. 1-seeded Vermont in the second game of the America East Tournament.
On a TV in Devils Lake, Daniels had a devoted viewer.
“Watching somebody play in those big-time environments that you’ve grown up watching since you were a kid, and getting to see him have success against those big teams,” said his former coach, Marshall, “it makes you feel good.”
Carving out a pro career
After proving himself — and then some — at the DI level, the next stage of his career is taking effect.
First, he was selected to the Portsmouth Invitational Tournament in Virginia. In three games, he finished with 26 rebounds — the second-most among the 64 participants in the tournament. He only scored 20 points, though, which ranked 51st out of 64.
“I kind of just went back to the drawing board after that, and modified my game and how I was gonna play at the next level,” Daniels said. “Because how I was playing in college wasn’t the same as how I was playing in Portsmouth. And it was my first time playing with that many good people.”
Still, from there, he was invited to NBA’s G League Elite Camp. It was another step in the right direction, and another chance at showcasing his skills on an even bigger stage. He got to compete against players from Duke and West Virginia.
“I was actually kind of surprised that I got the invite,” Daniels said. “Because they invited, I want to say, six people from Portsmouth, Virginia, and I didn’t think I was gonna be one of those six guys at the end of that weekend.”
Daniels said the camp involved interviews, physical testing, great food and athletic gear. He scored 12 points in the first game and six in the second. Only five players from the G League Camp were invited to the NBA Draft Combine, and Daniels wasn’t one of them.
“But I got what I needed,” he said. “I got a few interviews with some teams, and I got some invites for some workouts.”
Those workouts, which were held as a precursor to the NBA draft, were with teams like the Milwaukee Bucks, the Oklahoma City Thunder and the Utah Jazz. The first two rounds of June’s NBA draft passed, though, without Daniels hearing his name called. So that’s when he opted to play in the Summer League.
Now, his goal is to secure a professional contract through his performance with the Thunder Summer League team, with games in Las Vegas and Salt Lake City.
“This is something that I’ve always dreamed of. You watch it on TV. You see the highlights growing up as a kid,” Daniels said. “You really don’t understand the magnitude of it until you’re there. I still don’t really understand the magnitude of Summer League, and I won’t until I put on that jersey and I’m out there running down the court, the ball’s in my hands and the gym is super loud, and all that.”
Back in Devils Lake, Marshall has already booked his trip to go watch. The two of them have stayed in close contact since Daniels’ time at LRSC.
“You give me everything for a year or two, and then I’m yours forever, right?” Marshall said.
An inspiration to the future of LRSC basketball
Just the other day, somebody who works in the kitchen at LRSC stopped Marshall and told him how great of a kid Daniels was.
“When you have people not just in the athletic department, but people in the school talking about the kind of person he was, that should tell you that he’s not just a special person on the court,” Marshall said. “He’s a special person off the court, too.”
Daniels still fondly remembers the people at LRSC: from his teammates, to the teachers and staff, to even the cooks. He regularly talks to a handful of the guys who played on that Royals team.
“I still look at my phone and look at the memories. I had so much fun there when I just enjoyed it,” he said. “But at the same time, you can’t forget why you’re there and the things you want to do.”
With so much success coming his way over the last few years, Daniels serves as an inspiration to all the players trying to follow in his footsteps. He remembers what it’s like to not have the same resources as a university, or to play in a high school gym.
“I was so big on trying to get out of there,” Daniels said. “But, although that is the goal, you have to be where your feet are. You have to really enjoy it. I remember when I was first there, I wasn’t really happy. I didn’t really enjoy the Lake Region experience. It wasn’t until I embraced that I lived in the middle of nowhere.”
Still today, Daniels said he has memories of working out early in the morning on weekends in Devils Lake. When he’d step outside the gym, his music still blaring, he would look up and see the LRSC All-Americans’ faces plastered on the Wall of Fame.
“I told myself, ‘I’m gonna be on this wall one day,’” Daniels said. “And that really motivated me, just looking at the guys that did that before, and they showed me that it was possible.”
And when it comes down to it, Daniels’ path provides hope for any players who feel discouraged at LRSC, feeling like they’re too isolated or not talented enough to get noticed. Nobody knows that feeling more than Daniels, who gave up a Division II career to come to Devils Lake. But now, just two seasons later, he’s already working out with NBA teams and pursuing a professional contract.
“It lends credibility to what I’m telling coaches, too. So he’s not just having success for himself; he’s having success for our program,” Marshall said. “Being able to point to Clarence when you’re recruiting guys and say, ‘Hey, it’s not gonna be easy. This is all the things that he did. But it’s possible.’ It’s something we’ve already talked to all our current commits about.”
When Marshall sees Daniels in person later this month, they’ll surely both remember what it was like to take those steps. It was only two years ago, after all. But Daniels’ story is one that will be remembered well beyond his days of playing basketball — especially among waves of Royals players to come.
“You can go anywhere from Lake Region State College,” Marshall said.
