2024-25 Conference Previews: SEC
The Evil Empire can never truly be defeated, I suppose
FOLKS. You have reached the end of Conference Preview Week. This year’s edition clocks in at a record-setting 118,683 words. If you click on the following link, you will see previews for all 31 conferences. Because this is the last one, and the conference I could be swayed to thinking is the ‘best’ this year, it is free for all to read. Like I promised at the beginning of this project, you can now know what the 31 conferences in college basketball are.
On a serious note, this has been a deeply pleasant week as a site owner. These previews have generated something in the neighborhood of ~150 new subscribers this week alone, with almost 40% of those being paid. That’s a pretty shocking hit rate for a newsletter with no sponsors, no advertising, and nothing in the way of ‘traditional’ media. You are here to read, to learn, and I appreciate that. Let’s keep it rolling. The season-opening essay, as well as another piece or two, will be out next week.
If you haven’t done so yet, subscribe here.
On with the show. NOTE: If you’re reading this in your email account, click through at the end to read the entire post.
It Just Means More Conference
Tier 1
Alabama
Tennessee
Auburn
Tier 2
Texas A&M
Mississippi State
Kentucky
Texas
Arkansas
Florida
Ole Miss
Tier 3
Vanderbilt
Oklahoma
Missouri
Tier 4
South Carolina
Georgia
LSU
Life, ultimately, is best lived when you live out your truths. And I have lived by a fundamental truth for a couple years now.
Friend and Twitter obsessive John Rivers has been on the SEC hate train for years now. He is also an Ohio State fan, which is its own problem, but that’s for another discussion. I am an unabashed SEC football hater, despite having attended an SEC school, having gone to many SEC football games, and accepting the fact that crowds in the SEC are superior. They didn’t even win the last football title. The Big Ten did. Check the stats!
Anyway, I am an unabashed SEC basketball lover, as I attended an SEC school, have went to many SEC basketball games, and feel that this is the pre-eminent Power Five conference in terms of physicality. Last year’s SEC, even in a down year for defenses in the conference, still ranked 2nd in OREB%, 7th in FT Rate, and 1st in blocks. The year before, which may be a better comparison long-term for the SEC, it was 2nd, 6th, and 6th with the third-worst shooting percentage in America. This is mega-budget SWAC. It’s not for everybody.
It’s not a coincidence to me that the last four conference champions all had top-10 defenses and were either the first or second-best defense in the conference. Other leagues are probably more pleasant for the average Joe to watch, and I’ve covered them this week, but the part of my brain that grew up on Big Ten football absolutely adores SEC basketball. Both are horrible and beautiful in the specific way I like things to be in my life.
Here’s how these tiers line up:
Tier 1 represents the three teams in this league that are day one SEC and national title threats. Do I fully believe that Tennessee or Auburn are on the same level as Alabama? Not 100%, but the path is pretty feasible to it being so.
Tier 2 contains seven teams in it that are all somewhere between 60-90% to make the NCAA Tournament. On average, at least one of these teams is missing the Tournament. Can you guess who? Well, I can’t. I think all of these are somewhere around the 20th-40th best team nationally? Something of that nature.
Tier 3 has three teams that could really go either way: I’d wager one makes the Tournament, one is a bubbly team that just misses, and one crashes out to eventually finish 15th or 16th. But if I’m telling you I’m fully confident in which is which, I’m lying.
Tier 4 has three teams where I’d be legitimately surprised by an NCAA Tournament bid for a variety of reasons: weak coaching, weak rosters, regression to the mean, some sort of massive flaw that outweighs the good things, depth but no quality, quality but no depth, or some combination of all those factors. If any of these teams touch .500 in conference play they should be happy.
On we go.
I have Alabama #1 in the league, as do most people, it seems. I wanted to go against the grain and shove Tennessee or Auburn above them but couldn’t. At least two trustworthy individuals not only have them #1 in the SEC but in the entire country. I mean, I get it. This is at worst a top-3 offense on paper, and their bugaboo in Nate Oats’ even years (bad defenses) has been eradicated somewhat by key portal additions. I am not quite as sold as some on the full equation here, but the floor and the ceiling here are higher than anyone else’s in the conference.
The key part of any Nate Oats team, though, is Nate Oats himself. Like it or not, every Alabama game turns into a math equation. Are you getting better shots, objectively speaking, than the Tide? Highly unlikely. The average FG% for a team at all three major spots last year - rim, midrange, and three - goes 58.6%, 38.1%, 34%. That makes the average eFG%, which is 2PT + (1.5*3PT), 50.5%.
Alabama’s offensive attempt splits for these three spots go 42.3%/11.2%/46.5%. Alabama’s defensive attempt splits for these three spots, in their best defensive year of 2022-23, went 33.9%/36.2%/30%. If the two sides were to shoot the exact national average at all three spots:
Alabama offense: 52.8% eFG% (54.3% 2PT, 34% 3PT)
Alabama defense: 48.9% eFG% (48% 2PT, 34% 3PT)
By changing nothing at all about the shooting percentages themselves, Alabama aims to start every single game with roughly a 2-3 point edge on an average opponent before anything about roster strength is factored in. To have math on your side and to have a great roster, well, you get the hype. Since hitting escape velocity after a Year One with largely Avery Johnson players, Oats has gone 9th-28th-4th-14th at Alabama at a school that had last finished inside the KenPom top 25 in 2005. He owns the three best finishes Alabama’s had in the last 30 years…and he’s just now entering year 6. Any argument for the best coach in the league likely begins with chatting about him.
To give a guy like Oats possibly the single best player in the league is like cheating. In any year where Dalton Knecht didn’t exist, Mark Sears likely would’ve been the SEC Player of the Year last season. He’s the presumed National Player of the Year this time out, barring Cooper Flagg overpowering him. The case is easy: +10.3 BPM, 129 ORtg on 26% USG, 56% 2PT, 44% 3PT. When your top statistical comps list is this short and features two guys 7+ inches taller than you:
You are indeed unlike anything we’ve quite seen in a while. I like the idea of pairing Sears with backcourt mate Latrell Wrightsell Jr., who was a sometimes starter for last year’s group and shot 45% from three. Wrightsell is mostly just a spot-up shooter, but as an off-ball backcourt pairing with Sears last year, he was biblical: 48% from three, a +6.7 OBPM. When Chris Youngblood of USF comes back from injury, he’ll be pretty crucial, too: a three-level scorer that can take the heat off of Sears and shot 42% from three last year. This is the scariest offensive backcourt in the nation by some distance.
I like the frontcourt, too. I still can’t quite get to the level of having Grant Nelson as some sort of program-shifting piece, but Nelson seemed to keep popping up at the right time in a lot of games for Bama last year: 22 and 8 against Florida in a key overtime win, 24 and 12 with 5 blocks versus UNC, even 19 and 15 against UConn in a valiant effort. Contrary to what I expected, he dialed up his performances for the best opponents, at least offensively. New center Cliff Omoruyi is the exact opposite: an all-defense guy that can protect the rim extremely well, is happy to do very little offensively other than dunks, and will likely relish playing a role as a team-first guy.
Even the bench has some really nice pieces. Aden Holloway had a year from hell at Auburn last year offensively but still tracks as a great playmaker for others and could be a useful piece next to Sears. Pepperdine’s Houston Mallette is a bad defender but a good shooter, which gives him a nice bench role here. Jarin Stevenson found his groove as a quality impact guy on defense last year and could be in line for more minutes if he improves his deep ball. You have all that and four top-50 recruits here, headlined by Derrion Reid (tall wing), Aidan Sherrell (big), and Labaron Philon (the guy getting serious hype as a backup guard).
I have three questions. In order:
What if last year’s offense can’t be topped? I don’t think that’s outlandish, no? In the best year for offensive basketball in college in forever, Alabama posted a 126.0 Offensive Rating at KenPom, the fifth-highest of the last 25 years. If you have this team preseason #1 and don’t feel that they are going to put together a top-25 defense (around 95.0 the last three years), your bet is that Alabama has one of the ~7 great offenses of the last 25 years again. Basically: you think this is Chris Paul Wake Forest but 2025. Maybe, but four different players had career high 3PT% last year.
Who is defending opposing wings? The anticipated starting five at season’s end goes 6’1”, 6’3”, 6’4”, 6’11”, 6’11”. The first three off the bench go 6’1”, 6’8”, and 6’10”. Where is the 6’5”-6’7” guy to guard opposing wings that can drive and shoot? The last two years it was Brandon Miller (who is 6’9” but guarded smaller) and Rylan Griffen; I can’t identify who it is this time out.
Can Omoruyi really fix everything? Simple question. Last year’s Rutgers team gave up a 52.7% FG% at the rim, 22nd-best, with Omoruyi as the head of the interior snake. That’s great, of course, but it reiterates questions I had with last year’s team: what happens when a driver kicks it out for an open three, and what happens when Cliff - who posted 3.9 fouls per 40 last year and fouled out of four games last year - gets in foul trouble?
I think that this is going to be a really, really good team, and it’s fine if they just sit at, like, 124.0 on offense. But I can’t buy them as #1 just yet until I see them pair a top-25 defense to go with that. Still, if this team is just a top-5 group they probably have the 40th-best defense in America, which I think works.
Tennessee narrowly beat out Auburn because I am a biased loser and because I think their floor is probably a tad higher. I’m aware that Rick Barnes basketball isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but excluding a 2019-20 throwaway year where Tennessee was replacing 80% of their production, Barnes has gone 13th-10th-28th-9th-6th-5th in KenPom from 2018 to now. The March production isn’t always there but the wins are, and Barnes has taken Tennessee and turned them into a pretty reliable top-10 fixture.
Weirdly, of the top three teams, this is the one I have the least to say about. Kinda feel like you know what you’re getting, no? Zakai Zeigler is back for his fourth and final year to be the head of the snake on both ends. One thing I will say as someone recovering from seven years of covering the same program: Zeigler is one of the most fun basketball players in human history and I will miss him dearly once he exits for whatever’s next in life. For now, Tennessee has a rarity on their hands: a point guard with a >30% Assist%, >3% Steal%, and 70+ made threes...and one who had a +3 OBPM and DBPM.
Zeigler is the returning SEC Defensive Player of the Year, which is funny because an argument can be made that on this particular roster, he might not be the best defensive player. A very daring person could say he may not even be the second-best defensive player. Jahmai Mashack is back for year four as well, a truly disgusting defensive player who has begun to learn how to shoot a basketball. If he ever adds anything of note offensively it’s a huge win, but until then, he stands alone across modern history as one of the great defensive beasts.
To round out the elite defense, you have Felix Okpara at center, who will do most of the cleaning up down low. Okpara has been terrific in offseason practices, supposedly, and was one of eight high-major players last year with a +3 DBPM or better and a 9% Block% or better. When you’re on the same list as guys like Johni Broome and Ja’Vier Francis I figure you’re doing something right. Okpara is quite limited offensively, but as a lob threat he makes sense to me.
What you don’t have in any of those three is an objectively great offensive piece. Zeigler comes closest and has put together some astonishing performances in his career; he was also one of the eight or so best SEC players in conference play last year. Even then, with three years of data, you can count on Zeigler to shoot somewhere around 33-36% from deep over the course of a full season. He’s an elite passer, an elite defender, but as a scorer he’s just fine.
I think that this team actually fits the surrounding skillset you need for a Zeigler quite well. Tennessee’s portal haul this year is fascinating for a few reasons, but personally, one of them is because it calls back to a column I wrote immediately after Tennessee imploded against Florida Atlantic in the 2023 Sweet Sixteen. I argued that Tennessee did an awful job of finding both rim and three gravity on their roster that year, leaning too far into jumpers and not enough into attacking the paint.
Last year’s add of Dalton Knecht was one nice bit, but this year’s Vols added three non-bigs from the portal. All three have two things in common: they made 50 or more shots at the rim in 2023-24, and they made 50 or more threes. Collectively, this roster shot 37% from three and 57% from two last year, which are Creighton-like numbers for a program normally focused on smoking you on the boards and in shot volume, not shot efficiency.
All of Chaz Lanier, Darlinstone Dubar, and Igor Milicic Jr. are huge, huge adds for the offensive side of the ball here. Lanier is the current headliner because he dropped 27 in a ‘secret’ exhibition blowout of Davidson, but Milicic has been the lead scorer in preseason practice. (Dubar hasn’t experienced the same success but has slowly begun to break out in the last week or two.) Lanier is the rosiest offensive case for me because he may be the best all-around shooter in the SEC, a guy who shot 60% 2PT/43% 3PT last year at North Florida on a really hard shot diet and who EvanMiya projects to shoot 40% 3PT/87% (!) FT this year. You take that and run if you get it.
Milicic is a fascinating, fascinating fit on this roster. At 6’10”, you’d think of Tennessee’s more traditional centers that occasionally shoot it and more frequently attack through the post. Not Igor, who attempted more threes than twos last year, shot 63% 2PT/38% 3PT, and actually grades out fairly well on the defensive end. Dubar is a challenging one to figure out, as his profile suggests a potential feast-or-famine guy, but last year he shot 74% at the rim and 40% from three. I’m a little lower on the shooting, personally, but something like 36-37% from deep is feasible and fine.
What none of these guys do is focus on defense-first. It makes Tennessee’s overall strategy really fascinating, especially when combined with bench pieces like Jordan Gainey (extreme feast-or-famine shooter with good defense), Cade Phillips (Just Big), J.P. Estrella (big but versatile), and Cameron Carr (enigma that is absurdly athletic). Barnes has a lot of potential avenues to explore here. A few different scenarios exist, but I would deem the following as most realistic:
Tennessee’s offense is actually better than the Knecht one (which finished 29th) because of better ball movement and considerably more diverse scoring options, which makes up for a defense that takes a small backslide to merely being one of the 10 best instead of one of the top three.
Tennessee’s offense does not come around, because the up-transfers struggle with the physicality of the SEC, and the team has a similar outcome to a 2021-22 or 2022-23 unit that had an elite defense but an offense that sputters too much to really keep things going.
I frankly lean towards the former more, but, well, we don’t know.
Perhaps you’ll be surprised that Auburn is third here. Quick: how much do you think Bruce Pearl has been tweeting about Auburn’s upcoming basketball season? If your answer was “not at all” then you’re pretty darn close to the truth. I’ll leave more commentary out of here for now for obvious reasons, but rest assured Bruce is on the case. He always seems to be, anyway.
All of that off-the-court stuff aside, Auburn once again has a great roster with a lot of talent, a terrific frontcourt piece it’s all built around, and a backcourt that actually bums me out tremendously because the bozo gene seems to be missing. Remember Wendell Green? K.D. Johnson? Sharife Cooper? J’Von McCormick? There is an alarming lack of chaos in this backcourt, which largely seems to be made up of pretty normal guys that don’t do much in the way of quirky stuff.
I guess my main question is how many minutes Bruce is gonna give Johni Broome, who is arguably the best player in the conference despite only playing 25 minutes a night. When Broome was in the game last year, Auburn’s defense was four points better per 100 possessions, they held a +4 turnover margin per 100, and Broome himself scored 17 and 9 in just those 25 minutes a game. The problem was that Auburn just…didn’t play him much? The story all year was about how Auburn had two starting fives - the bench and the actual - and so you didn’t need to play Broome all that much. Fine, but when your season is dying to 13-seed Yale, you really couldn’t give Broome (who had 24 & 13!) more than 26 minutes?
I love getting Broome back, and I love convincing Chad Baker-Mazara to give it another go. CBM is a remarkable per-minute player who is an outstanding shooter and has a huge, huge impact on what Auburn does on both ends of the court. It’s also crazy to me that Dylan Cardwell elected to come back for another year. Pearl barely played he and Broome together at all last year (just 23 possessions), but they don’t have that much in the way of overlapping skills. Will Pearl pull the trigger at times this year? I’d personally like to see it.
As with most Pearl teams, though, it’s gonna be about the backcourt for me. I know what I’ve got in Denver Jones, who is a very good shooter that adjusted well to a non-starring role last season after transferring up, and I can see this vision (obviously) in adding 4-star Tahaad Pettiford as a plausible backup guard that could get some useful minutes at point if a certain guy does or doesn’t work.
So: what do you think of J.P. Pegues? The average person would most likely have heard of him from the moment he beat Virginia with a last-second shot in the Round of 64 in 2023, but more wisened CBB fans may recall him from being the best player on last year’s Furman team. What does that mean, though, when it was Bob Richey’s worst Furman team of his tenure thus far?
I think however you read Pegues may be however you read this team as a whole, or at least whatever the ceiling is. I’m a believer in Broome, obviously, and I really like CBM and Cardwell. I like Jones fine. I can understand why they play Chaney Johnson or Chris Moore, though it seems like they’ll have to start one or the other and I don’t love that. But Pegues is the key to me, and likely to the whole operation.
He posted a +4.7 OBPM…and a -0.8 DBPM last year. He had a 117 ORtg on 26% USG…which was way ahead of the career 106 ORtg on 19% USG he’d had prior. He’s played four full games against top-50 competition…and posted a 77 ORtg on 25% USG. Then again, it was a 126 ORtg on 28% USG against top-100 comp last year. If you fully believe in Pegues, then I can totally get buying in on this team as a potential top-5 side and title contender. If you’re like me and am concerned that Auburn’s new PG is smaller, a poor defender, and really isn’t a great shooter, then you can see where this might go bad. I guess I land in the middle, ultimately.
Kicking off our next-up list of plausible contenders is Texas A&M. Honestly, I’m as surprised as you are that they ended up fourth. Texas A&M has had this core for most of the last three seasons. It’s resulted in 33rd, 35th, and 33rd-place KenPom finishes. Part of me thinks they’re fully maxed out in this department. The other part of me knows a pretty basic Buzz Williams Fact: there is no reason to pay attention to a single solitary thing these people do until January.
Since Buzz took over TAMU, the Aggies are 31-34 ATS in non-conference games and rank as the 99th-best team in basketball in non-con play, per Torvik. They’ve lost games to Harvard, Temple, Fairfield, Murray State, and Wofford in November/December in the BuzzBall era. 39-18 looks fine but a -5.8 WAB, below that of Santa Clara, does not.
Since Buzz took over TAMU, the Aggies are 53-40 ATS in conference games and rank as the 47th-best team in basketball in SEC play, per Torvik. In fact, narrow it down to games with just this basic core of players, from 2021-22 to present, and the splits go 63rd non-con, 25th SEC. It’s a truly bizarre split, one that has not been 100% replicated at any other point of Buzz’s career I’m aware of. You could go with the theory that Buzz’s wonky zone/man hybrid defense takes a couple months to learn, but then again, he’s had the same players in this system for a while now.
So: do I think this team finishes fourth-best on the whole? Probably not. Do I think they’re most likely to finish fourth-best in SEC play and are most likely to challenge for the title of this group? Yes. Four of the five starters from last year are back, and three of them have 3+ years of experience of starting in this system. The floor is pretty darn high, even if the shooting won’t be.
As is the standard, the offensive side of the ball will be the Wade Taylor show with everyone else falling in line. You know Wade Taylor at this point: tremendous scorer, questionable defender, excellent passer, and the center of attention on every possession. What you may not know is he wasn’t even the leader in Box Plus-Minus on last year’s team. That would be Andersson Garcia, one of the very best role players in America. Garcia’s on/off numbers last year are hilarious:
A&M’s shooting sucks no matter who you put out there, but look at the absurd impact Garcia has on rebounding and on the number of fouls drawn, many via rebounds. This tracks. Garcia ranked 21st in OREB% and 2nd (!) in FT Rate in America among all players last year while also posting a 3.2% Block% and 2.6% Steal%. Offense? Extremely not his thing. Dirty work everywhere that gives A&M a gigantic edge on the boards and makes their team much better? Absolutely.
Everything else here is reliable as rain. Jace Carter is back to shoot poorly and sometimes provide defense. Solomon Washington is another excellent defender that aids in running up the score on the boards. Henry Coleman III somehow still has eligibility after a career of being A&M’s cleanup guy in the post. Hayden Hefner will one again attempt to shoot a basketball but shouldn’t. Even the add of Pharrel Payne from Minnesota doesn’t change the calculus that much; a team that already rules at rebounding will continue to rule at rebounding.
There are three guys here who will tell the tale of if A&M finally breaks that top-30 barrier or languishes lower: Manny Obaseki, Zhuric Phelps (SMU), and CJ Wilcher (Nebraska). Wilcher’s add case is obvious: he is immediately easily the best deep shooter on the team and projects for a 39% hit rate this year. Phelps is in the same realm: looking to fill the Boots Radford role, a secondary playmaker alongside Taylor that holds his own quite well on the defensive end.
Obaseki may be the singular piece this team lives or dies on, though. I know what I have in everyone else. I don’t know if I do in Obaseki, because after almost three years of languishing in anonymity, he broke out in March.
Obaseki, November through February (27 games): +0.4 PRPG, -3.1 BPM (-3.0 OBPM), 91 ORtg on 24% USG, 40% eFG% (38% 2PT, 30% 3PT)
Obaseki, March (8 games): +4.2 PRPG, +3.9 BPM, 115 ORtg on 25% USG, 53% eFG% (45% 2PT, 55% 3PT%)
Now, for me, I’m pointing at the 55% 3PT and saying this won’t repeat. But Obaseki made himself more impactful all over the court, not just from three. Has he finally seen the light? If so, I can buy this at KenPom’s preseason #16. If no, this will be functionally the same team as the last three years, and I’ll wait until January when they begin playing like the 16th-best team in basketball after losing four or five games in non-conference.
If you think picking Texas A&M fourth is annoying, strap in for fifth-place Mississippi State. What can I say, I’m a Jans man through and through, and until it’s proven otherwise to me that Jans gets the very most out of very undertalented rosters, I’m staying firm in my belief. Plus, this State roster promises an unusual reverse split for any Jans team: it’s actually the offense I find myself a little rosier on?
There’s some highs and lows to this roster as a whole. Any team that loses Tolu Smith is worse off for it, and losing Shakeel Moore to Kansas is also a tough blow. Four of the nine rotation players from last year are back, though, including a starting PG that might be a superstar and a starting forward that has a serious case for being the best defensive player in this league. I like that base to build off of, and while I find some of Jans’ transfer choices chaotic I’m just gonna reiterate the following: I’m going to trust this guy until I have reasons not to.
The starting and returning duo of Josh Hubbard and Cameron Matthews is as good a pair of returners as State could plausibly ask for. Hubbard was a marvel as a freshman last year, an elite shooter and instant-impact player who’s going to have a great shot at leading the SEC in scoring this season. Matthews is not the total zero he once was offensively and posted a 70% hit rate at the rim last year, per Synergy. As a driver from the perimeter and a cutter/dunker spot guy, he knows his role. But the real impact for Cam is defensively, where he’s just a monster. Last year’s +5.6 DBPM was tops in the SEC, and only two players in America have a higher DBPR on EvanMiya heading into the year.
Everything else will have to be new. No Tolu means an open battle at center between KeShawn Murphy, Michael Nwoko of Miami, Jeremy Foumena of Rhode Island, and Gai Chol from last year’s team. Of that remarkably non-fearsome foursome I guess I lean Murphy, but I like none of them and would prefer to see Jans try lineups with Matthews at the 5. They tried a version of this with DJ Jeffries at the 5 sometimes last year and it was fine.
Beyond that, the story here lies at what State chooses to do at the remaining two guard/wing spots. The assumed starters at this time are Claudell Harris Jr. from Boston College and Riley Kugel from Florida. Harris is a pretty easy one to figure out: bog-standard 2-guard that is more or less above-average at everything offensively, though identifying his plus skill is tough. I guess he’s got a good jumper.
Kugel…well, buddy, good look figuring that out. I said during a Florida/Tennessee game last year that it felt like Kugel was actively revolting against what Florida was trying to run offensively. He was a legitimate plus player his freshman year and a pure drag his sophomore. A good player exists somewhere in there and I really do like him defensively. Can Jans dig it out of him? The backups are all chaos agents too. Shawn Jones Jr. is awesome defensively but actively bad on O. RJ Melendez is actually much better than people think and has the capability to be a very good shooter, but vibes in and out of said shots.
Honestly the most intriguing add here is Kanye Clary because of the concept of putting he and Hubbard together. I wouldn’t, but Clary did not come here to play 10 minutes a night behind Hubbard. If so, that’s a backcourt of 5’10” and 5’11”, one which could get demolished by most SEC backcourts on the defensive end. On the other hand, Clary is the second-best shooter on this team and the only one who can score at nearly the same volume of a Hubbard. Does Jans take the risk? Do he and Hubbard split time? So many questions, but again: I trust Jans, and for once, I am legitimately pretty excited to watch Mississippi State play basketball.
The controversial ranking here, I guess, is having Offseason and Exhibition Champions Kentucky at 6th in the conference. (pelted by tomatoes) Hear me out! Please! I would like for you to hear me out without hitting me with yet another tomato. I like Mark Pope. I like the general build of this Kentucky roster. I think that, in terms of in-game coaching, things are going to look a lot smoother going forward with Pope.
I also am wondering if any player on this roster is one of the 15 best in the conference. Like anything Torvik’s POY metrics from last year are imperfect, but it’s probably telling that using conference-only stats, the highest a team finished without netting a guy inside the top 15 players in the league was LSU at 8th. The year before: Vanderbilt, 6th. 2021-22: South Carolina, 9th. It is very hard to crack the top 5 in the SEC without having some sort of obvious top-end piece.
I can see the vision for one of about five or six different guys to get there, but picking any one of them to actually do it is the difficulty. As such: the dreaded high-floor, low-ceiling team? I believe these guys are making the Tournament and will probably be in the top 25 at the end of the season but barring a serious breakout I’m not seeing here I think 6th and around that 22-27 range nationally feels pretty much bang-on.
The best case here for the leap upwards is Andrew Carr, a Wake Forest transfer that has the best advanced metrics of any of the four P5 transfers and has some clear, identifiable skills that will matter. For one, Carr is a very good all-around offensive piece that can play at the 4 or 5, is a solid shooter (36-97 3s ‘23-24), can back you down in the post, and can drive from the perimeter. That’s UK’s best and most versatile piece to my eyes.
The other guys you can see it for if you squint are Lamont Butler, Koby Brea, Amari Williams, and Jaxson Robinson. The case for, and against, each is pretty simple stuff.
Butler is most well-known for hitting the midrange jumper that delivered San Diego State to the national title game and is a great perimeter defender. He’s also a below-average shooter and his main feature offensively is passing.
Brea shot an absurd 49.8% from three last year, which is one thing, but he’s now shot 43.4% from deep on 516 attempts in college. The case for him being the very best spot-up shooter in D1 is real. That also might be his only case, as he doesn’t do much to impact the game defensively and tracks as Just A Shooter.
Williams was a star at Drexel who dominated the boards, was a great rim protector, and shot 69% at the rim. He is extremely not a shooter, though, and has a serious issue with turnovers.
Robinson is sort of misremembered as BYU’s best player last year. That was actually any of Dallin Hall, Aly Khalifa, or Richie Saunders depending on the night. Still, he’s an excellent scorer that can fill it up from anywhere…but isn’t particularly great at any one area of the court, isn’t a playmaker for others, and does pretty little on defense.
Is it a crime if I think that this is a really good collection of second, third, and even fourth options? There’s just not a #1 here. Kentucky fans are really in on freshman Collin Chandler, which I can understand as by age he’s a junior, but this is a guy who hasn’t played competitive basketball since spring 2022. He’s probably good! I just…haven’t seen it yet. I understand the placement of the other pieces here - Brandon Garrison is a terrific interior defender, Otega Oweh a very good wing defender, Kerr Kriisa an agent of chaos that can be quite good for you - but…uh…
I don’t know, I can totally understand the optimism here but my question is what happens when a team figures out there isn’t a #1? BYU’s last year was Robinson, which wasn’t a bad choice, but as covered Robinson isn’t particularly great at any one thing, just good at several. I think this team will be pretty easy to figure out at a macro level: when they move the ball really well and hit their threes, yeah, they’re gonna look awesome. When they have games like an Oklahoma State loss (8-35 from three), Kansas State (6-31), or Texas Tech (7-35), it’s gonna look ugly. So: 2023-24 BYU, but SEC. Worse outcomes for Year One.
I ended up placing Texas in the bang-middle of this tier because I don’t know what else to do. By talent, this is the best roster in this tier. By coaching, it arguably might be the worst. In terms of fit, it seems…bad? I don’t know, I can see a lot of ways this goes well or poorly or some mixture of both. I’m not a Rodney Terry hater by any stretch but I haven’t found it in me to trust him just yet, so I’m holding out before I form a huge string of takes.
Still, I am kind of baffled by the roster construction here. Synergy helpfully assigns player archetypes, 11 in total, based on play type data. I find it extremely helpful in attempting to visualize portal-heavy teams and the role each player might play. This is sort of a portal-heavy team, with six new players, but the completely renovated backcourt openly confuses me. The new backcourt, at least as I’m seeing it, is Oregon State transfer Jordan Pope, Arkansas transfer Tramon Mark, and freshman Tre Johnson. This is how they’re classified.
Johnson’s are easier to fudge because they’re based on high school stats, but even 247 classifies him as a 2-guard that wants to play with the ball in his hands. I just don’t get this? Mark was added on April 17, and I thought it made a lot of sense. Mark is a ball-handler that is from Texas originally and played at Houston before taking a wilderness year at Arkansas to end up here. I think of him as a pretty impactful guy with the ball in his hands and thought it was a good add to replace the lost backcourt production. He and Johnson made sense to me.
Then, a week later, Terry adds Pope, a player with a higher usage rate and far worse defensive metrics. I rate Pope higher as a shooter and think he might shoot 40%+ from deep this year, but…why not just pick Pope instead? You have two excellent scorers plus a freshman we’re trusting to be very good in the backcourt, so that’s nice. You also have two excellent scorers that aren’t great defenders, have very similar games, and need the ball in their hands as much as possible. That plus a 5-star freshman who came here presumably thinking he’d get a starring role, I don’t know, dog.
Luckily, Terry also added chemist extraordinaire Arthur Kaluma. Kaluma has a serious reputation as a negative-impact guy, which isn’t really backed up statistically. I do think if you get Greg McDermott, Jerome Tang, and Texas all to agree to add you to their roster as a starter-level figure, you’re probably not bad. I like him from a defensive standpoint and true to form, he does have some level of heat from three. I also like getting center Kadin Shedrick back; it’s not as if Shedrick will ever be much on offense but defensively he’s a star.
The bench is oddly put together, too. I hated the add of Malik Presley from Vanderbilt because he couldn’t get minutes for the worst team in modern VU history. There are two Indiana State transfers here. Both had pretty weak offensive stats before Josh Schertz and amazing ones after, so…yeah. Julian Larry and Jayson Kent both being here makes sense to me, and I wonder if it wouldn’t benefit Texas to play Larry over Pope instead of letting Pope start. Larry is more of a natural deferrer at point, which would allow Mark to operate the way he wants and would give Johnson more shots. (Kent is a bad interior defender and only makes sense in spot minutes when Shedrick is benched.)
That, plus returning pest Chendall Weaver, does indeed give you lots of playable options. I guess I’m just concerned at how they organize all of this correctly. A lot of different guys could end up angry here: Pope, who makes no sense with Mark, who really needs Larry to play point, who is behind Pope, who affects Johnson’s ability to take over the game, which leads to Human Chemist Kaluma getting involved, which makes the entire operation wobbly and could potentially lead to a season where Shedrick is your best player. I don’t want that, but I also can envision the exact opposite of this scenario happening and Texas finishing 12th in KenPom. Who knows.
If the Kentucky 6th pick makes people mad, Arkansas 8th is going to drive some people insane. (Bill Simmons voice but he’s impersonating Pat McAfee, for some reason?) They got Johnell Davis, bro. It’s their time, bro. D.J. Wagner year two will take off, bro. AJ back me up here. Boogie Fland is a star in the making. Karter Knox, bro, he’s got the highlights, bro. And it’s John Calipari. The hammer is DAHN. Bro.
I’m not THAT stupid. I get the hype. Eight of the nine players in the Arkansas rotation are current or former top-100 recruits, and the one guy who isn’t is probably the best player on the team. If you’re just going on talent alone, this is one of the 10-15 best rosters in the nation. Ranking them eighth seems foolish in that light. If you’re going on actual college production, the fact the new coach is bringing over the same staff members responsible for his previous tenure’s demise, and a roster that seems built for a different era of college basketball…well. I think you get where I’m going.
Calipari does have an extremely talented roster here, and with Johnell Davis as the proverbial head of the snake I can totally get the hype. Davis posted a 114 ORtg on 27% USG last year, shot 41% from three, 85% at the FT line, and had a +5.9 BPM. In a vacuum those are just numbers, but across the illustrious 11-year history of the AAC he stands quite alone.
A season where Davis averages 18-19 PPG is probably in line, which is what he did last season with a very good FAU team. I can even buy in a little bit on pairing him in the backcourt with D.J. Wagner, former hyper-loved 5-star that frankly sucked last year but now belongs to a very odd group of super-hyped recruits that had bad freshman years. This is the full list of freshman top-15 recruits in the last 17 years that got 20+ MPG and had negative Box Plus-Minus ratings.
…huh. Normally, guys who play that badly don’t end up getting 20+ MPG, but Calipari was stubborn to the point that he still wouldn’t start Rob Dillingham or Reed Sheppard, who are both top-10 picks, over this guy. The cause for optimism here is that Andrew Harrison had a somewhat similar opening year at UK, came back, and was a crucial piece of the 38-1 team. He was also surrounded by far better players than this, so your mileage may vary.
The two other locked-in pieces here are the likely frontcourt starters: Trevon Brazile and Jonas Aidoo. Brazile you know at this point: a 6’10” guy who’s good, and score inside, and is a decent-if-not-great outside shooter. I think you can work with that even if I’m not sure what it is he does otherwise. Aidoo is a fabulous rim protector that rebounds well and can have games where he looks utterly dominant inside. I get the appeal with both. I also liked the add of Adou Thiero from Cal’s old school. I think Thiero’s actively bad on defense, but is a very good slasher and seemed to figure things out last year. He was efficient!
I guess a lot of what you’re feeling here is dependent on your own personal projection. If you still believe in the Power of Cal, Wagner should have a very good sophomore year, Zvonimir Ivisic could be fantastic offensively, and the various freshmen - Karter Knox, Boogie Fland, Billy Richmond III - are all getting selected in the next NBA Draft. If you’re like me and you have serious questions about what the Power of Cal even means at this late stage of his career, you’re probably less swayed by this, particularly if you are me and aren’t convinced by any of those three freshmen just yet. I think it’s very enlightening that Sam Vecenie, the best draft writer in the game, has just one of those guys (Fland, 33rd overall) getting picked by anyone.
I have Florida 9th, which seems low compared to the average but someone is legally required to finish 9th here, and I worry about the strength of this roster compared to the others ahead of them. I like Todd Golden a lot and think he’s quite good at coaching, but the strength in the SEC in the coaching ranks is such that you can make a real case for him to only be the seventh-best coach in this league. Place Todd Golden in the ACC and he’d immediately be #2 or #3.
I’m happy for Golden that his best player, Walter Clayton Jr., chose to return to UF for his senior year. Any time you can keep one of the most skilled scorers and shooters in America as your point guard (of sorts), it’s hard to be mad. Clayton’s actual shooting numbers might look pedestrian - 51% 2PT, 36% 3PT - but Synergy rates him as someone who hits 6% above what would be expected from someone with his shot diet. I like pairing him with returner Will Richard, a quality spot-up shooter with a 37% hit rate from deep across the last two years.
Really, the backcourt in general here should be pretty sick. Alijah Martin transferred in from Florida Atlantic. Martin makes a pretty even impact on both ends of the court, but most remember him from being the figurehead of sorts of the Final Four team in 2023. I like him as a shooter and general scorer, but I actually rate him a bit higher as a defender in this scheme, where he’ll be able to take on the toughest opposing guard matchup to save some steam for Clayton on the offensive end.
That’s a terrific starting backcourt. Now, to figure out what in the world you do elsewhere. The ideal outcome here would’ve been Micah Handlogten being at full health, but Handlogten suffered a horrific ankle break in the SEC title game that may keep him out for the entire season. If so, Florida has to find two starters among a group of four guys that have yet to prove they’re starter-level guys yet in college, with none of them being elite offensive pieces and all of them having some sort of positive impact defensively. It’s like the reverse of last year’s team.
I think the best of these is Alex Condon, who posted a +2.7 BPM as a freshman last year and is the best playmaker of the four. The problem for me is that none of these four can really shoot a basketball well, and I don’t want to start Denzel Aberdeen, a fine shooter but bad defender at the 4. Condon at least tracks as a great defender that has good potential inside offensively. I guess in order of trust I’d go Condon, Thomas Haugh (low-event big with good hands), Rueben Chinyelu (Washington State transfer that’s an excellent rim protector and openly bad on O), then Sam Alexis (Chattanooga transfer that rebounds but has a profile of an empty-stats guy).
This is a really weird divide where I think Florida may have a top-3 backcourt in the league but, like…the 12th-best frontcourt? 13th? It’s alarmingly weak up front in a league that routinely has great frontcourts, which really worries me. Perhaps it’s all for naught in terms of worry, but we’ll see.
10th, and rounding out Tier 2, is Ole Miss. In terms of total scoring added, this is the #1 roster in the league. Chris Beard has eight players who scored 13+ PPG last year, including five transfers. Top-60 recruit John Bol is likely a non-factor on this team, which should say something. This roster collectively shot 51% from two and 37% from three last year, and there isn’t a single player in the projected rotation that hit fewer than 20 threes last season. In terms of offense, I fully buy the vision here. They could be gangbusters.
It could also be gangbusters for opposing offenses. The best rim protector on this roster is a Hampton bench player (Ja’Von Benson) that isn’t likely to play much at all. There may be one good defender on the entire roster, Dre Davis, who is 6’6” and obviously isn’t going to be protecting the rim much. Do you remember Iowa from last year, who had a top-15 offense and finished 157th defensively? This could be Iowa But Far Less Charming for the neutral viewer.
It would be easier to list the guys who can’t score than those who can and do so consistently. These are the eight guys you gotta know.
Jaylen Murray, here last year, who posted a 110 ORtg on 22% USG and shot 37% from three and is the best shot creator (for others) on the team.
Matthew Murrell, now entering year 500 at Mississippi, who shot 53% 2PT/40% 3PT last year and really seemed to benefit from not having to be Superman for an underfunded program.
Davis, a slasher that isn’t a great shooter but does a very good job at forcing rim pressure on opponents at the rim. Also the best defender on the roster.
Jaemyn Brakefield, a breakout candidate for like seven years now who posted a 116 ORtg on 21% USG last year and shot 54% 2PT/36% 3PT.
Malik Dia, who had a top-3 usage rate in the entire nation at Belmont last year and is a former Vanderbilt recruit. Dia is one of the biggest negative-impact guys in the SEC, per EvanMiya, but he can score in bunches.
Sean Pedulla, VA Tech transfer who’s a good passer and excellent floor-spacer who EvanMiya projects to shoot 37% 3PT/83% FT. You can work with that.
Mikael Brown-Jones from UNC Greensboro, the guy who scored the most points of anyone last year (18.9 PPG) and functions best as either a small 5 or a stretch big at the 4.
Davon Barnes, who scored 13.5 PPG at Sam Houston State last year and shot 39% 3PT/83% FT last year.
That is a monstrous amount of scoring. On any given night, Ole Miss has eight guys who have experience being the guy offensively. I can see why people are excited about this and why they got into the AP preseason top 25. But.
Problem #1: There’s only one ball. Let’s call this an eight-man rotation with a plausible ninth in TJ Caldwell, a returner who was not good last year but might be now. EVERY SINGLE PLAYER but Caldwell posted a 21% or higher usage rate last year. Three different guys were at 30% or higher. “Wow, look at all the points per game!” Okay, but they’re not all about to average 13 PPG again, and not everyone is happy to downgrade from being The Guy to being Just One of the Guys. I think this could be a disastrous mix if things don’t gel immediately.
Problem #2: This is an atrocious defensive team. Defensive Box Plus-Minus is a great stat that tells you how impactful a player is to his team’s defense, more or less. Dre Davis has a +2.1. Ja’Von Benson, who likely won’t play much at all, is a +1.2. Every other member of this rotation is at a net-zero or lower. What this projects out to is about the 140th-best defense in college basketball. Do you remember where Ole Miss finished last year? 141st. They are the same team with a better offense. Can these guys finish top-50 in KenPom? Sure. Do I think they’re coming anywhere close to the top 25? Absolutely not.
I’ll repeat what I said on tier 3 earlier: one makes the Tournament, one is a bubbly team that just misses, and one crashes out to eventually finish 15th or 16th. But if I’m telling you I’m fully confident in which is which, I’m lying.
That being said, I’m calling right now that Vanderbilt makes the NCAA Tournament. How? Good question. Minus one returner who wasn’t any good, Vanderbilt’s entire roster is changed over, and while it’s changed over from an awful team it’s a lot for one coach to fix in one offseason. Portal-heavy teams generally have a much wider range of outcomes, so projecting Vandy at what seems to be their ceiling outcome from national writers may be a bit naive.
And yet: I love how Mark Byington chose to put together this roster. The starting five I’d go with here is AJ Hoggard, Jason Edwards, Chris Manon, Tyler Nickel, and Jaylen Carey. That’s one of several options I like, but why I like this one is you get the following:
Hoggard, who has a 34% Assist%, a +5.7 BPM, and is a tremendous point-of-attack defender.
Edwards, who made 40+ shots at the rim, in midrange, and from three last year and is my pick to be the team’s leading scorer.
Manon, a playmaking wing at Cornell who was a monster defensively and shot 63% from two while adding 23 threes.
Nickel, a spot-up shooter and tall wing at Virginia Tech that made 40% of his 148 threes.
Carey, the lone James Madison transfer here that posted a >10% OREB%, >20% DREB%, and converted 75% of his attempts at the rim.
No one really doubles up on anyone else’s skills here. I wish that Byington could’ve added more plus shooters - this roster collectively shot 33% from deep last year, and Nickel and Edwards are the only consistent plus perimeter shooters he has. But you look at this roster and you can identify a clear plus skill for every single member of the plausible nine-man rotation. There’s multiple great perimeter defenders, two elite rebounders, two very good shooters, two great playmakers; the only one that fits multiple of those categories is Hoggard.
The other pieces here are fun too. Devin McGlockton is an excellent rim-finishing big who made 22 threes last year, which adds some frontcourt flexibility. Grant Huffman will push Hoggard for minutes at point, and while I do feel this is the one area Byington really doubled up on a certain skillset, Huffman is a better driver than Hoggard although his shot isn’t as notable. Kijani Wright from USC makes sense to me as a backup center that could benefit from a change of scenery.
I also believe in Byington massively. He owns the best seasons in Georgia Southern and James Madison’s respective 28-year KenPom histories. It usually takes him a couple of years to really get rolling, but he’s never had the opportunity to fully makeover a roster with high-major money the way he has here. Maybe this doesn’t fully come together, but if it does these guys are going dancing.
If Vandy looks foolish, it might look worse to have Oklahoma 12th, because seemingly no one believes in Porter Moser anymore. Well, I still believe! Somewhat! Finishes of 30th, 54th, and 46th in KenPom at Oklahoma are all more or less in line with Lon Kruger’s last several seasons and around their KP-era median of 37th. Their major crime has been living in the Big 12, where they’ve gone 7-11, 5-13, and 8-10 in conference play the last three seasons.
I’d say it’s going to get better, but the move to the SEC really isn’t much better if it’s at all better. It’s still a very tough conference, and Moser still needs to find his way to an NCAA Tournament. When last year’s team was 15-3 (3-2 B12) entering a January 23 game against Texas it felt impossible that they’d go on to miss the Tournament, but they did exactly that. Now, OU must really play from behind with just one starter returning and an entirely new backcourt to figure out.
I do think Jalon Moore is a good-to-very-good all-around player at the 4 for OU, and while I certainly wish he took more threes (just 93 in his career), he’s a very good rebounder and shot-blocker for a team that could use both. In fact, Moore paired with either returner Sam Godwin or Alabama transfer Mohamed Wague at the 5 makes for something intriguing: both bonkers rebounders (Wague in particular is *great* at his specific role) that could make Oklahoma really hard to deal with on the boards.
With basically any Moser team, though, I feel pretty good about the defense. His last four, including his final year at Loyola Chicago, go 2nd-38th-48th-36th. There’s a high baseline here. But what about the offense? My fear is that a lot is about to go on the shoulders of one Duke Miles, transferring up from High Point. Miles is a fabulous on-ball scorer that shot 59% 2PT/36% 3PT last year and generated 1.3 steals a night. Those are good numbers, but I am blown away by a 66% conversion rate at the rim for a 6’2” PG.
I worry about that 2PT% going way down against harder competition and Miles needing to create for others much more. I think Moore can hold up fine, but can Glenn Taylor Jr. from St. John’s shooting 42% from three again? Can Kobe Elvis, a 37% 3PT% guy, be more than Just A Shooter? He doesn’t do a ton else. I think you can squeeze out points by playing more Jadon Jones (38% 3PT) and Brycen Goodine (47%), but you’re obviously sacrificing your defensive quality when you do that. Weird deal here. There’s a path to the offense finishing 44th and the defense also finishing 44th in KenPom. That’s probably a 10 seed if it happens! Finally!
Missouri’s path back to the promised land is simple: don’t go 0-18? After a year in which every single bounce that could’ve possibly gone their way did so, Mizzou got the exact opposite last year: a 1-9 record in close games, the fifth-lowest luck rating in the sport on Torvik, and hold the odd record as the highest-rated winless team in conference play in KenPom history. I don’t know that it is possible to be luckier than Mizzou was in 2022-23 or unluckier in 2023-24; I imagine most will just take something in the middle.
If so, the median outcome here is somewhere around the KenPom projection (53rd) and Torvik’s (64th). This is a better roster than last year’s was on opening night, and obviously, they shouldn’t go winless again. However: are you fully convinced of Dennis Gates just yet? Likable, fun, yes…and the owner of Missouri’s worst KenPom ranking since 2016-17, as well as Cleveland State’s worst (313th) ever. Gates rode a ton of close game luck to gaudy conference records at Cleveland State, too, going 22-10 his final three years in games decided by six or less. It’s not a crime to do that, but it’s also rarely sustainable.
Either way, I do think this roster should be a serious improvement and should garner some wins. It’s very old, with five grad students among the top seven, and has the capacity to get back to doing what Gates loves most: playing extremely fast offensively. Tony Perkins is here to run point from Iowa, and while Perkins can be a divisive character for some, he’s a very impactful guy on offense that makes plays and forces a good amount of steals. Pairing him with Caleb Grill (speedy and smart defensively, if mediocre offensively) and Scoop Bates (last year’s best player and a legitimately excellent shooter) makes a lot of sense to me.
With Marques Warrick coming off the bench from Northern Kentucky, it should be an offense that plays very fast, as all four of those guys got at least a quarter of their personal possessions in transition last year, per Synergy. The frontcourt is the larger question. Gates’ best add by miles for me was Mark Mitchell from Duke. Mitchell can play the 4 or 5, is a nasty lob threat, and is likely the best all-around defender on the team. I don’t think much of him as a shooter, but he can shoot at least somewhat. There isn’t much of an obvious downside to him here, beyond some minor ball-handling issues.
I think you have to play him a lot, and God help them figuring out who else to play among Josh Gray from South Carolina, Jacob Crews from UT Martin, Aidan Shaw (returner), or Trent Pierce (also returner). Gray is openly bad offensively and fouls like crazy, but he’s a great rebounder. Crews can play the 4 to move Mitchell to the 5, but he’s the worst defender in the rotation and has a reputation as an empty-stats guy. Shaw and Pierce are more or less the same in that they’re just there and I’d try to play neither if I could.
What you have here is an offense that could be awesome and a defense that might be an outright disaster if they can’t force turnovers. So: something like 2022-23 Missouri, but with more accurate close-game luck. What does that do for you in the toughest SEC ever?
As mentioned earlier, our Tier 4 teams all have a variety of shortcomings that keep them from true NCAA Tournament contention in my head. Not every year are you able to put a team that won 26 games the previous season in this tier, but that’s where I’ve got South Carolina. I like Lamont Paris and thought people gave up on him way too quickly after a brutal first year, because it was the exact thing that happened to him at Chattanooga prior to a breakout. But: losing three of your four best players and not replacing them with much of note is a rough way to follow up said breakout.
For one, Carolina has to break in a new point guard. For presumably personal reasons, Meechie Johnson transferred to Ohio State this offseason as a homecoming of sorts. That left a giant hole at PG, now filled by Norfolk State transfer Jamarii Thomas. I like Thomas fine, but this is a 5’10” point guard who finally had a good shooting season last year (38.6% 3PT) after shooting 31% from three his first two seasons with a negative A:TO ratio. That was in the CAA; he dropped down to the MEAC, dominated, and is now in the SEC. I am skeptical it’ll hold up.
The good news for Paris is that three-ish starters are back, with Jacobi Wright, Myles Stute, and Collin Murray-Boyles all returning for likely their final season. Wright and Stute are seniors that can be described as perfectly average role players, and Stute is a pretty good shooter. But CMB is the reason for any hype here. As a freshman, CMB put up some disgusting numbers: +9.5 BPM, 121 ORtg on 23% USG, 61% 2PT, a 4.6% Block%, a 2.7% Steal%. The BPM number alone is the 37th-highest of the last 18 years for a freshman, one spot behind Jahlil Okafor. Everything else combined with that makes him a truly special prospect, even without a jumper.
That’s why he’s a projected top-15 pick right now. Unfortunately, there is everything else on the roster. It’s either unimpressive returners, recruits that might be too underseasoned to breakout, or Nick Pringle, an Alabama transfer that didn’t attempt a single jumper last year and is mostly Just Dunks. Last year worked so well because of BJ Mack, a fabulous playmaking big that found open shooters all the time, and while CMB is promising in this regard he played with Mack most of the time last year. What do you do when you’re the only guy who can do that, and Ta’Lon Cooper (46% 3PT) isn’t here anymore?
Georgia avoided being last for reasons we’ll discuss momentarily, but I remain surprised at the number of people I see in on them. Matt Norlander has these guys 45th nationally. Bart Torvik’s formula: 39th. I’ve even seen a couple of SEC power rankings with these guys in the top 10 of the conference. (Obama voice) Let me be clear: I do not buy this one bit.
I have my reasons. For one, the head coach is Mike White. Do you know the last time Mike White overachieved his preseason KenPom ranking (67th this year)? 2016-17. That means seven straight seasons where he’s done worse than the leading advanced metric would’ve expected of his roster. The other reason: this is a pretty talented roster in terms of recruiting metrics on paper, but it’s the least-experienced roster in the conference and the selling point seems to be bringing back the point guard from the 84th-best team in America.
In other words, I just don’t get it, though maybe it’s I who will look like the fool come March. White more or less gets his backcourt back, as Silas Demary Jr. and Blue Cain are back at PG and SG, respectively. Offensively I can’t say I rate either that highly, though Cain is a good shooter and Demary was an above-average playmaker for a freshman. If Demary can find his shot there’s a chance something more is there, obviously, though both he and Cain are openly poor finishers even at their respective sizes.
Most everything else is new. The transfers are…uh, interesting. The best one here by my money is either RJ Godfrey (Clemson) or Justin Abson (App State). Godfrey is a solid role player who plays good defense and is an interesting slasher at the 4. Abson is a fantastic rim protector, although very limited offensively. Georgia also added Tyrin Lawrence from Vanderbilt (two good months in a four-year career) and a pair of Mount St. Mary’s transfers that seem destined for bench roles. I liked the add of De’Shayne Montgomery (sophomore) far more than the add of Dakota Leffew, fwiw.
I don’t know, this is a roster that has like six really good defenders on it but I can’t name a single plus offensive player on it in a league that just got done with possibly its best offensive season in my lifetime. That leaves a lot on the shoulders of one Asa Newell, a top-10 recruit nationally who is more of a rim-finishing big with some stretch capabilities. He shot around one three per game in high school, which isn’t bad, but that combined with likely starting Abson at the 5…I don’t know, dog. I think this could be a really ugly offensive team that’s reliant on a very good defense to get it across the finish line. What this sounds like to me is 2021-22 South Carolina. Anyone remember those guys? 32nd defensively…and 99th in KenPom. I don’t see it.
Last, unfortunately, is LSU. It pains me to do this. Fellow Oak Ridge Boy Matt McMahon has been with the Tigers for two seasons now; while last year was a significant improvement, both of his seasons are the worst LSU has experienced by KenPom ranking since 2016-17. In fact, both are worse than the median Johnny Jones season of #81, which I thought at the time was the worst-coached LSU might ever be in my lifetime. And yet!
I don’t really think McMahon is bad, not by any descriptor that might imply. I just think he’s the least-accomplished and least-excellent of the 16 coaches here. Again: this is a league where there are legitimate questions if Dennis Gates, who won 25 games his first season at Mizzou, is even one of the 10 best coaches in this league. We’re a long way from the days of Rick Ray and Kim Anderson.
I have LSU last, and least likely to make good on their hopes, because in what might be the best and deepest SEC since 2018 if not 2002 if not ever, they’ve got one of the two worst rosters with one of the two least-proven coaches. While imperfect, I think it’s educational to see where various metrics (EvanMiya and BPM being my main two) have LSU’s roster members versus the rest of the SEC. LSU has one player, Tyrell Ward, in the top-40 of the SEC in either. Also educational: the three transfers here are from the #70, #89, and #216 schools in KenPom last year. I don’t think that’s necessarily a great way to judge them, but even Georgia added a player from Elite Eight Clemson.
As such, I can’t even get behind singling out any individual players here. What is the plus skill of any one of these players? I am aware that Jordan Sears can score in volume, but his volume is highly reliant on being a plus shooter from deep…which he’s done in one out of three college seasons. Mike Williams is a very good on-ball defender that could be a 3-and-D guy and may be the best player here, but he’s not a monster by any stretch.
The offensive side of the ball seems heavily reliant upon Sears to create for others, but I don’t know if or how that works when Sears is the plus shooter and/or best scorer. Little about the McMahon system - aside from quality shot selection - stands out in any notable way. This is also an all-offense preview because McMahon’s last and only good defense was in his final season at Murray State. A leap up isn’t impossible, as they did finish 9-9 SEC last year, but I don’t personally see it. Unfortunate.
FOUR PREDICTIONS:
Alabama loses three or four non-conference games, which causes AP Poll voters to freak out until Alabama goes on to win 13+ games in the toughest SEC in forever.
Oklahoma and Vanderbilt both lose just one game each in non-conference play and are this year’s November/December Hype Machine teams before SEC play reality hits.
Ole Miss allows 100+ points in regulation in at least one conference game.
Against the prayers of many, the SEC nets 10 in the field of 68 and produces two of the Final Four teams. TBD on who.