It’s here, everybody! College basketball is here. Oh, most glorious of days, most sacred rite of passage to deliver us unto the road to April! Hope filling hearts. Dread filling souls. Bruce Pearl and Sean Miller testing the absorbency of various shirt fabrics.
We back.
And Dana O’Neil and I are back, too, to ring in 2022-23 with a Shot Takers Tipoff Mailbag. If nothing else, we’re one team that will never realign.
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Questions, ahoy!
If Houston beats Oregon, Saint Mary’s, Alabama and Virginia in the nonconference, do they have a shot to enter the tournament undefeated? – Louis S.
Dana: First let me say hello, Louis, and hello, hoops season. Good to have you back. Feel like we’re in for a nice dose of chaos this year — the good kind, that is to say, where we don’t have a clear-cut favorite or favorites to dominate the entire season. Nice and messy.
Which, of course, undercuts your hope for a Houston run to perfection, Louis. Sorry about that. Not wishing against the Cougars, but I’m just not sure that any team this year is good enough to go unblemished.
I will say I like Kelvin Sampson’s crowd. Marcus Sasser’s return just changes everything for a team that already was stacked. I think Houston is good enough to win a national championship, and to your point, the American Athletic Conference does not exactly offer up a murderer’s row once the Cougars get through the nonconference. But even though no one is chattering about Memphis quite like they were a year ago, I still think Penny Hardaway’s team, with Alex Lomax as a fifth-year senior and the addition of Kendric Davis from SMU, could be a stumbling block.
It’s not out of the question and Houston is good enough, but it’s really hard to win them all. Don’t you agree, Brian?
Brian: The big hypothetical here is the first one. On the road at Oregon, on the road at Virginia … they’re coin flips, at best. Don’t care how good the Cougars are – and I think they have national championship potential. That’s swimming against a pretty strong rip current, to win both of those matchups. And Alabama could go 0-of-800 or 800-of-800 on 3-pointers on any given night. If it’s the latter, it doesn’t matter whom the Tide are playing. They can beat anyone, anywhere.
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I don’t think Houston emerges unscathed from that trio of games. But if it does? Then, yes, there’s a shot the Cougars go into March with a zero in the loss column.
I wouldn’t put my money where my mouth is, naturally, but the next-best teams in the American are bubble teams at best. Not easy outs. Also not impossible to manage if Houston is, in fact, operating at maximum capacity. As someone who wants only a great number of the best-possible storylines every season, an unbeaten Houston looking to roll to a Final Four in its backyard sounds pretty good.
What’s the ceiling for Todd Golden and the Transfer Gators? Excited to see this team play some analytically sound basketball. – Kuji S.
Brian: Appropriately enough, the metrics are kind enough to the Gators, if you’re indeed into that sort of thing. (And Florida’s new coach most certainly is.) Bart Torvik’s ratings have them 25th to start the year. Evan Miyakawa has them 29th. Ken Pomeroy has them 35th. If all of that translates into an upper-half finish in the SEC and something like a No. 6 seed in the NCAA Tournament, I would call that a good start for the new regime. Not spectacular, but nothing close to a step back, and certainly something to build off.
The question is about ceiling, though. Let’s consider the SEC teams ranked ahead of the Gators on KenPom to start the year: Kentucky, Tennessee, Auburn, Arkansas and Alabama, in order. I’d say it’s conceivable the Gators can max out at second or third in the league, simply because I can’t see more than two or three teams in that group slipping much. The Phil Knight Legacy tournament in November is a meat grinder, but it allows Golden to view his team through the clearest lens and understand what he has – and what he doesn’t – against multiple top 25-caliber opponents. He won’t be figuring that out on the fly in league play. That’s big.
Season soon 🤞#GoGators pic.twitter.com/LGp0B8tayo
— Florida Gators Men’s Basketball (@GatorsMBK) November 5, 2022
Two defining variables, in my estimation. If Colin Castleton becomes so unstoppable that he’s a verifiable national player of the year candidate, then Florida has the sort of difference-maker who is worth a two- or three-game swing in the league standings. A less incredibly obvious mystery is Will Richard’s production as an up-transfer from Belmont. I watched an early summer workout in Gainesville in which Richard went on a shooting tear that almost set off fire alarms in the practice gym. It’s a lot to ask of a guy who hit 32.6 percent of his 3-pointers as a freshman to be a game-changing threat from deep, the kind of sniper who makes the floor a whole lot wider for Castleton and Kyle Lofton … but if that happens, the Gators probably push for that top 3 finish in the league and a pretty favorable NCAA Tournament seeding.
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Moving at jet speed with the SEC's youngest basketball coach
Dana: There’s definitely some wiggle room in the SEC. I’m fairly certain that Kentucky and Tennessee are what they are — the Volunteers’ exhibition win against Gonzaga was an eye-opener, was it not? I’m not yet all in on anyone after that — including the three As, Arkansas, Auburn and Alabama.
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Which leaves the door open for someone else in the projected middle of the pack to make a leap. That team very well could be Florida. I agree with Brian that much of the Gators’ trajectory lies with Castleton. The possibilities with the big man are endless, but can he realize them?
I think the other question mark in determining the Gators’ ceiling is how well all of these transfers gel together. There is no analytic to determine that. It either works, or it doesn’t. If Lofton, Richard and Alex Fudge come together, there’s every reason to hope that the Gators can hit above their station. If not, could be a long year.
My alumni school isn’t looking to be very good this year and I’m looking for a backup team that I can watch all season that plays hard and smart basketball. Not as a replacement team, but a supplemental team to watch to help me enjoy the season more. Any recommendations? – John G.
Dana: First, I’m sorry for your loss, John. But hate-watching can be fun, too. It got me through the Penn State-Ohio State fourth quarter last week.
Anyway, finding a team that plays hard and smart is different than entertaining. Arkansas is a lot of fun to watch and plays hard. Smart? Not all of the time. On the other hand, Houston plays hard and smart, but it’s kind of like watching a mortar constantly grind a pestle. It may not always be appealing, or pretty.
So I’m going to go a little outside the box and offer up Baylor. I think the Bears are flying a little bit under the radar this year. Year in and year out, they are sound offensively and defensively — top 20 in both adjusted offense and defense in the last three years. Scott Drew has one of the most dynamic freshmen in the country in Keyonte George, and with LJ Cryer and Adam Flagler, a terrific backcourt. Not to mention, a smart coach who knows how to win. Tune in to Baylor, and thank me later.
Brian: Dana, see, this is why I like you. You were kind enough to leave Creighton for me, and Creighton is the obvious and correct choice for our woebegone pal John G.
After a struggle last year on the offensive end, the Bluejays project to have a top-30 offense and a top-20ish defense, per KenPom. And I think that’s underselling the offense a little. We all know the caveats with up-transfers. But Baylor Scheierman was one of Dana’s picks in our staff national player of the year draft and I had Scheierman as a preseason second-team All-American in our staff voting. If you think we’re ever right about things – and, honestly, God help you if you do – then a 6-6 transfer wing with nightly triple-double potential means Greg McDermott can release the hounds again. Also, McDermott is one of the best pure ball-coaches anywhere, and his offensive sets are a pleasure to watch, anyway, regardless of whether Creighton is putting points on the board or not.
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Plus: There are stakes! High stakes! The Big East is there to be had. Creighton has a real shot at a high NCAA Tournament seed and therefore a chance to reach its first Elite Eight since 1941. And maybe its first Final Four ever. However the season goes, it will be entertaining and consequential. Can’t ask for more when you’re sick of hate-watching your team.
The Pac-12 looks very top-heavy again this year. What’s the maximum and minimum number of teams they could place in the tourney? – John H.
Brian: We won’t see a #OneBidPac12 hashtag barging into our social media feeds this winter. UCLA and Arizona are too well-backstopped against utter disaster. But to John’s point … #TwoBidPac12 could be a thing, maybe?
Look past the Bruins and the Wildcats and, well, whoo, boy. We go from two viable top 10 or top 15 squads to a whole bunch of crews in the 30s and 40s in the preseason metrics, which sounds about right. Are Stanford, USC and Oregon going to be awful? Probably not. Does anyone want to liquidate their 401ks to bet on any of them to make the NCAA Tournament? Anyone? Just raise a hand, we’re all friends here. Anybody? No?
This is the sixth-best conference in KenPom’s preseason rankings, and being the sixth-best conference in the country means you don’t get quality win opportunities in January and February as much as you face the prospect of damaging losses and life on the bubble come Selection Sunday. The upside is all three of the aforementioned programs have scheduled chances for resume-building wins in nonconference play. Oregon is in the Phil Knight Invitational event and hosts Houston separately from that. USC is in Battle 4 Atlantis and has Auburn at home, too. Stanford is a little more tenuous with Wisconsin, Texas and a so-so ESPN Events Invitational field. It’s a long way of saying there’s urgency, right from the jump, for all three to amass quality wins. Because who knows if they’ll have those opportunities later.
Can’t see more than five from this league in the field of 68, though. And five is a stretch. Can’t see less than two. What do you see out yonder in the West, Dana?
Dana: Five? Did we expand the tourney to 80 teams already? I must have missed the memo. I hate to disappoint Bill Walton, but the Conference of Champions it is not, at least not currently.
The catch for the Pac-12 is that it does not compete in a bubble. In order for its pedestrian league to get extra bids, other conferences have to be equally average. And they’re just not. When the Big Ten, SEC, ACC, Big 12 and Big East go into league play, as Brian points out, they get bonus points from the committee for continuing to play good teams.
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In the Pac-12, the start of conference play equates to UCLA hoping not to foul up its seed with a lousy loss.
The good news: The Bruins are really good. Like, carry the conference’s torch good. They will single-handedly keep the Pac-12 relevant through March. I’m pretty sure that Arizona, with Kerr Kriisa and Azuolas Tubelis, is going to be good, but I will admit I’m slightly unsettled. Tommy Lloyd had a more loaded roster last year and caught serious magic in a bottle. Faced with the expectations that such success brings, I’m curious to see how the Wildcats live up to it.
I certainly can’t imagine that Oregon will be the dysfunctional mess it was last year, so I would think the Ducks get in.
After that, though? USC has a chance, sure, but I don’t know if the Trojans are a lock NCAA Tournament team in the post-Mobley era. I love what Kyle Smith has done at Washington State, but it’s still a huge leap to make the tourney.
Could the league reach Brian’s optimistic threshold of five? Sure. To me, three is more likely, at least right now.
GO DEEPER
Pac-12 preview: UCLA and Arizona, followed by a whole lot of uncertainty
What is going on with Gonzaga, and how does this impact potential Big East expansion? – Chris V.
Dana: Nothing official is going on with Gonzaga just yet. They’re talking to other leagues. That’s it. For now.
But I think it’s fair to read the tea leaves and accept that the Zags would like to move along from the West Coast Conference. They’ve simply outgrown it, and not to mention, need to capitalize on an opportunity that doesn’t come around very often. Since nothing in conference realignment is off the table, the Big 12 reached out, and they answered. Other leagues — the Big East and Pac-12 — have, too. This isn’t an exclusive Big 12 deal by any means.
The trouble is, they are a very complicated fit. The Big East is easily the most logical landing spot, but Spokane is not close. To anything. Creighton is the closest member school to Gonzaga, and it’s more than 1,000 miles away. How do you make that work, not just for basketball, but for field hockey and soccer and tennis and so forth? It’s awfully complicated.
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On the other hand, Gonzaga has no football. The Big 12 and/or Pac-12 would have to figure out a financial payout that would be fair to compensate Gonzaga for all it brings to the table, but also not tick off its football-playing members who probably wouldn’t want to share the money equally. Can that be done? Sure. The Big East for years existed with both basketball-only members, and football/basketball combo schools.
Of course, that’s also sort of why it folded.
Brian: The lead-in question should’ve just been “Realignment: Go. – Everyone.”
So many questions about realignment. So many.
Gonzaga can’t save the Pac-12 if that conference gets cannibalized even once more. The Zags would be joining a marginally better league than the one they’re in, and I don’t think Gonzaga is in the business of making a marginal leap. If they’re going, they’re going big. Without some sort of guarantee that Oregon or Washington or the Arizona schools won’t flee, I know I wouldn’t tie my fate to that league. And who in the world can provide such guarantees these days?
The Big 12 makes sense … if there’s a correlating shift elsewhere. Like, say, the Arizona schools changing conference decals as well. I get that Gonzaga will charter everywhere. It’s still a heck of a thing to get from Spokane to Cincinnati or Orlando or Morgantown and back. Obligatory acknowledgement of “student-athlete welfare” here, but it is the sort of travel that can wear on a team and hurt the competitive bottom line. If we’re talking about unofficial divisions in which Gonzaga is making round-trips to Utah or Arizona or Texas, while sprinkling in only the occasional cross-country trek, that seems palatable. It also requires Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark to steal a couple schools, at least, from other leagues.
As for the Big East — which people are also extremely curious about in and of itself — I get the impression that unless you’re bringing the potential for regular NCAA Tournament bids to the table, the door won’t be wide open for new members. Nobody wants to split the same amount of pie with more people; the most reliable way to make more pie is to make more money via NCAA Tournament units. The media rights windfall won’t be a windfall without football.
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So for any non-Gonzaga schools interested in Big East membership, I’d suggest the following course of action as we start down the happy path to March: start winning. And start winning big.
(Top photo: Charles LeClaire / USA Today)
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