Things to think about, with college/minor league basketball around the corner…….
— This will sound weird, but Sacramento State is going to be fascinating to follow this year; the Hornets haven’t had a winning season in Big Sky games since 2015, they’re on their fifth head coach in six years, but they’re going to be fun to watch this season.
The new coach is Mike Bibby, who played 14 years in the NBA, scoring 14.7 ppg; one of his new players is 6-8 F Shaqir O’Neal, whose father is Shaquille O’Neal.
Shaquille O’Neal is the new general manager for Sacramento State, which means we’re going to be seeing some Big Sky games on TV this season. Shaq is good at generating publicity.
Mikey Williams is a Hornet now; he was a big prospect a couple years ago, ran into some issues off the court, but he’s in Sacramento now, and is a key to Sacramento State’s season.
— Next year will be a dizzying year, with more teams changing leagues. There are a few teams changing leagues this year, but not that many.
Grand Canyon moves from the WAC to the Mountain West; Antelopes won 103 games the last four years, have been in four of last five NCAA Tournaments. Last year, Grand Canyon had the #29 eFG% in the country; they got 24% of their points on the foul line (#9 in country). Will they still get as many calls in their new, tougher league?
WAC was the #15 league last year; Mountain West was #6.
— Seattle is also bolting the WAC, which only has seven teams left; Redhawks are moving to the WCC, which won’t look the same at this time next year, with Gonzaga bolting to the Mountain West.
Seattle was 23-14 two years ago, but 14-18 last year; they were a terrible shooting team last year (#334 eFG%). Last four years, Redhawks were 44-28 in the WAC and they’ve got three starters back, but they need to make more shots.
WAC was the #15 league last year; WCC was #7 league.
— UMass bolted from the Atlantic 15 to the MAC, a huge help to their basketball program; MAC was the #23 league LY, A-15 was the #8 league— the move was football-based, but it should make life simpler on the hardwood.
UMass is 47-47 in three years under Frank Martin, was 24-30 in A-15 games. Minutemen have not been in the NCAA’s since 2014- they’ve brought in 10 new players after last year’s 12-20 season, when they shot 28% on the arc, 2nd-worst in the country.
— Two teams bolted to Conference USA, for football reasons…….
Delaware was in the NCAA’s in 2022, going 22-13, but they went 23-31 in CAA games since then.
Blue Hens were 16-20 LY, 5-13 in CAA, but they won four games in the CAA tourney and lost in the final, 76-72 to NC-Wilmington, playing for the fifth night in a row.
Delaware was #324 in defensive efficiency LY; CAA was #20 league last year, C-USA was #9, so this is a step up for the Blue Hens.
— Missouri State bolts to C-USA from the Missouri Valley, the #10 league; Bears were 9-23/2-19 last year, a dismal team that turned the ball over 20.7% of the time (#346).
Missouri State has had some good teams recently, but they haven’t been to the NCAA’s since Steve Alford led them there, in 1999. They’ve had seven 20-win seasons since then, but haven’t made it back to March Madness.
— Famous birthdays, October 17
Michael McKean, 78
Mike Bratz, 70
Dan Pasqua, 64
Jay Humphries, 63
Danny Ferry, 59
John Mabry, 55
Myles Straw, 31
— SEC had 14 of its 16 teams in the NCAA’s last year, which seems excessive; Florida was the first SEC team to win a national title since Kentucky in 2012.
Texas/Oklahoma both went 6-12 in SEC games, tied for 13th; if you finish tied for 13th in your league, you shouldn’t make the NCAA’s.
— Kentucky’s NIL budget/payroll is $22M this season; consensus is that nationally, top 10 teams have an average payroll of $10M or so. High expectations for coach Mark Pope.
Wildcats were 24-12 LY, making their first Sweet 16 since 2019; teams shot 53.9% inside the arc vs Kentucky (#295). Hopefully they spent some of that $22M on big guys who can defend.
— Auburn was 32-6, 15-3 in SEC, made the Final Four for the second time in seven years under Bruce Pearl, but last month, Pearl abruptly quit, so his son Steven could take his place. Bruce Pearl is going into the TV studio this season.
Auburn will play six top 40 teams before Christmas, as they prepare for the rigors on of SEC play, which worked for them LY, when they played the #19 non-conference schedule.
— Last five years, the ACC ranked #5-5-7-5-5 nationally, a downturn from 2014-19, when the ACC was a top 3 league every year. Only four ACC teams made the NCAA’s LY, but couple of new coaches figure to re-vitalize their programs.
Will Wade went 58-11 at McNeese State, made the NCAA’s five of six years before that at LSU, VCU. In the NIL era, Wade seems like a good man for the job.
Ryan Odom is the new coach at Virginia; his teams at VCU/Utah State were 78-30 the last three years. In 2018, he coached #16-seed UMBC to the first #16-seed over #1-seed upset in, when his Retrievers upset………Virginia.
— Four of the top 11 teams in the preseason top 25 are from the Big 18, a league that hasn’t won a national title since Michigan State in 2000.
— BYU signed AJ Dybantsa, the best recruit in the country; Cougars also bring back last year’s leading scorer, Richie Saunders- they’ve added four guards in the transfer portal.
Last year, BYU had the #7 eFG% in the country; 47.6% of their shots were 3’s- they made 36.8% of those. Cougars went 26-10, winning their first NCAA Tournament game since 2011.
— Last five years, Cal-Irvine went 68-23 in Big West games, but was 4-5 in their conference tournament- they surprisingly haven’t been to the NCAA’s since 2019.
Last year, Anteaters were 32-7; they lost the NIT final in overtime. This year, they get G Derin Saran back; he went to Stanford LY, but it didn’t work out well, so he is back in Irvine, where hopefully the Anteaters will fare better in the conference tournament.
