Kentucky is up against it in the SEC this season. Some things you need to know.
The Southeastern Conference is shaping up as deep, talented and competitive in 2018-19. Here is what you should be watching:
Experienced players
Only four of the league’s 14 teams did not have a player return to college after entering this year’s NBA Draft. And one of the four is Arkansas, where Daniel Gafford chose not to test his NBA value after being named to the SEC’s all-freshman team and becoming the first freshman in Arkansas history to score 400 points, grab 200 rebounds and block 60 shots.
The players who entered this year’s NBA Draft and returned are:
▪ PJ Washington and Reid Travis, Kentucky. The former averaged 10.8 points last season, the latter is a 1,000-point scorer.
▪ Admiral Schofield, Tennessee. He was named to the All-SEC Tournament team.
▪ Austin Wiley, Bryce Brown and Jared Harper, Auburn. Brown averaged 15.9 points and made the All-SEC first team. Harper averaged 13.2 points and made the second team. Wiley sat out last season and is an all-league caliber player.
▪ Tremont Waters, LSU. Waters averaged 15.9 points and made the SEC’s all-freshman team.
▪ Quinndary and Nick Weatherspoon, Lamar Peters and Aric Holman, Mississippi State.
▪ Jalen Hudson, Florida. A 1,000-point scorer.
▪ Admon Gilder, Texas A&M. Second-leading scorer at 12.3 points per game.
▪ Chris Silva, South Carolina. Co-SEC Defensive Player of the Year.
▪ Terence Davis, Ole Miss. Leading scorer at 13.8 points per game.
▪ Jontay Porter, Missouri. Sidelined for season after tearing ACL and MCL in scrimmage.
Experienced coaching
Each of the 14 SEC head coaches have led teams to the NCAA Tournament. They’ve combined for 113 NCAA Tournament appearances.
The 14 SEC coaches have accumulated almost 5,000 career victories (4,711 to be exact) and have a combined career won-loss percentage of .654 (4,711-2494).
Kentucky’s John Calipari has the most career victories: 678. Close behind is Tennessee’s Rick Barnes (661).
Calipari also has the best winning percentage (.770). Second-best is Auburn’s Bruce Pearl (.719).
Georgia’s new coach, Tom Crean, is a two-time National Coach of the Year. He guided Marquette to the 2003 Final Four, beating Kentucky in the Midwest Region final thanks in large part to Dwyane Wade’s triple-double.
UK leads way
Of course, Kentucky dominates any discussion of SEC basketball. That includes this from the SEC:
The 2018 NBA Draft marked the third time (1988 and 2015) that the SEC had four lottery picks. The SEC’s 24 lottery picks since 2010 are more than any other conference in that time.
Kentucky produced 19 of those 24 lottery picks. The other five were one each from Florida (Bradley Beal, the third pick in 2012), Georgia (Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, the eighth pick in 2013), LSU (Ben Simmons, the first overall pick in 2016), Alabama (Collin Sexton, the eighth pick in 2018) and Missouri (Michael Porter, the 14th pick in 2018).
‘Playing for Wayde’
The death of junior forward Wayde Sims in late September rocked the LSU basketball team and the LSU community as a whole. Sims was laid to rest on Oct. 6.
“We’re going to be playing for Wayde all season long,” Coach Will Wade said at a candlelight vigil held in front of the Maravich Center. “Other team’s got five guys, but we’ve got six. . . . We want to honor him every day and not just on game day.”
At SEC Media Day, Wade called Sims “our ultimate glue guy, which is about as good a compliment as you can give.”
Missouri in flux
Jontay Porter’s season-ending knee injury (torn ACL and MCL) put Missouri in flux. At one point in late October, the Tigers were down to nine available scholarship players. Another player, K.J. Santos, was sidelined because of a fractured foot.
Porter’s absence makes Jeremiah Tilmon loom large on the front line. He has a history of getting in foul trouble.
Next up may be freshman Torrence Watson, a top-50 recruit.
A week after Porter’s injury, Mark Smith, a transfer from Illinois who was once recruited by Kentucky, received a waiver for immediate eligibility at Missouri. Dru Smith, a transfer from Evansville, was also awaiting a waiver.
Where are they now?
▪ Former standout Florida guard Chris Chiozza is on the roster of the Washington Wizards’ G League team.
▪ Devin Robinson, a wing for Florida, has a two-way deal with the Wizards.
▪ Egor Koulechov, former all-purpose player for Florida, is playing professionally in Israel.
▪ Yante Maten, the former Georgia standout, signed a two-way contract with the Miami Heat. He’s expected to split time with the Heat and its G League affiliate, the Sioux Falls Skyforce.
▪ For all the wrong reasons, former Vanderbilt guard Riley LaChance made a vivid impression last season. His missed free throws in the final minutes helped Kentucky beat the Commodores twice. He’s playing in Poland.
▪ Duop Reath, who posted a double-double (24 points, 11 rebounds) for LSU against Kentucky last season, is playing professionally in Russia.
▪ Brian Bowen transferred to South Carolina after becoming embroiled in the FBI investigation of college corruption. He’s playing for the Sydney Kings, a professional team in Australia. His coach is the former Seton Hall player, Andrew Gaze.
Wizard of Knoxville?
Tennessee Coach Rick Barnes needs four victories to pass iconic UCLA Coach John Wooden for 26th place on the career list.
“It’s hard to believe, to be honest with you,” Barnes said when told of passing Wooden. Then he added with a smile, “I’d much rather be closer to the 10 national championships (Wooden’s teams won).”
Did you know?
▪ Tennessee, the co-champion with Auburn last season, has never finished in first place in back-to-back seasons.
▪ No team has more experience than Tennessee. Of the 2,584 points scored by the Vols last season, players who scored 2,325 of them return.
▪ After beating Kentucky, Auburn lost five of its remaining eight games. After losing to Auburn (its fourth straight loss), UK won nine of its remaining 11 games.
▪ In terms of career points on the Division I level, Auburn and Tennessee boast the fourth and fifth most among so-called Power Five teams. The top three are Kansas State, Virginia Tech and Iowa.
▪ 2018 Player of the Year Grant Williams of Tennessee did not enter his name in this year’s NBA Draft. “It’s been described as you need to be two-feet in,” he said. “At the moment, I couldn’t say I was.”
▪ Mississippi State is a trendy pick to receive a bid to the 2019 NCAA Tournament. It would be the Bulldogs’ first bid since 2009.
▪ Every SEC team has played in at least one NCAA Tournament in the last 10 years.
▪ The SEC Tournament returns to Nashville in 2019. It will be in Nashville in six of the next seven years. The exception is 2022, when it will be played in Tampa.
Newcomers to watch
▪ Tevin Mack, who transferred to Alabama, scored double-digit points in 16 games in two seasons for Texas.
▪ Texas A&M added two transfers who were named Defensive Player of the Year in their former conferences: Josh Nebo of Saint Francis (Northeast Conference) and Christian Mekowulu of Tennessee State (Ohio Valley Conference).
▪ All eyes in Florida will be on freshman point guard Andrew Nembhard, who must replace Chris Chiozza.
▪ Darius Garland and Simi Shittu are the first two McDonald’s All-Americans to play for Vanderbilt.
▪ Six teams added recruiting classes ranked by ESPN.com in the top 25 nationally. That’s Kentucky (second), LSU (fifth), Vanderbilt (ninth), Florida (18th), Mississippi State (21st) and Arkansas (24th).
Sound familiar?
One question-and-answer at SEC Media Day brought to mind John and Brad Calipari.
Alabama must replace lottery pick Collin Sexton at point guard. A reporter asked about the Tide’s depth chart at point guard.
“My wife wants the depth chart to start with Avery Johnson Jr.,” Alabama Coach Avery Johnson said. “Probably not going to happen.”
Happy anniversary
The 2019 NCAA Tournament will mark 25 years since Arkansas won the national championship.
The Razorbacks beat Duke 76-72 in the finals of the 1994 NCAA Tournament. Current Arkansas Coach Mike Anderson was an assistant coach. Current assistant Scotty Thurman made a clutch three-pointer late in the game that put Arkansas in position to win the game.
Foreign intrigue
Surely no team had more players participating in international competition last summer than South Carolina. Five Gamecocks played overseas
The five were Maik Kotsar (Estonian National Team), Felipe Haase (Chilean National team), Justin Minaya (USA East Coast team’s tour of Italy), Alanzo Frink (Dominican Republic’s entry in the FIBA U18 Americas Championships) and A.J. Lawson (Canada’s entry in the FIBA U18 event).