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SEC non-conference competition
One of the big knocks on the SEC last season was that their nonconference scheduling was very poor, which showed when only three teams entered into the NCAA Tournament last season. To remedy that, the conference has hired former Big East commissioner Mike Tranghese to be Special Advisor to the Commissioner. Essentially, his role is to improve the conference’s quality, starting with nonconference scheduling, and he’s doing just that.
South Carolina is a direct victim of such poor scheduling last season. Many speculate the reason why the Gamecocks were on the last four out of the NCAA Tournament was because of their deflated nonconference opponents. This year, they already have improved by scheduling Michigan at home, Syracuse in Barclays Center in Brooklyn and Seton Hall in Madison Square Garden.
Kentucky has probably the most difficult non-conference schedule not only in the SEC, but also in the nation. They play powerhouse teams such as Michigan State, North Carolina, Louisville and Kansas as well as UCLA and Arizona State.
Other notable non-conference games include Georgia at Clemson, Florida at Duke and Arizona at Texas A&M.
Ben Howland
One of the best ways to win in college basketball is to have the top talent in the nation, and for the second straight season, Mississippi State head coach Ben Howland has gathered a top-20 recruiting class. Howland is trying to turn around a program that in 2013 had to have an assistant coach practice with the team because they only had seven scholarship players available. Thirteen out of the 15 players on Howland’s team are underclassman, but that isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
Sophomore guard Quinndary Weatherspoon surprised some teams last year. He scored double digits in 20 games and has improved on that during the Bulldogs’ preseason tour in Italy, scoring 29 and 34 points in two of the games and averaged 23.3 points through all four games. Highly recruited out of high school, sophomore Joe Strugg is coming off a redshirt last season and could be a solid forward.
Past them, this year’s incoming class is loaded, with four players in the ESPN Top-100. Mario Kegler and Schnider Heard will come in and make an immediate impact at small forward and center, positions that Howland desperately needed some depth at.
Even though the talk is that Mississippi State is a year away from really being in contention for the SEC, they have the talent to win some games they should not, all thanks to Howland’s tactics.
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Florida’s program
What was once a nationally feared program under Billy Donovan struggled to compete in a weak SEC last season. They went a meager 21-15 overall and 9-9 in the SEC, and did not perform well in the post-season, losing in the third round of the SEC Tournament to Texas A&M and in the quarterfinals of the NIT to George Washington.
Part of the problem could be attributed to poor recruiting by head coach Mike White and his staff. Before him, Florida always raked in top recruits. Now, the Gators have to rely on transfers as they only have three three-star freshmen coming in and failed to even crack the top 50 in recruiting this year. While College of Charleston transfer Canyon Barry is expected to beef up their offense, he’s still not the caliber of player Florida followers are accustomed to and is a short-term potential solution to a long-term problem.
The Gators do have a stud in sophomore guard KeVaughn Allen, but he will not be enough to lead this team. It looks like Florida will miss out on the Big Dance again, and Mike White’s job will be on the hot seat.
Riley LaChance and Luke Kornet
Both of these players haven’t nearly lived up to the hype. Last year, they were supposed to anchor a Vanderbilt team who was supposed to challenge Kentucky for the SEC championship with a potent offense and scrappy defense. However, the ‘Dores not only lost to a less talented team in the SEC Tournament in their first game, but they also were embarrassed by Wichita State in the NCAA Tournament play-in game.
LaChance, now a junior, was deadly from three-pointers his freshman year, racking up four SEC Freshman of the Week honors as well as being on the SEC All-Freshman Team. Last year, he couldn’t get anything going as teams figured out how one-sided his game was, being benched halfway through the season. Kornet was supposed to dominate the inside on defense and stretch the floor on offense; however, he was almost not an impact on offense, only averaging 8.9 points a game last year as a junior.
While Kornet has been tabbed as Preseason Second Team All-SEC, both he and LaChance will most likely struggle with an increased talent level in the conference as well as adapting to a new head coach in Bryce Drew.