The Rebound's SEC Preview

Can we trust Kentucky's point guard play? Is Tennessee really good enough to get to a Final Four? What do we make of Jahvon Quinerly this year? Can Florida or LSU make the leap?

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THREE THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW

1. TENNESSEE IS TALENTED ENOUGH TO WIN TITLES, PLURAL

Perhaps my hottest SEC take is that Tennessee is not only the best team in the conference this season, but they are legitimately good enough to win a national title if things break their way.

There are a couple of reasons for this. I’m going to start with the big guys.

I know this is going to sound strange, but I’m going to say it anyway: John Fulkerson was the best big man in the SEC for a stretch late in the season. He finished the year averaging 13.7 points and 5.9 boards. Those numbers were 15.1 points and 6.1 boards in SEC play. In the final 10 games of the conference season, he went for 22-or-more points four times — the only times he’s hit for 20 in his career — and reached double-figures in nine of those 10 games. And I’d make the argument that he is actually the second-most important frontcourt piece on Rick Barnes’ roster. To me, Yves Pons is the best and most versatile defender in the country, a guy that can legitimately guard 1-through-5 while making step-in threes. Throw in E.J. Anosike, a transfer from Sacred Heart that the staff is fond of, and the Vols have versatility, size and toughness upfront.

They also have it in the backcourt.

This is where things get really interesting. Rick Barnes landed a pair of five-star recruits in this class in Keon Johnson and Jaden Springer, both of whom are projected as potential one-and-done candidates. The staff loves Johnson. NBA draftniks love Springer. Both of them are athletic, 6-foot-5 scorers that can get to the rim and should be ready for the physicality of the SEC from Day 1. They’ll be joined by Josiah-Jordan James, another versatile and athletic 6-foot-6, as well as Oregon transfer Victor Bailey, who averaged 7.4 points for the Ducks. If one of Johnson or Springer lift up to those lofty expectations, that’s a group that will allow Barnes to use a lot of different looks. I’m already salivating thinking about the Vols playing lineups that including Johnson, Springer, James and Pons as the 2-through-5.

But then there is the point guard spot. I’m not going to try and sugarcoat it. Santiago Vescovi had a rough go of things as a freshman. In SEC play, he finished with 67 assists and 67 turnovers in 18 games. That’s not going to get it done, but it is important to note that not only was he a freshman, but he was a freshman that landed in Knoxville from Uruguay in between semesters and was immediately thrust in to the starting lineup because of the injury that Lamonte Turner suffered. That context makes the fact that he averaged 10.8 points pretty impressive. There has to be a leap coming there.

But all of those things together, and for my money, the Vols have the best, the most complete and the most versatile top eight in the SEC.

2. KEYONTAE JOHNSON IS THE BEST PLAYER YOU’VE NEVER HEARD OF IN THE SEC

A 6-foot-5 combo-forward with a wingspan of roughly 11-feet and the ability to play as either a three or a four, Keyontae Johnson was a first-team All-SEC player a season ago with a very real chance to play his way into winning the league’s Player of the Year award if Florida is able to out-perform expectation this season.

And I honestly don’t think I’m overstating it there.

Look, forward drastically disappointed last season. After the commitment of Kerry Blackshear, a grad transfer from Virginia Tech, the Gators were jettisoned into the preseason top ten and crowned a national title favorite. They finished the season 19-12 overall with an 11-7 mark in league play. They were good. They were decidedly not title contenders of any kind.

That left a bad taste for a lot of people that were expecting something more. This year, however, it does feel like there’s a chance the market could overcorrect. There’s two reasons I feel that way beyond the presence of Johnson on this roster:

1. Scottie Lewis and Tre Mann are both going to be sophomores. Part of the reason that Florida as so hyped heading into last season was their presence on the roster, and neither of them lived up to that hype. That’s a simple fact, and there’s a reason that the saying goes “the best thing about freshmen is that they become sophomores.”

2. Andrew Nembhard transferred out of the program. Look, I don’t want to slander the kid because I do think that he’s a good player and that he found a much better fit at Gonzaga, but he was not the answer at the point last season. Nembhard is not the most fleet-a-foot player we’ve seen come through Gainesville, and if there is one thing that most of the folks in the twittersphere believe about Mike White as a coach it’s that he needs to get back to his running-and-gunning roots.

With more athletics guards in his backcourt, a pair of forward in Lewis and Johnson are are super-athletic and excellent defensively, and a center in Omar Payne that is much better defensively than Blackshear, it feels like this is the roster that can bring that style of play back.

And if it does, there sure is a lot to like about Florida.

Most notably, my guy Keyontae.

3. AUBURN IS GOING TO BE YOUNG

One of the risks of building rosters around one-and-done freshmen is that sometimes those freshmen go elsewhere. That happened with Auburn this offseason when Jalen Green, a potential top three pick in the 2021 NBA Draft, opted to head to the G League Pathway Program instead of enrolling at Auburn.

The other risk?

That your hidden gem ends up being too valuable. That happened with Isaac Okoro, a top 40 recruit that could end up being a top five pick in this year’s draft. Without either of those two players on the roster, things are going to be pretty dicey for Bruce Pearl’s club.

Sharife Cooper is a talented freshman that should thrive in a system that turned the likes of J’Von McCormick, Samir Doughty and Jared Harper into upper-echelon SEC point guards. And I am bullish on the trio of Devan Cambridge, Allen Flanigan and Jaylin Williams. They are built in the mold of a Pearl player.

But they’re also sophomores that combine to average 9.8 points last season. All today, Auburn is returning just 14.3 points-per-game from a team that went 25-6 last year but was projected as a five-seed after finishing 12-6 in a down SEC.

It’s going to be a bumpy road for the Tigers, especially early on.

THREE THINGS WE NEED TO FIND OUT

1. JUST WHAT DOES OLIVIER SARR BRING TO KENTUCKY?

We are used to John Calipari turning over his roster on an annual basis, but this year’s roster is going to be as new as any roster in his tenure. The only returning player off of the 2019-20 team that saw any meaningful time is Keion Brooks, a backup forward that averaged a whopping 4.5 points. Unlike the 2012-13 season, the last time we saw this much turnover, Kentucky is not coming off of a national title.

Now, I’m bullish on this team despite their newness. Part of the reason is because of a pair of grad transfers at cornerstone positions — I’ll get to that, I promise — but the biggest reason is the presence of a half-dozen wildly-athletic, positionally-versatile, 6-foot-6ish wings that should, in theory, make this team a defensive juggernaut. B.J. Boston has gotten plenty of offseason hype for his ability as a bucket-getter, and rightfully so, while Terrence Clarke and Brooks should be able to defend any position 1-through-4 while providing significant contributions on the offensive end of the floor.

And then you factor in the likes of Cam’Ron Fletcher, and Dontaie Allen, and Jacob Toppin. None of those guys are looking at jumping to the league next year. All of those guys have the kind of physical tools to do a job on a team that is going to be wreaking havoc defensively.

I’m not worried about any of those guys or the job they will be asked to do on Kentucky this year.

I’m going to save the discussion about point guards for the Power Rankings section of this piece, and instead just dive head first into Olivier Sarr. A 7-foot center that averaged 13.7 points and 9.0 boards for Wake Forest last season, Sarr was just last week cleared to play this season. What he brings to the table is what Cal looks for in his bigs. He’s an elite vertical-spacer that can protect the rim, hit the glass and move his feet enough on the perimeter that he should be an impact defender. It’s not hard to see the parallels between Sarr and Nick Richards.

Those parallels extend beyond the physical tools, however. Sarr was the centerpiece of a Wake Forest team that was shitty enough to get their head coach fired in the throes of a pandemic despite the fact that his buyout could just about cover two years of the NBA’s mid-level exception. He was exceptional in some games. He was a ghost in others. Guys with his tools should be in the NBA by the time they’re seniors. If they aren’t, there’s usually a reason.

For Richards, that reason had as much to do with confidence and self-belief as anything else. Once he had that, he thrived.

And if Coach Cal can get that same level of consistent effort out of Sarr, he should be the anchor inside that Kentucky so desperately needed.

2. CAN LSU GET STOPS?

They certainly couldn’t last season.

The Tigers finished as the most dynamic offense that Will Wade has ever coached in 2019-20, finishing fourth-nationally in adjusted offensive efficiency, according to KenPom. They also happened to be the worst defensive team that Wade has coached since he left Chattanooga back in 2015, finishing 179th in adjusted defensive efficiency. That was one spot behind North Carolina A&T and two spots behind Jackson State.

Virginia, they are not.

The thing about this year’s roster is that despite losing Skylar Mays, they should be just as dangerous offensively. Javonte Smart is back for what feels like his 17th strong-ass season, while Trendon Watford is precisely the kind of floor-spacing four that you’d expect out of a team that puts up a ton of points and can’t seem to guard anyone. Cam Thomas has been an absolute bucket every step of the way in his high school career, and I would expect nothing less from the five-star recruit as a freshman. Throw in a trio of high-major transfers — Georgetown’s Josh LeBlanc, UCLA’s Shareef O’Neal, Washington’s Bryan Penn-Johnson — and there is talent on this roster.

Enough talent that the Tigers will be a dangerous team. They should find themselves in and around the top 25 all year long.

And IF they can guard, we’re looking at a team that could make another run at finishing in the top two in the league title race. That’s a pretty big if, though.

3. CAN JAHVON QUINERLY FILL KIRA LEWIS’ SHOES?

I’ve written about it here, but I really do believe that Kira Lewis is one of the most underrated players in this year’s draft class. The impact of his loss is something that is going to be overlooked for Alabama this year. Not only was he wildly talented and a perfect fit for the way Nate Oats wants to play, but he was a sophomore the age of a freshman. He’s going to be very good in the NBA.

Now, before we get into the rest of this, a quick note about Alabama: Nate Oats has gone full Morey-ball. He wants to run, he wants to get shots up as quick as he can and he wants those shots to be nothing up threes and layups. Lewis was perfect for this system because of how fast he is. In theory, this year’s starting point guard — former five-star recruit Jahvon Quinerly — is perfect as well.

Quinerly doesn’t have the same level of sprinter speed that Lewis did, but he’s just as dynamic in transition. Part of the reason he struggled to get into the rotation at Villanova was because of how rigid and controlled their system is. He needs freedom. Oats will give him that. But freedom is not a good thing if the player is not good enough to do the job. For what it’s worth, sources on that staff have told me that Quinerly was the best player in practice for Alabama, which is just about the most cliché thing that can possibly be said by a basketball coach in the offseason.

So we shall see.

Because if Quinerly is good, the rest of this roster is really interesting. Jaden Shackelford and John Petty are big time shooters on the wings. Herb Jones is the quintessential do-it-all-except-shoot wing. Yale transfer Jordan Bruner was a top 150 recruit coming out of high school that will be an immediate impact player — if healthy — at the five because of his size, his rebounding, his ability to protect the rim and the fact that he can shoot it and pass it. Alex Reese is a very real pick-and-pop threat. Josh Primo is a top 50 recruit that is very much built in this mold.

If Quinerly is back to his JellyFam best, Alabama might just be a top 20 team.

PRESEASON SEC PLAYER OF THE YEAR: B.J. Boston, Kentucky

I think that Boston is going to end up being the best player on Kentucky this season. A lithe, 6-foot-8 wing, he’s the one guy on the Wildcat roster that I think has the ability to be a go-to scorer on this roster, and I would expect him to be used in a way that is similar to what John Calipari did with Kevin Knox.

That said, I do think that Boston is more talented than Knox. There’s some Brandon Ingram in his game, and while I’m not sure that he has quite the same upside, there’s enough there to make me believe he’ll be the leading scorer for a top ten team that is, at worst, 1b. in the SEC this season.

THE REST OF THE ALL-SEC FIRST TEAM

• KEON JOHNSON, Tennessee: Everything that I hear coming out of Knoxville is that Johnson has looked incredible, that he has the potential to end up being the best player on the roster and a top ten pick in the 2021 NBA Draft. We’ll see how he adjusts, but I’ll call my shot here.

• KEYONTAE JOHNSON, Florida: We talked about him earlier, but I feel the need to add one more thing: This is the last time you’ll hear me refer to him as Keyontae. From this point on, he will either be called Chianti Johnson or, simply, Vino.

• TRENDON WATFORD, LSU: I have little doubt that Watford is going to be one of the most dangerous scorers in the SEC this season. If he wasn’t such a concern on the defensive end, he might be the Player of the Year.

• OLIVIER SARR, Kentucky: Nick Richards was in the conversation for SEC Player of the Year last season. If we’re projecting Sarr to be something of a Richards clone, than shouldn’t he be in the mix for first-team All-SEC?

FIVE MORE NAMES TO KNOW

• JADEN SHACKELFORD, Alabama

• TERRENCE CLARKE, Kentucky

• SCOTTIE LEWIS, Florida

• YVES PONS, Tennessee

• JOHN FULKERSON, Tennessee

BREAKOUT STAR: Scottie Lewis, Florida

I’m still buying Scottie Lewis stock. The offense is going to come around eventually, and he’s just such an impressive athlete and defender, that it’s hard for me to imagine a scenario where he doesn’t come good at some point. The key, however, may end up being the pace at which Florida decides to play. If they are a half-court, possession-by-possession team like they were last season, it will be tough. If they decide to get out and run the way White did at Louisiana Tech, then Lewis will be perfectly-suited to the style of play.

COACH UNDER PRESSURE: Mike White, Florida

Believe it or not, Mike White is heading into his sixth season as the head coach of the Gators a program that won a pair of national titles and had established themselves as one of the SEC’s premier programs under Billy Donovan. He’s reached four NCAA tournaments in those five years, but he hasn’t exactly impressed in his time in Gainesville. Florida has underachieved compared to expectation in the last three seasons. White’s record over those five seasons: 108-65 overall and 54-36 in the SEC. He had just one year where he didn’t lose double-digit games — when Florida went 27-9 in 2016-17, including a trip to the Elite Eight.

Now, let me be clear here.

I am not saying Mike White is on the hot seat.

He’s not.

But at some point, he has to start racking up the wins and competing for SEC titles

ON SELECTION SUNDAY WE’LL BE SAYING …

There is a very real chance that both Tennessee and Kentucky can get to the Final Four. Can you believe how much talent is on those two roster?

I’M MOST EXCITED ABOUT …

The race for the SEC title between Tennessee and Kentucky. For my money, this will be the most exciting league title race in the country.

POWER RANKINGS

TIER 1 (favorites)

1a. TENNESSEE

1b. KENTUCKY

It’s close. I tend to lean towards Tennessee here. I trust the point guard play more at this point, and there is more proven talent on the Vol roster. That said, Kentucky probably has the best player out of the two rosters in B.J. Boston.

For me, at this point, the tie-breaker is Kentucky’s point guard situation. They are heading into the season with two guys that are going to be asked to carry the load: Devin Askew and Davion Mintz. Askew is a top 30 prospect that reclassified from the Class of 2021 to enroll a year early. That’s a tough thing to do for all non-Zion recruits, especially for a point guard that is going to be asked to step into a major role. Duke did this with Derrick Thornton back in 2015-16 and it did not go great.

Then there is Mintz. If we’re assuming that Askew is a guy that can play the point at a high-level for 25-30 minutes a night, Mintz is fine as a backup point guard. But if he’s being asked to be the guy that carries the load, that’s worrisome. It doesn’t change the fact that Kentucky is a top ten team that can win a national title, but it does keep me from going all-in.

TIER 2 (contenders)

3. ALABAMA: I’m in on this Alabama team if you assume that Jahvon Quinerly can play anywhere near the expectation that he had coming out of high school. They have shooters, they have versatile frontcourt pieces, they have a guy in Herb Jones that provides some toughness and defense. But if Quinerly isn’t able to push the pace the way Nate Oats wants, it’s going to be nearly impossible to crack the top two.

4. LSU: The talent is there for the Tigers. The question is if the defense is going to be there this year. I’m not sure what else there is to say.

5. FLORIDA: If Florida plays at the pace that I’ve been pining for, then I really do believe they have a chance to compete with Tennessee and Kentucky. I’m just not convinced that Mike White views things the way I view things.

TIER 3 (tournament tier)

6. AUBURN: There are myriad reasons to question this Auburn team. They’re young, they aren’t all that deep and there isn’t much in the way of proven talent. Their star freshmen are more like 2-3 year college guys than one-and-done lottery picks. That said, Bruce Pearl is one of those coaches where I tend to trust him to figure something out.

7. ARKANSAS: The Razorbacks are an Eric Musselman special again this year. The program adds 10 newcomers, six of whom are transfers. Some of those transfers are pretty good, namely Jalen Tate, Justin Smith and Vance Jackson. The problem is that I’m not convinced any of these guys are necessarily good enough to be stars at the SEC level, and with Isaiah Joe and Mason Jones both gone, I’m not sure who there is that opposing coaches are going to be afraid of.

If there is someone, it’s probably Moses Moody, a 6-foot-5 shooter that should be more than willing to get up all the jumpers that are going to be vacated with Joe off to the league.

TIER 4 (talking myself into them tier)

8. SOUTH CAROLINA: The Gamecocks feel like the same story year in and year out: Picked to finish near the bottom of the league, figure out how to be elite defensively, finish somewhere in the middle of the pack which is enough to get credit for outperforming expectations but not quite enough to really matter nationally.

I think this year could end up being different. Frank Martin’s backcourt has a chance to be one of his best, with A.J. Lawson and Jermaine Cousinard being joined by Seventh Woods. Keyshawn Bryant is an absolutely electric athlete, and without Maik Kotsar, the Gamecocks should end up being able to play faster. So I’m in on them.

Think about it like this: South Carolina has not had a team finish in the top 90 in adjusted efficiency on KenPom in Martin’s tenure, but in the last six years they’ve had just one season where they didn’t win at least 10 games in SEC play and reached the 2017 Final Four.

9. OLE MISS: Ole Miss has a chance this year. I’m getting pretty strong tournament vibes from this group. It starts with Devontae Shuler, who should be able to step into a starring role with Breein Tyree and Blake Hinson gone. Throw in Jarkel Joiner and Dimencio Vaughn, transfers from Cal St.-Bakersfield and Rider, respectively, and you have a pretty good backcourt to work with. Where this team gets really interesting is up front. Khadim Sy has been around forever, and he should be a more-than-adequate backup to Romello White, a grad transfer from Arizona State that immediately upgrades Kermit Davis’ frontcourt.

10. TEXAS A&M: What you need to know here is that Buzz Williams is the head coach at Texas A&M. Where he goes, success follows. In his first season in College Station, he led the Aggies to a 10-8 record in SEC play despite a disastrous start to the season. The pieces on this roster don’t fit perfectly — in a vacuum, I like Savion Flagg, Quenton Jackson and Kevin Marfo — but without a proven point guard or anything resembling a go-to scorer, it’s hard to imagine too much improvement on the offensive end; they ranked 203rd nationally in adjusted offensive efficiency last year.

But Buzz always seems to find a way. I’ll bet on it happening again.

TIER 5 (the other guys)

11. MISSOURI: I’m going to need to see it before I believe it with these Tigers, but the potential is there. The backcourt trio of Xavier Pinson, Dru Smith and Mark Smith is pretty solid, while Jeremiah Tilmon is a useable five man. I want to be into this group more than I am, but I’m just not sure who Cuonzo Martin can trust to fill out the rest of that roster.

12. GEORGIA: Everyone knew that Anthony Edwards was going to leave Georgia after one season, but what has really hurt the start of Tom Crean’s tenure in Athens is losing the like of Rayshaun Hammonds and Nic Claxton earlier than expected. Those are the kind of losses that set a coach back one or two years. This season, there are some solid transer additions. Justin Kier was really good in 2018-19 with George Mason before dealing with an injury last year, and P.J. Horne is a really useful stretch four. I like Sahvir Wheeler at the point, but there just isn’t the high-level talent on this roster that’s needed to battle in a league this competitive.

13. MISSISSIPPI STATE: The Bulldogs lose their top four players from last year’s squad, and three of them — Reggie Perry, Robert Woodard and Nick Weatherspoon — left with eligibility remaining. That’s a really difficult thing to overcome when you’re not recruiting at the level that Kentucky, or Tennessee, or LSU is. I like Iverson Molinar and D.J. Stewart, and Ben Howland did land a couple of decent transfers, but this team just does not look like it will be good enough to get out of the bottom half of the league.

TIER 6 (vanderbilt tier)

14. VANDERBILT: Vanderbilt was the worst offensive team in the SEC last season, and they lost Aaron Nesmith and Saben Lee. Should I mention they were worse defensively than they were offensively?