The SEC rolled out the red carpet for the media on Wednesday as part of #SECTipoff15 in Charlotte, North Carolina. The league’s basketball campaign may have kicked off in the heart of ACC country, but geographic proximity to the nation’s top college basketball conference did not detract from placing SEC basketball at the center of attention here. Rush the Court was there, well, when we weren’t searching for more of those delicious chicken biscuits from the breakfast spread. Here are the three key takeaways from a fun and interesting day of talking college basketball and hitting the buffet line.
1) Platoon system – The word of the day was platoon. Of course, Kentucky coach John Calipari set the tone by talking about how and why he would implement two separate five-man squads to achieve better team chemistry among the 10 or 11 players he plans on putting on the court this season. On advice from other coaches, Calipari admitted that “most of them think I’m crazy,” but he further explained that he is considering the switch to allow players to become comfortable playing with the same group.
Several other coaches ended up talking about platooning as well, whether they wanted to or not. When I asked Arkansas coach Mike Anderson if he would implement a platoon system to spread out playing time for his deep bench, I’m fairly certain he had no idea what I was talking about. But Ole Miss coach Andy Kennedy definitely understood. “I won’t be platooning,” he quipped, adding that “I need to have Drake come introduce me,” referring to Calipari’s showmanship during Big Blue Madness. While the platoon system is at the forefront of conversation in the presason, Calipari insinuated that he may not use it during the entire season. “If someone separates themselves, they will play more. It’s not communism.” Platooning, and more specifically Calipari’s substitution patterns throughout the year, figure to be a key storyline throughout this SEC basketball season.
2) Bruce Pearl returns – Bruce Pearl drew quite a crowd from the media, bringing excitement and energy back to the SEC, and of course, to the Auburn program. So far, Pearl likes what he sees in his team. “The attitudes have been great. We’re training like we’re supposed to train. And then when we play Wisconsin-Milwaukee that first night in front of a sell out crowd on ESPNU, we’ll find out where we’re at. And regardless of where we’re at, we’ll just work on getting better. It’s really going to be a building process. It’s going to be one game at a time. And these guys have faith in me, and I have faith in them. And we’ll find out.”
It’s good to have Pearl back in the SEC, but don’t expect him to break out the old orange blazer when Auburn travels to Tennessee to play in Thompson-Boling Arena on January 31. “I wore that jacket for Coach [Ray] Mears and to recognize the history and tradition of Tennessee basketball. There’s no chance I would wear that jacket now. That’s not for me any longer to do that.” But he didn’t rule out painting his chest orange, so be prepared.
3) The strength of the conference – Seth Greenberg mentioned that he thinks six SEC schools could make the NCAA Tournament at the end of the year. Conventional wisdom among the media says that number is too high, but the coaches thought it might be close to reality. Kennedy reminded everyone that “Kentucky lost seven times to SEC opponents and played for the national title” last season.
The coaches maintained that the SEC is better than it’s given credit for, with South Carolina head coach Frank Martin ranting about the lack of respect the league receives. “Tennessee beat Virginia last year like a drum. That didn’t help them or our league. Arkansas beat Northwestern and … Baylor. No one ever brought that up for our league. That’s what makes me uncomfortable with this whole voice out there on our conference. We don’t do enough. We don’t win enough. They can have their opinion. I don’t lose sleep over it. It just bothers me that there’s coaches that have the kind of success that I just read off.” The Razorbacks’ head man, Anderson, agreed, saying, “our league, as much as it was undervalued last year, people will see that we have a good league this year.”