The SEC race is difficult to project in the murky middle of the league standings, remaining fairly wide open after Kentucky (6-0), Florida (5-0) and South Carolina (4-0) have taken the top three spots. Arkansas (3-3) and Texas A&M (1-5) were popular picks to come next, but both teams have been inconsistent to this point. Could Avery Johnson’s 3-1 Alabama squad push forward to a top-five finish in league play? It depends. The Crimson Tide are led by the 19th-best defense in college basketball, according to KenPom, but their anemic offense ranks second-worst among SEC teams and is among the bottom half nationally (189th).

Avery Johnson would be happy to score easy buckets however he can get them. (Photo by USA Today)

In order to make that leap, Johnson’s club needs to find all the easy scoring it can get. The Tide turn the ball over on more than 20 percent of their possessions, shoot very poorly from the outside (31.4% 3FG) and rank a lowly 315th nationally in free throw percentage (64.0% FT). Those weaknesses are unlikely to improve much at this point, but one area where Alabama was effective in its loss to Florida last week was on baseline out of bounds plays (BLOBs). In this edition of Freeze Frame, we dive into the quick-hitters that Alabama uses to find easy points under the basket.  Read the rest of this entry »

Every league has teams that are more talented than those fighting to stay out of the cellar yet not quite poised to challenge for a spot at the top of the standings. Some of the squads situated in that position are rising programs looking to take another step forward. Some are programs rebooting to attempt to recapture past success. What they all have in common is the goal of getting into the conference’s upper echelon and contention for an NCAA Tournament bid. On Friday, we published capsules on the SEC’s bottom tier of teams (#14-#10). Today we tackle the middle tier.

AT A GLANCE

#9 Alabama Crimson Tide

Avery Johnson has a long way to go to get anywhere near Nick Saban, but he has Alabama basketball headed in the right direction (Credit: AL.com)

• 2015-16 overall record (SEC) 18-15 (8-10)
• Key Returnee: Shannon Hale 10.8 PPG, 2.9 RPG
• Key Newcomer: Braxton Key 6’8″ forward
• Team Analysis: Avery Johnson’s initial season has to be viewed as a success. Energy was restored to the program and the team was surprisingly in contention for an NCAA Tournament bid down the home stretch. The loss of Retin Obasohan makes a repeat of last season’s performance, however, a tall task. The return of Shannon Hale and the presence of a healthy Dazon Ingram gives the Tide a nucleus upon which to build. Johnson will have to coax significant production from freshman Braxton Key and Memphis transfer Nick King to match or surpass last season’s record.
• Burning Question: Can Avery Johnson maintain the early momentum he has created in Tuscaloosa? Avery Johnson has rekindled interest in basketball at Alabama — no small feat at a football-mad school. His first team performed better than expected and he has significantly elevated the program’s profile on the recruiting trail. The trick now is to maintain the interest that has been manufactured and continue to improve the roster’s talent level. Early indications from the classes of ’17 and ’18 indicate the recruiting piece will be covered. Making Coleman Coliseum a winter destination for the Tide faithful will be much easier if Johnson continues to haul in quality talent.

#8 Ole Miss Rebels

• 2015-16 overall record (SEC) 20-12 (10-8)
• Key Returnee: Sebastian Saiz 11.7 PPG., 8.7 RPG
• Key Newcomer: Deandre Burnett 6’2″ guard
• Team Analysis: Andy Kennedy‘s program has been a model of consistency for several years. The Rebels are perennial 20-plus game winners and find themselves entrenched in the top half of the conference. With the departure of all-SEC star Stefan Moody, though, meeting those standards might be difficult this season. Sebastian Saiz provides some inside punch and transfer Cullen Neal will bring some experience in the backcourt, but the development of Donte Fitzpatrick-Dorsey will be a key to this team’s success.
• Burning Question: Can Andy Kennedy strike jump-shooting gold again? It seems as if Ole Miss is always able to find a gunslinger through the transfer market. Over the last four seasons, Rebel transfers such as Marshall Henderson and Stefan Moody lit up scoreboards across the SEC. Kennedy now turns to Deandre Burnett in the hopes of capturing similar magic. While 20 points per night might be a bit ambitious, 15 PPG from Burnett would go a long way toward pushing the Rebels’ win total near its customary number of 20 or more.

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1. One of the more controversial aspects of the NCAA suspending a coach is that he is not allowed to directly communicate with his assistants or players during the suspension. That does not mean that the coach cannot speak publicly about the team and make whatever observations he wants to listeners. For example, Jim Boeheim, who is currently serving part of a nine-game suspension, is still allowed to talk on the radio (or any other medium) and his assistants and players can listen (like he did here). The only stipulation to this is that the assistants and coaches are not supposed to be doing anything different than before meaning that they are only supposed to listen if they listened before. Obviously, this is essentially impossible to enforce, which has led to some of the NCAA’s critics to point it out as another ridiculous way the NCAA works. That may be true, but there is no way around it since the NCAA can’t prevent an individual from speaking publicly and if they did there would be an even bigger uproar.
2. Avery Johnson’s first season as a college basketball coach just got a lot tougher as Alabama announced that freshman starting point guard Dazon Ingram will miss the rest of the season after fracturing his left foot. Ingram, who helped lead the Tide to a 5-2 start, was averaging 7.7 points, a team-leading 5.9 rebounds, a team-leading 3.3 assists, and 1.1 steals per game. With Ingram out, Alabama is expected to use a point guard by committee. Alabama wasn’t going to contend for the SEC title, but they did have a couple of nice early wins (against Wichita State and Notre Dame).
3. We are hesitant to say that Kentucky is struggling when they are still one of the top teams in the country, but that are not at the point that many observers expected them to be at this point in the season. This is probably more a reflection of the unrealistic expectation on them than actual underachievement, but help might be on the way in the form of Tai Wynyard. The 6’9″ freshman from New Zealand is set to enroll on December 18 and he could be able to play as early as their game against Louisville on December 26 although John Calipari is not ruling out the possibility that he could redshirt.
4. This week’s edition of the Power Rankings, Luke Winn looks at his usual variety of data (apparently no themes yet this year), but the thing that jumped out at us was just how effective Michigan State was at off-dribble jumpers. As Luke points out, these are usually much less effective than catch-and-shoot jumpers, but through ten games this season the Spartans are making them at a remarkably high clip. However, as last season’s data shows this is extremely unusual, which would seem to indicate that they should be experience a return to a more normal range pretty soon.
5. Former Connecticut star Tate George is being sentenced this week for his role in a $7 million Ponzi scheme. George, who is best known for hitting a last-second buzzer-beater in the 1990 Sweet 16 against Clemson (to get the Huskies to the Elite 8 where Christian Laettner hit his “other” Elite 8 buzzer-beater), has been in prison without bail since his conviction more than two years ago and will be representing himself after firing two of his lawyers. George faces up to nine years in prison if he is convicted on all counts. At the hearing, George claimed there was no crime because the investors could get all their money back if the projects become successful. Somehow we doubt that argument will work.