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Regular Q&A articles have become part of the basketball coverage, and with the season just a few weeks away it’s time to answer your burning questions before the season tips. These questions have come from our Full Court Press basketball message board, and if you’re a subscriber who has a question to ask you can head there now. If you want to become a member, it’s a great time to join.
Let’s get into it.
GatorGolfer4: The Gators will likely be ranked as the preseason #1 team, but what is their biggest weakness in your opinion?
First of all, I think it is safe to say the Gators will be the preseason number one team as enough national media types have already stated with certainty that they’ll have the Gators at the top. It’s so unbelievably rare to have this much continuity, and even if some voters don’t actually think the Gators are number one they’ll still expect the floor to be so high that there is no way ranking them number one could ever look bad.
The thing with the amount of continuity that the Gators have is that there aren’t going to be clear upgrades in the areas of weakness last year as there aren’t a bunch of new pieces to address issues. For that reason, I think the weaknesses will once again be shooting and first shot offense. The Gators were 315th in the country in three-point percentage last year and 230th in attempts, so they were clearly not very good in that area and it’s not like they brought in a bunch of elite shooters. Denzel Aberdeen, assuming eligibility, will help Florida’s shooting, but can that make Florida go from a bad three-point shooting team to one good enough that it won’t be seen as a weakness? Domen Petrovic is another player that will help the shooting, but will he be on the floor enough for that shooting skill to tangibly change Florida’s shooting outlook?
Really, Florida changing this weakness would need to come from internal improvement, particularly from Boogie Fland and Alex Condon. Looking at it from a glass half full standpoint…it’s not really like these guys could shoot any worse. 24% and 17% seems about as bad as things could possibly get, so even if there isn’t mechanical improvement or health improvement from Fland there could be some positive regression, and if these guys did improve their stroke there is all kinds of room for improvement.
The Gators as a team still need to get better with their first shot offense, something that hurt them in the NCAA Tournament when the lights were brightest and your biggest issues always seem to be spotlighted. Throughout the season their offensive issues were papered over by offensive rebounding. And it doesn’t matter how you score–so even if you miss three times and get the rebound every time, it still counts–but in a one-and-done scenario you might not be able to get every miss like you do in the regular season and when that’s the case you need to be efficient with your first look, and I do think Florida’s coaching staff will need to scheme up some better plans for getting efficient first looks without having to rely on the offensive rebounding assault, even though that offensive rebound dominance will win a lot of games in a lot of settings.
OklahomaGator: I counted 7 seniors/5th year players on the roster. Are we the oldest team in the NCAA?
They’ll be close, though the answer to this question ends up being a bit subjective. KenPom tracks “average D-1 experience,” which was originally implemented as a good way to talk about age when so many players started to take postgrad years and enter college as old as possible. However, that “average” is going to be heavily impacted by guys at the end of the bench, which isn’t functionally what people are talking about when they think about a team being old or not–they’re thinking about the rotation.
Scanning rosters, I do think there are a few that won’t really have any freshmen or sophomores and the Gators even have a few of those with CJ Ingram and Alex Lloyd, so I don’t know, I am guessing that *technically* there are going to be some teams that are older than the Gators by average age, or average D-1 experience, but functionally the Gators are going to have one of if not the oldest team in college basketball.
There wasn’t a way to check this reliably, but I’d also have to imagine the Gators would be up there, if not number one, in terms of NCAA Tournament experience and games played. Which I would think matters.
For some reference, last year the oldest team in college basketball by KenPom’s average D-1 experience was Indiana, whose rotation was 3 fifth-year guys, 3 fourth-year guys, 2 third-year guys, and 1 true freshman. I’ll let you decide if Florida’s construction warrants being considered older than that as a reference to last year’s rosters, and we’ll see who comes in as old this season.
NorthernGator: Who are your top 5 preseason teams in the SEC?
Very appreciative of you asking for just the top 5, as sorting through the entire league is always difficult:
Here is my preseason top five:
- Florida
- Tennessee
- Texas
- Vanderbilt
- Alabama
Tennessee is one of the most interesting teams in the country to me after they loaded up with a ton of offensive talent in the transfer portal. Like, an absolute ton. So, on one hand, I feel there is a chance they continue to play their regular dominant defensive style of play but now have a ton of offensive firepower, and if they defend like they regularly do but now have an actual offensive attack, they might win a National Championship. However, a lot of those offensive pieces don’t guard well, so does that take away from their identity? I am fascinated to see.
Texas is another team that really loaded up in the portal, and I am not really sure if I think the pieces fit well together, but it’s so much talent on paper that I think they warrant a top three.
Vanderbilt is nowhere near as talented as the teams above them, but they brought back Tyler Tanner who I absolutely loved and did improve their talent from a year ago. I still think what they did last season was absolutely remarkable and on one hand I feel like it was a bit of lightning in a bottle and I’m unsure if they can recreate it, but they did improve the talent level and that makes me think they could be incredible again this year though the floor seems low.
Alabama is another “do more with less” team that continues to put up tremendous results relative to their talent level. Their big portal acquisition was a stretch big named Drew Fielder who I am not totally bought in on, but he brings the Alabama offense a different type of weapon, and they also have some more size around him than we’ve been used to seeing. It should be a really interesting year.
Yes, you do not see Arkansas or Kentucky in my top five, but they are certainly in the mix with their huge NIL expenditures.
NorthernGator: What is LSU going to do with their roster??
If you haven’t been following it, Will Wade is back at LSU and he went out on a limb to try and get some overseas pros with highly dubious eligibility situations on the roster. Wade, already somewhat unpopular across the country due to his history of using NIL…before it was legal, has no issue playing the villain and he is challenging the NCAA’s eligibility rules like no one else.
Already a few of his pieces have been deemed ineligible, but we still wait on a number of others.
This has made for a somewhat hilarious situation. If you want, go to the LSU basketball website and look at their roster. Seriously.
There are currently 4 players listed.
That’s because they are waiting on eligibility for about eight other names, and many are European pros who would be absolutely dominant in college basketball. A few others are 5th year college basketball players, such as former UCLA player Donovan Dent.
It was a big swing. Will Wade literally went out and said “I am going to get every 23 year old overseas pro and 5th year guy with dubious eligibility, and if I get them all we are going to win a championship.” This is the piece that I don’t think people realize–the European players he went after are incredible. Now, the best of those have already been ruled ineligible, but still the remaining guys are very, very good.
So, this is where things land with LSU–either they are going to get most of these players eligible, and they are going to compete for an SEC and NCAA Championship, or probably most won’t and they are literally going to be without a full roster and will be an absolute disaster. I guess there is a middle ground where some of these players get eligible and others don’t, but many of them are in essentially the same boat, so I don’t really see it being a clean split where roughly half of them get eligibility. It makes ranking LSU nearly impossible, as their ceiling is incredibly high and their floor is incredibly low, all based on what the rulings are. So, tough to say.
This was part one of the Q&A, but there will be more segments where I answer as many of your questions as possible, so keep posting them in the Full Court Press message board.