I know there are a handful of OOC games left. Either they don't matter (those involving Depaul) or I am assuming the Big East team will win. Records and NET numbers are as of Noon on 12/14.
1) UConn (11-0, 1 NET) - #1 in NET and KenPom. First six weeks could not have gone any better. The team plays great defense and the offensive is light years ahead of last year. The team has depth and should have some comfortable wins in league play, which should keep everyone fresh for a long season. Beyond continual improvement in all areas, UConn also has to focus on two things: 1) Stay sharp every game because it is the League Title game every time UConn walks on the floor this season, and 2) UConn's goals extend beyond a Big East title. Style points matter because UConn needs to come into March prepared to go to the third weekend. The style points don't just matter to UConn, but to the rest of the country too.
2) Xavier (8-3, 42 NET) – 3 close losses to 3 very good opponents. 13 offense in KenPom, which is very good and 75 defense, which is OK. Miller is still washing the Travis Steele off this team, but his starting 5 (Freemantle, Jones, Nunge, Boum, Kunkel) is as good as any starting 5 in the league, including UConn’s. You can see the impact of having a weak coach like Steele develop these players, because Freemantle and Jones play like guys who always rolled over their coach and did whatever they wanted. Miller has to rein these two in, because they both could be really good. Kunkel has improved a lot and plays like much less of an idiot than he did last year. I have always liked Nunge’s game.
The best player on the team is the transfer Boum. He is a fantastic point guard and just a savvy player. It is interesting that guys like this toil in the wilderness, just waiting for an opportunity. There will be more like him in the Transfer Portal era.
The bench is a problem with this team. Claude, Craft and Hunter are OK, not great, but Miller has to figure out a way to get the starters’ minutes down to keep everyone fresh.
Xavier has a good shot at playing on the second weekend of the Tournament if they can address some of these issues.
3) Marquette (8-3, 33 NET) – 19 KenPom Offense, 62 defense. They have played as well as anyone outside of UConn so far, with three close losses to Top 22 NET teams Purdue, Mississippi State and Wisconsin, and a very good blowout win over Baylor. They have 9 guys that contribute meaningful minutes and most of them score, and their offensive efficiency is great, and Jones and Prosper are very good. I love the way this defense pounces on weak passes and transition to offense in a nanosecond. I also like teams that play unusual styles because they are hard to prepare for, especially in March. I have Marquette 3rd because I like Xavier’s starting lineup more. I think Smart is a year away from having a powerhouse.
4) Creighton (6-5, 48 NET) – 30 offense and 32 defense with KenPom. I don't get where those numbers come from for a 6-5 team that has 5 losses in a row. A team can't build a resume off just quality losses. It has to win sometimes. That said, Arizona and Texas will likely have great seasons, and ASU will be pretty good. Maybe Nebraska surprises and BYU turns things around, Arkansas and Texas Tech have good years, and Creighton looks like a team that scheduled tough, and won some and lost some.
With Kalkbrenner, this is at least the fourth best team in the league. I can’t tell if Nembhard plays out of control all the time or he is playing this way because Kalk is out. Kaluma is overrated. Scheierman is not quick enough to get open when he is the focus of the defense, but with Kalk on the court, or anyone down low, Scheierman will get a lot of open looks. I like King, and McDermott should play King and Kalk together because Kalk can pop out and shoot 3’s. The bench is pretty bad. The biggest challenge is that this team doesn't seem to have that killer instinct that a team needs to go from being pretty good to beating top teams. Creighton is 1-4 in games that were within a possession in the last 2 minutes. Turn that number around, and we are having a very different discussion about Creighton.
Another problem with this team is the 5 game losing streak. Turning that around is a huge coaching challenge. I do think Creighton could go on a run if they can somehow make the tournament.
5) St. Johns (10-1, 69 NET) – St. Johns should have scheduled better. 5 games against teams outside the top 300 is just bad scheduling. Syracuse being terrible wasn’t their fault, but Florida State is a must win now. This will hurt their seeding. Their only loss was to an Iowa State team that got some serious home cooking from the officials.
I like the starting 5. Jones is very good, and Curbelo, Alexander, Soriano and Mathis is a good starting lineup. It is hard to play Anderson’s style without going to the bench more, which probably means the bench is not that good since Anderson is not using them. KenPom AdjD is 33, which is good. The advanced defensive and offensive stats are all solid. Stylistically, I think they overdo it on penetration. Sometimes an open jumper is a good shot, and they got to get defenses to leave the paint. Iowa State had at least 3 defenders with a foot in the paint during most of that game. You don’t expect to see that in D1 men’s basketball.
6) Villanova (5-5, 112 NET) – 5 losses is a problem, especially because some of those losses were to mediocre opponents. 3 of the losses (Temple, Oregon, Portland) were to teams that already have 5 losses themselves. One positive is that KenPom has them with the 12th most efficient offense, and that is with Whitmore only playing 3 games. It is Villanova, so they have some players that can shoot, but the advanced defense stats are pretty bad, with Dixon, Daniels, Arcidiacono and Armstrong all under water on Defense plus/minus. The defensive eFG of 53% is 269 in D1 per KenPom. That is a terrible number. It is hard to pin down exactly what it is, but Neptune reminds me of Travis Steele. He doesn’t project the attitude or behavior of a big time coach. He looks scared on the sidelines, and his players have to see it. Defense is about technique and energy, and confidence, and Villanova’s defensive stats are terrible against mediocre competition. The team doesn’t look like they think they will win.
This team has talent and might shoot its way to a few nice wins, but it has to stop teams or it will go .500 or worse in Big East play and be struggling to make the NIT.
7) Seton Hall (5-4, 90 NET) – They pulled off a miracle win against Memphis and won a rock fight with Rutgers. They got blown out by Iowa, Oklahoma and Kansas, which hurts their computer rankings.
The Hall is the mirror image of Villanova, with good defense (33 in KenPom) and bad offense (113). Watching this team play defense, they are ferocious without fouling. They have great technique and never let up, even off the ball. On offense, they are a mess. How many long contested pullups did they take against Rutgers? 15? That is a lot of wasted possessions against a P6 opponent. They don’t pass the ball well, and their drives are suicide missions into the teeth of the defense.
Holloway is building a mid-major program in the Big East, and it won’t be successful. He can’t play small ball with this team. Richmond, Dawes, Harris and Odukale are taking a lot of shots and they suck at shooting, especially with all the contested shots they take. Holloway needs to implement a traditional low post offense because Samuel, Jackson and Davis are three of the best players on his team, but they are not outside shooters and they are not getting the ball enough. He also needs to turn off the green light on some of the guards' shots.
8) Butler (8-3, 51 NET) – 61 offense, 78 defense, which feels about right. Matta has brought in two transfers, Bates and Hunter, that were needed, because Jordan didn’t leave a lot to work with. Bates could be a second or third team All-Big East if he got the ball more. He is really good, and I am surprised that NC State let him go. I like Taylor. Harris and Lukosius are OK. The bench is not great, and Matta barely uses it at all. He hasn’t coached in a while, and this is how a lot of coaches used to run their teams, but this won’t work for a whole season anymore. Someone will go down if Matta keeps overplaying the starting 5, and when that happens, it will take the NIT completely off the table for the Bulldogs. The weird thing is that the deep stats for Thomas or Hughes are not terrible for bench players. Both should be playing over 20 minutes a game.
This is still not a lot of athleticism on this team, and I think they will really struggle against uptemp styles like St. Johns.
9) Providence (8-3, 100) – Their O/D efficiency numbers (40/112) are not bad, but that doesn’t tell the whole story considering the weak schedule they played. Cooley has been building his teams the last couple of years off mid-major transfers and guys that couldn’t cut it on major conference rosters. He got lucky last year, but this year’s team looks like a team built off mid-major transfers and guys that couldn’t cut it on major conference rosters. PC has played two major conference opponents, and neither game was close, and TCU and Miami are not powerhouses. 7 of their wins are over teams outside the Top 270 in NET. PC’s best win is a 1 point win over Rider. This preseason schedule shouts of a team about to get killed in conference.
Bynum is the only guy that has proven it against good competition, but he seems to have declined dramatically this season. The rest of the team didn’t have much resume coming in and is padding stats against bad opponents. Hopkins or Croswell may be good, or maybe they are the best players on a bottom P6 conference squad and someone has to score.
The only reason PC is even this high is because Cooley is a good coach that squeezes every win out of whatever talent he has, but this may be the least talented roster in the Big East.
10) Depaul (6-4, 143) – O/D is 63/154. This is a mid-major team in the Big East. Jones was a huge loss, and the guys that were brought in are decent, but not good enough to make much noise in the conference. Johnson returns and is the leading scorer. Gibson is a high volume shooter. Neither suck, but there isn't a guy on this roster that I look at and think "I really wish UConn had THAT guy". They are a surprisingly poor rebounding team for one that has a lot of size. I do like the way this team plays, which is why I am predicting a team this bad to get 4 wins in conference. I think they will surprise a couple of times.
11) Georgetown (5-6, 245) – Everything about this team is bad, so there is not point in diving into the deep stats. The only reason I don’t predict them to go winless is that Spears and Wahab are not bad, and the overall starting lineup is not terrible. They should get lucky once or twice and beat someone.
Projection of Big East records:
UConn 18-2
Xavier 16-4
Marquette 15-5
Creighton 14-6
St. Johns 11-9
Villanova 10-10
Seton Hall 8-12
Butler 8-12
Providence 5-15
Depaul 4-16
Georgetown 1-19
The Top 5 would go to the NCAA and Villanova and Butler would go to the NIT.
