Man, what does college basketball do for an encore?
After the vacant spring of 2020 and the (mostly) empty arenas of 2021, the true NCAA Tournament returned with a ferocity that almost seemed designed to remind everyone what they’d missed because of the pandemic.
So we got a first-round dismissal of No. 2 seed Kentucky, the first major upset of coach John Calipari’s career. We got a Duke-Michigan State second-rounder that was one of the great first-weekend games in memory. We got first-round upsets of No. 5 seeds Iowa and Connecticut and No. 6 seed LSU. We got a Final Four so deep in blue bloods that everyone involved literally wore blue on their uniforms.
It’s not going to be easy to match that, let alone top it. In the past decade, though, more and more talented players exited college basketball early even if they were not likely to be drafted in the NBA first round, or chosen at all. With Name/Image/Likeness enabling players to earn money, that is happening less often before.
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There are so many returning stars, it was hard to narrow down The Sporting News All-America first team. In past years, we had to project improvement. This year’s group – including reigning national Player of the Year Oscar Tshiebwe – just has to match last year’s performances to be considered for postseason honors.
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This is how I see it all playing out:
Player of the Year: Trayce Jackson-Davis, Indiana
I’ve seen others suggest the honor belongs to Kentucky’s Oscar Tshiebwe until someone else takes it. Well, as the great Mike Krzyzewski has said, Oscar isn’t defending anything. All those awards he won last season – including the one presented by The Sporting News – are his to keep. And he may well sweep them all again this year. He’s magnificent. My belief, though, is this season will demand different contributions from him that might not be as statistically overwhelming and as oriented toward POY awards.
For Indiana to be what it wants to be this season, what Jackson-Davis wants it to be, Trayce will need to be even better than he has been over the past two seasons. He has the ability and the incentive. He’s outlasted many of the big men who made navigating the Big Ten such a remarkable challenge, and there still are enough left – Hunter Dickinson at Michigan, Zach Edey at Purdue, Cliff Omoruyi at Rutgers – to add heft to whatever Jackson-Davis is able to achieve.
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Freshman of the year: Keyonte George, Baylor
The highest-ranked recruit to sign at Baylor in a decade, George is the most dynamic scorer to enter college basketball this season. There may be more complete players (Nick Smith at Arkansas) or better NBA prospects (Duke’s Dereck Lively), but this guy is going to thrill Bears fans and electrify Big 12 gyms through the course of the winter. When Baylor represented the U.S. this past summer at the GLOBL JAM tournament in Toronto, George averaged 22.8 points that included a 37-point explosion against Canada. Baylor has a lot of guys who can score, so we’ll see what that means for George’s output. But the more buckets he gets, the better chance the Bears will have to return to the Final Four.
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Defensive player of the year: Ryan Kalkbrenner, Creighton
I remember at the Peach Jam in the summer of 2019, when Chad Brendel of Bearcats Journal pointed out this skinny kid from St. Louis with an uncanny gift for rejecting opposing layups. Two years later, Kalkbrenner ranked 17th in Division I in blocks, taking down 2.6 shots per game. Remarkably, he did this while averaging just 1.4 fouls, which meant he was able to play 29 minutes per game. To win this award, he’ll need to be even more dominant, but that’s OK, because the Bluejays have designs on accomplishing more than entering the NCAA Tournament as a mid-field team and leaving after two rounds.
Coach of the year: Brian Dutcher, San Diego State
Dutcher’s best team, in 2020, would have earned a No. 2 seed if there had been an NCAA Tournament, something that happened for the Aztecs only once previously in the school’s history of being mostly being placed between 7 and 12 in their region. Last year’s squad made the NCAAs as a No. 8, and a whole lot of those players are back for another round. Three regulars are in their fifth seasons of Division I basketball, another is a senior and there are two senior transfers. TSN did not include this group in the preseason top 25, which might have been a mistake. But, to be honest, the Aztecs will need to be better than the 167th best offense to crack that list. That’s where Dutcher’s best work this season will need to be aimed.
Conference champions
Atlantic-10: Dayton
American: Houston
ACC: North Carolina
Big East: Creighton
Big Ten: Indiana
Big 12: Baylor
Mountain West: San Diego State
Pac-12: UCLA
SEC: Kentucky
WCC: Gonzaga
No. 1 seeds
Kentucky
North Carolina
Gonzaga
UCLA
Although we ranked Houston No. 4 in The Sporting News preseason Top 25, achieving a No. 1 seed will be a challenge given the nature of the Cougars’ schedule. If we use Ken Pomeroy’s preseason ratings at KenPom.com as a guide, the only non-conference opponent that ranks highly on the Cougars’ non-conference schedule is No. 5 Virginia. After that, it’s No. 17 Alabama, No. 29 Oregon and No. 47 Saint Mary’s. More problematic is a conference schedule that doesn’t include anyone higher than No. 34 Memphis.
That’s why UCLA gets the last No. 1 seed, and the competition between the Bruins and Gonzaga could be fierce to see which would be placed in the West Region, which will be contested in Las Vegas.
With four starters returning from a squad that lost in the NCAA championship game, North Carolina’s biggest problem might be what faced the 2008-09 squad: remaining sharp when it’s so obvious the greatest concerns will be what can be accomplished in March (and any Duke games, of course).
Kentucky will have to battle through a fierce SEC and a non-conference schedule that includes the Zags, UCLA, Michigan and Michigan State, but TSN sees them as built to win a national championship. The past five champions all have been No. 1 seeds, tied for the longest such streak since the expanded bracket was introduced in 1985.
To think, there still are people who argue that earning a No. 1 seed doesn’t matter.
Champion: Kentucky
There are more unproven elements to these Wildcats than to their closest competition. Whereas North Carolina returns 76 percent of the scoring recorded in six NCAA Tournament games, the Wildcats only lasted a round and lost nearly half the scoring and 55 percent of the minutes from that game.
But the redesigned Wildcats are built with more perimeter scoring options and with the potential to become a much more dynamic defensive team. Last year’s squad was only 36th in the nation in adjusted defensive efficiency, and it struggled for obvious reasons. Kentucky played two small guards and a relatively stationary small forward who also was limited by a nagging injury. It couldn’t keep the ball out of the lane – something on which coach John Calipari built a career (and the first of seven Final Four teams). The Wildcats still will have to work around the defensive issue that can come with having a small point guard, Sahvir Wheeler, but there should be more behind him than a year ago.
UK was only 101st in 3-point accuracy, according to KenPom.com, and 351st in the percentage of field goal attempts that came from long distance. You’re not winning the NCAAs like that any longer. There are many unproven players among those who will be counted upon to provide shooting, but there’s also CJ Frederick, who bettered the 46 percent mark on threes in each of his two seasons at Iowa, and Antonio Reeves, who hit 76 threes at a 39 percent clip last season at Illinois State.
The way many who follow college basketball do math now, completely ignoring that no one got the chance to compete for the 2020 NCAA Championship, Kentucky has not reached a Final Four in seven years and not won a title in 10. That’s a long time for Wildcats fans.
This could be the year they get back what they believe to be rightfully theirs.