RebKell's Junkie Boards

[NoDakSt]

Haven't seen a thread about SEC women's preseason hoopla. So let's start it off with the pics from the SEC media.

https://mutigers.com/news/2019/10/15/mizzou-womens-basketball-picked-ninth-in-sec-preseason-media-poll.aspx

Preseason top 3

1. South Carolina
2. Texas A&M
3. Mississippi state

First-Team All-SEC
Chelsea Dungee, Arkansas
Rhyne Howard, Kentucky
Ayana Mitchell, LSU
Tyasha Harris, South Carolina
Chennedy Carter, Texas A&M


The link above delineates the predicted standings for the entire league as well as player of the year votes and second-team all conference.

[myrtle]

when was the last time there was no sign of Tenn. in that list?

_________________
For there is always light,
if only we’re brave enough to see it.
If only we’re brave enough to be it.
- Amanda Gorman

[summertime blues]

Tennessee is an unknown at this juncture, what with the new coach and some departures. Will just have to see. I'm actually optimistic because I know what kind of coach Kellie is, and with better talent than she had at Missouri State, I think she can take this team somewhere. Just not sure how high yet.

_________________
Don't take life so serious. It ain't nohows permanent.
It takes 3 years to build a team and 7 to build a program.--Conventional Wisdom

[CHSHog]

I believe that this is the highest Arkansas has ever been predicted to finish in a preseason WBB poll for the SEC.

Two years ago, they were predicted to finish 14th (and would have been picked for 15th, if that were allowable lol). They actually finished 11th that year, I think.

Quite a remarkable jump.

_________________
I know nobody and nothing.

[NoDakSt]

adding Ramirez to the lineup will give Neighbors some fantastic firepower. They'll be able to run and shoot with the best of the league. Theyre not strong inside relative to some other teams in the conference but said teams probably don't have the backcourt to keep up with Arkansas except maybe A&M.

[taropatch]

Vanderbilt’s conference wins:
2016: 5
2017: 4
2018: 3
2019: 2
That posits one conference win this season? Nah, I doubt it.

One of last season’s wins was historic over UT, in Knoxville, mind you. Gotta give the Commodores credit for battling on through all this adversity.

[pilight]

[Howee]

Interesting-but-not-shocking prognostication. Admitting a limited perspective, I'd think the SEC is possibly more prone to shake-ups in those predictions than, say, the ACC or Big 12. Maybe not in the cellar region, but....it bodes well for interest and intrigue in the upper portion of the league. (Poor Vandy!)

_________________
Oregon: Go Ducks!
"Inévitablement, les canards voleront"

[ClayK]

[Conway Gamecock]

[summertime blues]

I find it just a little bit eerie how much Kellie Harper sounds like Pat Summitt. The accent is very similar...she's from middle Tennessee, while Pat was from west Tennessee, but the cadence and intonation are so much the same...

_________________
Don't take life so serious. It ain't nohows permanent.
It takes 3 years to build a team and 7 to build a program.--Conventional Wisdom

[NoDakSt]

[pilight]

Alabama loses to Hampton

Auburn barely holds off Wofford 84-82 at home


Could be a rough year for the SEC

_________________
I'm a lonely frog
I ain't got a home

[myrtle]

[Howee]

[Shades]

[Conway Gamecock]

Now that we've gone through 90% of the non-conference slate, how does things compare with our pre-season opinions?

The SEC Media pre-season prediction:

1. South Carolina
2. Texas A&M
3. Mississippi State
4. Kentucky
5. Arkansas
6. Tennessee
7. Auburn
8. Louisiana State
9. Missouri
10. Georgia
11. Alabama
12. Florida
13. Mississippi
14. Vanderbilt


The current standings (mind you, no SEC games have been played yet):

1. #5/6 South Carolina - 11-1
2. #11/12 Texas A%M - 10-1
3. #14/13 Kentucky - 10-1
4. #21/20 Arkansas - 10-1
5. #15/15 Mississippi State - 10-2
6. Louisiana State - 9-2
7. #23/24 Tennessee - 8-2
8. Alabama - 9-3
9. Florida - 8-3
10. Vanderbilt - 8-3
11. Georgia - 7-4
12. Mississippi - 6-6
13. Auburn - 5-5
14. Missouri - 3-10

[Conway Gamecock]

The current RPI and (SOS) for each team:


1. #5/6 South Carolina - 7 (27)
2. #11/12 Texas A&M - 8 (22)
3. #14/13 Kentucky - 40 (139)
4. #21/20 Arkansas - 34 (165)
5. #15/15 Mississippi State - 13 (13)
6. Louisiana State - 26 (57)
7. #23/24 Tennessee - 157 (305)
8. Alabama - 77 (123)
9. Florida - 177 (292)
10. Vanderbilt - 93 (124)
11. Georgia - 52 (16)
12. Mississippi - 297 (315)
13. Auburn - 105 (42)
14. Missouri - 175 (17)


So, UK, Arkansas, and UT have some decent starts to their seasons, but their schedule strength are pretty weak at this point. Once we go through the SEC gauntlet, UK and Arky should have decent RPIs as long as they are able to maintain .500 or better conference records. They clearly didn't make a point of building for #1 Seed contention, just to make it into the tourney.

Kentucky played strong and narrowly lost to Louisville, their toughest opponent yet, but the next "quality" opponent on their schedule is a toss-up between 5-5 Virginia and Charlotte. While Arkansas's toughest opponent was a close loss to California, they have yet to play - win or lose - against a top-50 RPI opponent: Cal currently has the #51 RPI, having moved up to that point throughout the week. Soon, Razorbacks.

Tennessee's OOC schedule strength is yeesh. IMO, they are rating a top 25 ranking based on brand value at this point. They just lost badly to top-ranked Stanford after the last poll came out, so they could drop out. But it was Stanford, so they could cling to a final spot, but shouldn't....

Texas A&M has been solid through a stout SOS, which supports the thought process that many felt the Aggies should've been rated #1 over USC for the SEC. They lost to their top opponent Florida State, but have quality wins against Duke, Southern Cal, Oklahoma State, TCU, and just beat a resurgent Georgia Tech in the Coqui Classic Friday.

LSU has also played a decent OOC schedule, and produced some quality wins against Rutgers, Michigan State, and Florida Gulf Coast. They lost to their toughest opponent Florida State, and also to a good Oklahoma squad. They have a cupcake game against Florida A&M left, and as with UK and Arkansas, if they can survive the SEC stretch and go 8-8 or better, they should easily rate the NCAAT.

Teams like Alabama, Florida, Vanderbilt, and Georgia have decent OOC records thus far and if they can go .500 in SEC play they could reach the WNIT, but it will be a major task for most of them to do that well in the conference play. UGA has had a tough non-conf. schedule thus far, with losses to Baylor, UCLA, and GT - 3 of their 4 losses - while securing a solid win against Virginia Tech. The Villanova loss at home was pretty sketchy, but they could actually be better than their record suggests.

Auburn has fallen the worst of the pre-season picks. They've played a decent SOS similar to LSU, but haven't fared as well in results, with 3 losses against UAB, Drake, and Middle Tennessee as well as 2 losses against Old Dominion and TCU. Like LSU and UGA, they could rebound and have a solid to winning SEC record, and reach the post-season, but they'll have to work harder for it, because unlike the other 2 SEC teams, their overall win-loss record may not look as good. But they were picked by the SEC Media to finish higher than both the other teams, so we'll see.

Vanderbilt has impressed me thus far. They have for the first time under Coach White, seemed to show some improvements. Their non-conference SOS isn't the greatest, but its not the worst either, and all of their losses - including to #2-ranked Connecticut - have all been closely contested, and against solid opponents. They aren't really that far from being 11-0 instead of 8-3. They have one more decent OOC game at Washington later today (Saturday), and if they enter SEC play 10-3 they will have an excellent chance to make the post-season, perhaps even the NCAA.

Florida is similar to Vanderbilt, but to a lesser degree. Their record thus far is not bad, but they've played a much worse schedule. It's hard to get a good bead on this team yet - they've had close losses to quality opponents in FSU and Kansas, while getting blown out a bit against Indiana. Their 8 wins are against opponents with a combined win-loss record of 12-63. My feelings are that the Gators will succumb to the physicality of the SEC, and not have a good final conference record.


Ole Miss and Missouri are outside looking in. Missouri has played one of the toughest schedules of all the teams, and they have suffered for it. The idea of teams playing tough OOC schedules is 1) if their conference strength is poor overall, it'll help their cause after the regular season for post-season tournament seeding purposes. And 2) if they typically play in a tough conference, the tough OOC schedule will help season the younger players sooner so the conference stretch - which usually involves a more condensed schedule calendar - won't be as shocking to them.

Missouri's tough OOC schedule doesn't bode well for its SEC prospects. They've had a ton of close, competitive losses, but only played two top-25 ranked opponents in #20 Missouri State and #25 South Dakota. This will be a tough year for the Tigers. Ole Miss is in even worse shape: they played the weakest non-conference schedule, and still fared poorely against it. They have no "quality" wins - they've played no top-50 RPI opponents, win or lose. In fact, they've played no top-100 RPI opponents, win or lose. This is a total rebuild season for the Rebel program.


As for South Carolina, I'm pleased with their position at this point of the season. With their victory over Duke Thursday night, the Gamecocks have 4 wins against top-50 RPI opponents, currently more than any other WCBB program, and are scheduled to face another one in South Dakota this Sunday. Their last two wins against top-50 RPI opponents - Purdue and Duke - were wins of 36 and 43 pts.

The team is one that has an infusion of youth thanks to it's large freshman class. Three of those freshmen have been regular starters all season long. So it should be expected they have some trips and stumbles during the early part of the season: the team's biggest issues thus far are it's free throw accuracy, and the number of turnovers they've been having. But most of these issues are the kind that can be corrected and improved on as the season progresses, as the younger players catch up to the college pace, and the new team settles in with each other.

Coach Staley has continued her system of heavy rotations that she has used in the past with a deep roster - the starters usually playing the 1st and 3rd Periods, the reserves playing the majority of the 2nd and 4th Periods, unless the games are tight. This results in multiple players averaging around 20 minutes per game, and in the past have resulted in inconsistent offensive and discipline production, where points drop off in the 2nd and 4th periods, and turnovers and fouls pick up. The good side to this rotation system - and I think the primary intent of Staley for doing it - is it gives the younger players more experience and floor minutes as the season progresses, and provides better balance towards the end of the season, when conference and post-season tournament play requires quick turn-arounds and games on back-to-back days. In those cases reserve players are relied on to produce more than they might during the season.

But this season the production has been perhaps the most stable of the seasons that Staley has utilized this, and it's resulted in one of the better scoring offenses at this stage of the season under Staley, while also the best scoring defenses since the 2011-12 and 2012-13 seasons, when USC had top 5 national scoring defenses under Staley, but also had scoring offenses around the 160s nationally. USC is currently leading the SEC in both steals and blocked shots per game, while is 2nd in the SEC in rebounds per game.

Still, the season is young, and the toughest portion of the schedule still lies ahead....

[NoDakSt]

That is a very detailed and informational Analysis, Conway. I think you will be proven to be fairly accurate regarding your prognosisnfor each team with regards to The conference season and postseason tournaments.

[Ladyvol777]

Tennessee's OOC schedule strength is yeesh. IMO, they are rating a top 25 ranking based on brand value at this point. They just lost badly to top-ranked Stanford after the last poll came out, so they could drop out. But it was Stanford, so they could cling to a final spot, but shouldn't....

Tennessee will finish 3rd in the SEC...

[myrtle]

To me, the SEC looks like a major league Crashed DOWN this year.
SoCaro is the only SEC team that truly looks decent and they still make young mistakes.
Texas A&M has won their games but it always looks like it's by the skin of their teeth. They somehow do just enough to get by. I don't think Carter alone can get them very far in the tourney and she really doesn't have much support.
Kentucky I haven't watched enough to comment on. They barely held on to beat Cal today, and while Cal is better than they have been, they are not very good yet...so that is not inspiring.
Tennessee is up and down. They could win some big games and they could also lose some against weaker teams. Kellie has her work cut out for her.

As for the rest, if Florida is ahead of 5 teams, then those last five must be gawd-awful because Florida has looked flat out bad in the games I saw. Missouri has definitely looked like the worst of the lot. If the SEC crash landed this year, Missouri fell off the cliff and is still in freefall.

_________________
For there is always light,
if only we’re brave enough to see it.
If only we’re brave enough to be it.
- Amanda Gorman

[Conway Gamecock]

[FrozenLVFan]

Comparing the last 5-6 teams in the SEC is like rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. Just tie yourself to one and go down with the ship.

[PickledGinger]

[Howee]