Preseason Power Rankings

[BasketballofUF]

Well, the season starts in a few weeks, so I don't think this thread is early at all. If anything, it's a bit overdue.

1. Florida (this pick is totally biased)
2. Kentucky
3. Missouri
4. Tennessee
5. Alabama
6. Arkansas
7. Ole Miss
8. Texas A&M
9. Vanderbilt
10. Georgia
11. South Carolina
12. Auburn
13. LSU
14. Mississippi State

[kentubbybasketball]

Yours is fine with me, outside of a change or two.

[GatorMan32]

id flip UF and UK otherwise id prob put the same

[msudawg4life]

I will post mine after a few games....I'm not quite sold MSU will be the worst team in the SEC.

[kentubbybasketball]

Right, things are so tenuous around the SEC. I think there's three different tiers. I won't spend time talking about Mizzou, Florida, or Kentucky. There's not much more that could be said.

I'm not as sold on UT as everybody else. I like how they finished last year, but it's still a team that was only 10-6 in a league that wasn't all that strong last year. Golden and Maymon are good, Stokes great, but there's several guys on that team that have not lived up to their rankings period (Kenny Hall especially). Offensively, I'm not sure they have the goods in an NCAAT environment to really do much damage.

Bama, like UT, has an identity on defense, but from a pure shooting standpoint, they leave some things to be desired. Pollard isn't going to really help improve that much either, but until proven otherwise, I'll give AG the benefit of the doubt.

The team I think that could really do some damage in this tier is Arkansas. You all know I have a man crush on Hunter Mickelson, but all across the roster you have dangerous guys: Young, Madden, Qualls, Clarke, Powell, and on and on and on.

Ole Miss will be on the bubble again IMO. They really bring in a class that's among the very best in the SEC. If they can simply win a few they shouldn't and avoid bad losses they can get into the NCAAT.

UGA could have point guard issues, but their class has some good guards. Maybe not guards that will star, but they all have tremendous size for their position. Hopefully, one of them can fill in next to KCP, who will move to his natural position. He won't be guarding threes and will lead this league in scorer, somewhere around 19-21 ppg IMO.

If you think about it, LSU has two great players and a new coach, which brings tremendous momentum. I'm not sure they'll be that low, but the bottom 6 could be two or threes games apart. They were a terrible FG shooting team.

Auburn adds in two JUCOs and it's stars are freshman, all three of them. Barbee seems to think he has his best team, albeit one with some young guns.

[GR8NESS]

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

[Dawgilicious]

man, 10th...I hope we are better than that. I like what i have seen from our guys so far, but we will find out in november

[BasketballofUF]

Right, things are so tenuous around the SEC. I think there's three different tiers. I won't spend time talking about Mizzou, Florida, or Kentucky. There's not much more that could be said.

I'm not as sold on UT as everybody else. I like how they finished last year, but it's still a team that was only 10-6 in a league that wasn't all that strong last year. Golden and Maymon are good, Stokes great, but there's several guys on that team that have not lived up to their rankings period (Kenny Hall especially). Offensively, I'm not sure they have the goods in an NCAAT environment to really do much damage.

Bama, like UT, has an identity on defense, but from a pure shooting standpoint, they leave some things to be desired. Pollard isn't going to really help improve that much either, but until proven otherwise, I'll give AG the benefit of the doubt.

The team I think that could really do some damage in this tier is Arkansas. You all know I have a man crush on Hunter Mickelson, but all across the roster you have dangerous guys: Young, Madden, Qualls, Clarke, Powell, and on and on and on.

Ole Miss will be on the bubble again IMO. They really bring in a class that's among the very best in the SEC. If they can simply win a few they shouldn't and avoid bad losses they can get into the NCAAT.

UGA could have point guard issues, but their class has some good guards. Maybe not guards that will star, but they all have tremendous size for their position. Hopefully, one of them can fill in next to KCP, who will move to his natural position. He won't be guarding threes and will lead this league in scorer, somewhere around 19-21 ppg IMO.

If you think about it, LSU has two great players and a new coach, which brings tremendous momentum. I'm not sure they'll be that low, but the bottom 6 could be two or threes games apart. They were a terrible FG shooting team.

Auburn adds in two JUCOs and it's stars are freshman, all three of them. Barbee seems to think he has his best team, albeit one with some young guns.

I agree about UT. Last year's run really wasn't that impressive to me, and incredibly fluke-ish. Their "quality wins" included beating Florida twice (blech), a struggling UConn, and Vanderbilt in Knoxville. They proceeded to lose to Ole Miss in their first SECT game and to MTSU in the NIT. I'm not sure if their guard play is good enough to consistently win over an entire season. They turned the ball over at a crazily high rate last year. With that said, I do think their frontcourt is good enough to keep them in the upper tier of the SEC... Just not as high as many project them.

If Alabama's sophomores make a significant jump like they should, I think they'll be very good. Their defense should still be among the best in the conference. Lacey, Cooper, Randolph, and Releford do need to start hitting some outside shots, but I think they will.

The problem that I have with Arkansas is that they don't defend, rebound, or score well at all in the halfcourt. How is that going to work out on the road when the other team is able to dictate the tempo? I don't think they'll fall off a cliff mid-season again this year, as the added depth should give the starters some rest, but they'll still struggle greatly on the road imo.

Agreed about Ole Miss. They don't really have any weaknesses on paper, other than free-throw shooting. Buckner and Holloway have to get better there. But with their roster, they SHOULD make the tournament. Kennedy needs to do so to keep his job.

I saw that Fox said that KCP would be playing the two this season, but I don't know who will play SF if KCP doesn't. The only true SF on the roster is Brandon Morris, and I doubt that he'll be much of a factor as a freshman. PG is definitely another area of concern for them; Vincent Williams has never looked the part of a high-major PG, and Charles Mann is another somewhat under-the-radar freshman. Their frontcourt at least now has a year of starting experience under its belt, but it's not overly talented or intimidating. They'll be a one man show.

I wouldn't consider Hickey and O'Bryant two great players. They're young and talented. But both have plenty of room for improvement, especially O'Bryant. Big men should not be shooting less than 40% from the field. That's inexcusable. Those two are nice pieces that Jones can build upon, but I'm not sure that they're ready to lead a winning team just yet. It will be interesting to see who will be starting alongside O'Bryant in the frontcourt. I honestly have no idea.

Auburn has some talent, but they'll be so young and inexperienced. The "senior class" that Barbee keeps talking about just really isn't that good. Sullivan is a good player. Wallace doesn't lose games, but he's not going to win them either. Chubb is not an SEC caliber center. They need the JUCO's to contribute right away. Dixon-Tatum seems talented, but Adamu was never a standout even at the JUCO level, so I doubt he'll be a factor at the SEC level. I have my doubts about them and I think Barbee's comments are just the usual hyperbolic coach-speak.

Edit: Somebody honestly felt the need to neg rep my OP? lol

[joehogjoe]

you do understand that what Arkansas did last year will be very different from what we do this season. We didn't defend all that well, but we'll be much better this season. Our system doesn't require us to be a dominant rebounding team, but with more bigs this season we should be a more competitive rebounding team. As for the road, it is harder to dictate tempo on the road, but if you'll notice few teams are great on the road. Personally I'll be happy with a flo split this season, ours in Bud, yours in the place you play. Since you know what we don't do well, think about what we do well. We force turnovers, we force bad passes, we disrupt. We block shots, we get up and down the court. With the right players in place we'll put lots of points on the board. We'll never be considered the great defense statistically because we'll allow opponents to have more possessions, but that's the nature of 40 minutes of hell, or in this day and age 40 minutes of the fastest basketball.

[joehogjoe]

still not sure where to put the Hogs in the SEC order

BBF, expect the Hogs to defend much better in the Half court, expect us to be more competitive in rebounding though in our system rebounding isn't the main priority. We'll block our fair share of shots, we'll likely be the best team in the SEC in steals and forced turnovers. Being in the game with 5 minutes to go will be where you'll see our biggest improvement. I too don't believe we'll experience quite a swoon late in the season, especially if we can stay away from the injury bug, and discipline problems.