Teams in SEC Conference all right let's turn our attention to the SEC now remember one of the reasons why we're doing this exercise is because quite frankly the conferences have changed you know like the schools we don't we don't necessarily see the same old faces there's some of them got Alabama Arkansas Auburn Florida Georgia Kentucky LSU Old Miss Mississippi state Missouri Oklahoma South Carolina Tennessee Texas Texas A&M and Vander build so the new look SEC Isaac when you take a look at those teams in the 2024-25 SEC who is your favorite to win Best Team in SEC this year I'll take the team that finished top on kenpom last year and gets all their guys back in Auburn I think this is a group that is arguably the best Rim defense in the sport now that Donovan kingan has left Yukon they finished just a hair behind Yukon in Rim defense last year team shot just 48% at The Rim against Auburn which is just nuts and they're gonna do a lot of those same things with Janai broom and Dyan Cardwell back and I'm really bullish on these year two transfer jumps from Denver Jones and Chad Baker mazara both of those two guys got a lot of experience in the starting lineup last year and I think they're going to be a whole lot better as they take another step forward JP pagis out of Ferman is awesome but Georgia Tech transfer Miles Kelly I think has a chance to be one of the better value gets out of the portal I think a lot of people looked at him and they're like well you know high volume shooter but the percentages just weren't great he had to bail Georgia Tech out of a lot of possessions last year I think the quality of shot that he gets at Auburn is going to be completely different and Bruce burls talked about it too he's one of the best shooters that they've had in their program so you give me a Janai broom who's an Player of the Year candidate you give me the stable of guards you give me the defense that I know that they're going to play at the rim and their homecourt advantage I think Auburn has a chance to be the best team in the league all right now Deepest Team in SEC let me ask you this who do you think is the deepest team in college basketball next year I'll give you a hint because it's the team I'm picking best team in the SEC uh I gotta go with Alabama I mean how Nate oats built this level of depth I'm looking at this roster and I just don't see who doesn't play I mean there's legitimately 12 or 13 guys on this roster who absolutely have to play I mean you're talking about either legitimate All-American candidates or legitimate NBA draft candidates at virtually every position on the floor you've talked about Chris Youngblood and how you love him coming in as a as a grad transfer I'm going to talk about Mark Sears a little bit uh a little bit here because I think he's going to be one of the best guards in college basketball again this year then you add Cliff am morier in the middle like just a defensive monster talk about protecting the rim Grant Nelson the skilled big you've got jiren Stevenson who I've talked about as a potential breakout guy we're not even mentioning muhamad diabate yet who's who's kind of like the the defensive extraordinaire of this group Darion Reed you're hearing tremendous things about how he's acclimating so far as a freshman uh Houston malet's another one like not even talking about Nas Cunningham and Aiden cherelle like this is learon filin like this is ridiculous there's just too many guys like called the inner Squad scrimmage the the conference Championship game they are absolutely loaded and here's the thing we know two things about what NATO is going to do it's going to be an analytically driven approach and it's going to be a creative offensive system that that highlights all of these these weapons and when you have so many guys it gives the coach it gives the coach the the the authority if you will or The Leverage is the better word to say hey you guys go battle it out May the best man win and that's who's gonna get on the floor I just think Alabama is absolutely loaded this is the most Talent Nate oats has ever had one through 13 on his roster and if he can weaponize this depth I think that's the way to really Elevate into a national title Contender because you can play Big you play small like you didn't even even mention Aiden Holloway who we very high hop was an oversight on my part yeah I mean that just shows you how loaded they are and kind of where they're at but again I'm all about like how they weaponize this and what's your prediction of a starting lineup for me it's Sears with young blood Daren Reed Grant Nelson and Cliff Amore like there's no doubt in my mind if that's a starting lineup that group is way better than 111th defensively what they were last year like that might be a top 15 to 20 defense so I think one of the subplots of Alabama this year is going to be the way that they choose to play so I I would I think initially you're going to see both of those big guys start together cliff and Grant are going to start the four and five I'm very curious to see if if they stick with that because we know how much uh Nate values shooting and getting jiren Stevenson at the lineup at the four I I think is is something that may inevitably happen over the course of the season I mean there's enough minutes there for everybody or at least for those three guys um but but that is going to be really interesting to me I'm very interested to see how hollow like is he the backup point guard or is filin the backup point guard I've heard a lot of good things about filin as I have about Darion Reed like the Intel out of out of Alabama in terms of what those two guys are doing so far has been very very strong um and and we know how you feel about young blood so like I we know Sears is gonna start we know Cliff is gonna start I think darion's gonna start I think you have to start Grant and then it's just Aiden or young blood and I think probably it's Young Blood right off the bat so that's that's my answer to your question but I think could really evolve and it wouldn't surprise me if Stephenson is finishing games um early on and especially down the stretch of the season and that's their best NBA draft prospect that they're bringing Off the Bench like yeah they're loaded they're loaded like that like I said like picking Auburn over Alabama is not a shot at Alabama it's more of a like these two teams are tier one National Title contenders and right next to each other agreed they're both National Championship contenders all right let Best Players in SEC we're gonna keep talking about these teams now because we're going to talk about the best player in the conference you have continued to go with someone from Auburn I've continued to go with someone from Alabama talk to me about your pick yeah for me it's Janai broom because I I don't know what he does wrong he he really impacts the game on every single level Elite Rim protection Elite Rim pressure he can pass it he now added a jumper like he's an NBA player who's playing in college and now he enters like year five in college like we've seen big men who stay in the in college longer like they just smashed like Auburn had a plus 20 net rating with him on the floor like I think broom could potentially challenge Zack Ed for having like a plus 25 plus 30 net rating when he's on the floor next year especially when you factor in just all the shooting that Auburn has added in the portal and in their roster construction so he his ability just to to beat you as in post-ups he can beat you at from the mid post he can face up spin dribble get into the middle of the paint for little floaters gets the free throw line at will like he just impacts the game on such a high level especially defensively like he's arguably the one of the best defenders in college basketball too and he's also awesome offensively so just his two-way impact is is pretty much the reason why I have him as the SEC player of the year but you can't go wrong with Sears either yeah I think Mark Sears is GNA be the best player in in the in the conference I mean I think he's college basketball is Jaylen Brunson quite frankly that's not to say he's gonna be Jaylen Brunson in the NBA but he may be undersized but he is tough he is skilled and what really stands out to me is for all the volume he played with last year for all the tough shots he had to take this guy shot over 51 % from the floor and 44% from the three-point line I mean those are just ridiculous numbers for someone who had to take tough shots because he buys into oats his system he puts pressure on the rim he shoots threes he's really expanded that part of his game in recent years I think what's going to be interesting this year is given the amount of weapons that are around him we may have to see him evolve into more of a distributor and less of a shot maker so that's going to be an interesting transition and one that could ultimately uh pave a a translatable role to to his professional aspirations but to me he's he's the best player in the league and I also think I think this year in college basketball listen it's been a game of Giants for the last two years with Zach Edy and Donovan kingan and and uh I think we're gonna get back to a little bit more of a guards game this year and if you need a guard in college basketball Mark Sears would be one of the first guys I want on my squad if not number one but one of the things we've seen in Rec Rec years Best NBA Prospect in SEC we talk about those big guys is that the best college players are not always the best NBA prospects so I want to ask you now who is your best NBA Prospect in the SEC for me it's Colin Murray boes out of South Carolina again just like the defensive versatility his ability to pass dribble and maybe shoot I think that's like the last little question there but just his smarts defensively how much ground he covers his ability to make plays as a distributor like it's all their for him and I have real questions about like what South Carolina is offensively this year last year they found some success with BJ Mack as a stretch five and Murray Bo is kind of inverting the floor from the four with his like mid post back downs and using that to spray over the floor this year it's a little bit different because they added Nick Pringle out of Alabama who isn't a floor stretcher he's more of a guy who wants to sit in the dunker spot and just go tear the rim off so I think that's a bet on Murray Bo's finding his jumper and you're going to look at the roster and be like 67230 last year he's actually gotten a little bit taller this offseason that's some of the noise out of South Carolina and just the wingspan that he has like it's the perfect type of archetype of what you're looking for now granted he needs to shoot it a little bit better everything he else else he does just impacts winning on such a high level and he's insanely smart like his basketball IQ is through the roof and that pops off on the tape like left and right I I can't disagree with you the one thing I will add is I think he surprised some people last year he's in the top of the Scouting Report from day one this year he had you know he went out to the NBA Academy NBA skills academy in in August and he got rave reviews was one of the best college players there he's being talked about as a potential lottery pick so I totally agree with you he's he's one of the the top NBA prospects to know in the conference but it's a lot different when everybody else is gaming for you and they're building their defense around that to take that next step so that that's going to be an interesting he he's certainly going to be someone that's going to be very interesting to watch all year listen I want to talk a little bit about trade Johnson because this is someone who uh is a former number one ranked Prospect in the high school class has clear oneandone aspirations he's kind of a throwback style shooting guard and a tough shot maker but he's got projectable size he's got projectable length we saw his physical tools really go to the next level last year as a senior in high school and this is someone who is wired to score so he's going to come in to Texas he's a Texas native and Rodney Terry is gonna have to let him go a little bit but there has to be a little bit of a common ground in terms of Trey finding an efficient way to attack within the flow of the offense Texas letting him go but also getting him some easy baskets because the scouting report on Trey to date is like when he gets hot he can burn you but he's gonna settle for tough shots no matter what I think he's got to find a little bit of a rhythm playing with better players at Texas obviously what can Rodney Terry do to get him easy baskets and to make the game a little bit easier for him that's all going to be part of it but again NBA level score with positional size positional length all of that stuff translates but just like with VJ edcom this is not an easy thing to go into college with already this oneandone path kind of already in front of you regardless of of what happens during the course of the year and everybody gunning for you so I think this is gonna be uh Trey's gonna be a really interesting one to watch this season I'm a little concerned about his Rim rate last year it was really really low at the high school ranks and Texas every single Team every single team that roding ter as coach since 2020 has had a shockingly low rim and three rate like they just don't take shots at The Rim in a lot of Threes compared to their counterparts and then I look at this roster it's like okay Jordan Pope doesn't get to the rim Arthur Kuma is a little bit iffy on that tramone Mark loves to settle into you know mid-range jumpers and now we have Trey it's like there there's some questions here like the fit on this roster is gonna be really weird because there's a lot of iso monsters and I don't know if your turn my turn works in the half court especially to get some of these well schooled defenses in the Big 12 and I think this is an opportunity for Trey to show he's more than just an ISO scorer and he's going to have to be something different than what Texas has on this roster well and that's why I say they've got to do things to simplify the game for them you've got to build in get some back Cuts get it get him some get him some rips so he can get to the free throw line but you've if if you're coaching him this year you've got to help him get easy baskets because two-year point he is instinctively an isolation type player and a little bit of a ball stopper and he's playing with other guys like that so the coaching staff has got to and I'm sure they do they've got to recognize that hey this is the challenge of the pieces we've put together what can we do to to kind of make this a little bit more of an easier transition and help these guys get some easier 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