Bold Predictions for 2016 College Basketball Offseason
Outside of the first few weeks of hirings, firings, transfers and draft decisions, most college basketball offseason news is wildly unpredictable. For instance, no one could have possibly known in April 2014 that Emmanuel Mudiay would suddenly decide that summer to go play in China for a year. And at this time last year, no one was expecting Austin Nichols to up and leave Memphis in early July.
But those things happen, making bold offseason predictions for college hoops simultaneously completely pointless and totally plausible.
We're not forecasting anything quite that specific, but we are seeking to answer some of the biggest questions in play early in this seven-plus-month offseason.
When and where will the three remaining unsigned 5-star recruits land? Which players that declared for the draft without signing an agent will actually remain in the draft pool? Could there be a player who pulls out of the draft but decides to transfer as a graduation rather than return to his old school?
We've made 10 bold prognostications on those topics and more. Be sure to bookmark this and check back in mid-November to grade the clarity of our crystal ball.
Marques Bolden Waits Until May 27 to Announce, Chooses Duke
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Two years ago, Myles Turner was the last major recruiting domino to fall into place. The big man waited until April 30 to announce his decision to join Texas, wisely biding his time until two days after the withdrawal deadline for the NBA draft to make his decision, so as to be fully informed of the roster situations at each of the schools he was considering.
Look for Marques Bolden to do the same thing this spring, only he'll be making his announcement at the end of May instead of the end of April with the new changes to the draft declaration process.
With Thon Maker ruled eligible for the 2017 NBA draft (more on him later) and no clarity whatsoever on Omer Yurtseven's situation (more on him later, too), Bolden is the highest-rated recruit on 247Sports that has not yet committed to a school that might actually do so in the next two months.
At this point, what's the rush? There are literally dozens of players in the purgatory state between college and the NBA who have declared for the draft without hiring an agent. And where Bolden would best fit and/or would be best utilized heavily depends on those decisions—particularly the ones at Kentucky.
If Marcus Lee, Derek Willis and Isaac Humphries all stay in the draft pool, there's room in Lexington for Bolden to shine. But if all three come back and join a frontcourt that already includes stud freshmen Bam Adebayo, Wenyen Gabriel and Sacha Killeya-Jones, it wouldn't make sense for Bolden to go to a school where he'd be lucky to play 20 minutes a night.
Assuming the latter, but waiting until May 27 just to be sure, Bolden will go to Duke and start from Day 1 alongside Jayson Tatum and Harry Giles, with only Amile Jefferson and Chase Jeter legitimately vying for playing time off the bench.
Jarrett Allen Signs with Kansas After Marques Bolden Chooses Duke
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Like Marques Bolden, Jarrett Allen is now the one with the ball in his court.
The 5-star power forward is one of just three remaining uncommitted players in the 247Sports Top 75, so he has the luxury of kicking back and waiting to see what offers come his way. The best ones/most desperate ones probably won't start rolling in until Bolden makes his decision, as he seems to be the big fish everyone is trying to catch at the moment.
Whether it's today, tomorrow or five weeks from now, though, all of the smart money is on Texas being Allen's landing point. Not only is he from Austin, but Texas is in dire need of some frontcourt help with Cameron Ridley, Prince Ibeh and Connor Lammert all graduating.
However, Texas point guard Isaiah Taylor is one of the many players currently testing the NBA draft waters. With Javan Felix and Demarcus Holland graduating, if Taylor decides to remain in the draft pool, the Longhorns would be losing much of their backcourt, too.
Should that happen, put yourself in Allen's gigantic shoes. You're a 5-star big man trying to make a life-changing decision. There's a fine line between the two, but do you go to a school where you can shine for one year or do you go to a school that doesn't have a clear-cut point guard or second-best scoring option behind you? Let's not forget that it took almost two years for Bobby Portis to reach his full college potential after turning down offers from Baylor, Florida and Kansas to stay close to home to play for Arkansas.
Instead of signing on with a school that could be going through a bit of a rebuilding season, look for Allen to go be part of a historic 13th consecutive Big 12 championship at Kansas on a roster losing all of last year's frontcourt players except for Carlton Bragg and Landen Lucas.
Sure, he has to battle Udoka Azubuike, Mitch Lightfoot and Ole Miss transfer Dwight Coleby for playing time among incoming players, but Allen has more potential than all of those guys and could realistically be a starter for the Jayhawks by the time conference play begins.
Omer Yurtseven Comes to America, Signs with Utah
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If you live in the United States and know a single thing about Omer Yurtseven other than the fact that he is an unsigned recruit from Istanbul, congratulations on being one of the only ones.
Yurtseven briefly popped up on our radar in mid-February when Scout's Evan Daniels reported that he plans to pursue collegiate options for the 2016-17 season. However, he won't be making any college visits until after his current season concludes—which might not be until late June depending on how deep Fenerbahce is able to go in the Turkish Basketball League playoffs.
Compared to the ocean of scouting information there is for recruits on the AAU trail, scouting for Eastern European players is a half-empty glass of water. Two years ago, Domantas Sabonis (Lithuania) was rated by 247Sports as the 193rd-best incoming player in the country. Jakob Poeltl (Austria) wasn't even listed as a player that Utah signed. Both should be lottery picks in June.
Meanwhile, Svi Mykhailiuk (Ukraine) was supposed to be God's gift to three-point shooting and a soon-to-be lottery pick when he signed with Kansas two summers ago, but we're still waiting on that to happen. So even though Yurtseven is rated as a 5-star guy, who knows what we'll end up getting—if he comes over at all.
But our bold prediction is that he signs with Utah, if only because Larry Krystkowiak has done a fantastic job over the past few years of getting JUCO and international players to come make something for themselves with the Utes.
Plus, that is a team that could desperately use another player with Poeltl declaring for the draft, Chris Reyes and Isaiah Wright transferring and Jordan Loveridge, Brandon Taylor and Dakarai Tucker all out of years of eligibility. All told, there are only three returning Utes who played more than 105 minutes last season, so Yurtseven would be a welcome addition at a school where an Eastern European import has thrived in the recent past.
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Josh Hart Stays in NBA Draft Pool, Villanova Plummets
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Now that we've covered all of the noteworthy incoming players who have yet to choose a school, let's visit the flip side of that coin to make predictions on some guys who can't seem to decide whether they want to try to get paid to play basketball next year.
As Villanova was on its rampage through the 2016 NCAA tournament, college basketball junkies couldn't help but latch on because—despite three consecutive Big East titles—the Wildcats felt like a lovable underdog. Not only had it been seven years since their last Sweet 16 appearance, they were doing it without one-and-dones.
Heck, most thought they were doing it without three-and-dones. As SB Nation's Ricky O'Donnell wrote the morning after Villanova's win over North Carolina, "In a way, Villanova is the perfect representation of everything this year was about. They won the national championship without a first-round draft pick on the roster."
Well...
Josh Hart wasn't a projected draft pick at the time and he still isn't a projected first-round pick on any site that I can find, but he's talented, gritty and committed enough to be the type of guy who goes flying up the draft boards after the combine. An athletic, aggressive player who always impresses when you intentionally focus on him during games, he's the ideal candidate to benefit from this new draft process.
And, unfortunately, that benefit for Hart would be quite the detriment for Villanova.
If he does return, Villanova would open the season as a projected No. 1 seed and Hart would be one of the top candidates for the Wooden Award among non-freshmen. If he doesn't, that's a huge hole that the Wildcats wouldn't be able to fill.
They were No. 6 in our way-too-early Top 25, but I would drop the defending champs to roughly No. 20 if they're projected to run out a starting five of Jalen Brunson, Phil Booth, Mikal Bridges, Kris Jenkins and Omari Spellman.
Jaron Blossomgame Returns to School, Clemson Soars
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Josh Hart is a guy who most seem to expect will return for one more year, so predicting him to leave is a bit bold. To the contrary, Clemson's Jaron Blossomgame—though he hasn't yet hired an agent—sounds like a guy who's done with the college game, so forecasting his return is quite the leap of faith.
According to Brandon Rink of the Independent Mail, Blossomgame recently said in a school podcast, "Playing the 4 here I didn't have as much a chance to show my perimeter skills as much as I could have." And when players testing the draft waters are talking about their college experience in the past tense, that's usually a good indication of which direction they're leaning.
Rink also notes, though, that Blossomgame reached out to K.J. McDaniels for advice on the big decision—a player who was drafted in the second round in 2014 after leaving Clemson as a junior.
Though I have no earthly idea how that conversation went down, I have to imagine McDaniels' advice to Blossomgame would be to go back and try to prove himself worthy of a first-round pick, because McDaniels was fortunate to get the contract he currently has. He was drafted by the Philadelphia 76ers and signed a one-year deal for just over $500,000 before doing just enough on that tanking team to get traded to the Houston Rockets. He barely even touches the court but is getting paid more than $3 million per year for at least two years.
But if he had gone one pick later, he might have never even gotten a shot in the NBA. Or if he had gone two picks earlier to San Antonio (last pick in the first round), he would have been guaranteed nearly $2 million. It might not seem like there's much separation between the 30th and 31st overall picks, but it's a massive difference in guaranteed money.
And as a guy who's still figuring out his game, Blossomgame could really use one more year to prove what he can do for the NBA. As a freshman, he rarely touched the ball and shot poorly when he did get it. As a sophomore, he was an excellent rebounder who scored well inside the arc. This past season, he suddenly became a shot-blocker and a go-to three-point and free-throw shooter. He has been something of a jack-of-all-trades on a team that didn't have much talent.
Next year, though, they're adding a pair of great transfers in Marcquise Reed (Robert Morris) and Shelton Mitchell (Vanderbilt) who could help him shine. If Blossomgame decides to come back for a senior season, Clemson should be a tournament team for the first time since 2011.
At Least 1 Player Pulls Out of NBA Draft...to Become a Graduate Transfer
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We are bombarded every April with news of some players declaring for the NBA draft and many, many others electing to transfer schools, but have we ever had one player in both of those camps?
If not, Valparaiso's Alec Peters seems like the player who could start that trend.
According to a column by Michael Osipoff of the Chicago Tribune, Peters declared for the draft on April 7.
"I'm declaring with the hope to get drafted, and I'm going to attack the process like I'm going to get drafted this year," Peters said. "I'm going to go to workouts like I approach every practice and game, and that's working as hard as I can and playing at the highest level I can."
But good luck finding Peters in any mock drafts, even though he and Kevin Durant are the only players in the past 20 years to average at least 18.0 points and 8.0 rebounds while making at least 80 three-pointers in a season.
Arguably, the biggest reason for that—both that he put up those numbers and that the draft prognosticators don't seem to care—is the lack of comparable competition. According to KenPom.com, Peters has played only 11 games against "Tier A" competition in his college career, and he has yet to score more than 18 points against such an opponent.
What he needs is one more year at a better school. With Bryce Drew leaving Valparaiso to coach Vanderbilt and four of last year's teammates graduating, it probably wouldn't be that hard for Peters to say goodbye as a graduate transfer if, say, Melo Trimble returns to Maryland and needs a new pick-and-pop buddy with Robert Carter out of the picture.
Other viable candidates for the "declare for the draft, come back to school, then transfer as a graduate" route are Rosco Allen (Stanford), Chris Obeka (UNLV), Jalen Moore (Utah State) and Rodney Purvis (Connecticut).
Thon Maker Drafted in Lottery, Major CBB Freakout Ensues
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Almost every year, there's one player who "beats the system" to get drafted in what we unnecessarily worry might lead to a horrible trend for college basketball.
Brandon Jennings was the first one, playing professionally in Europe for one year out of high school before being taken with the 10th overall pick in the 2009 draft. The following year, Latavious Williams went straight to the NBA Development League out of high school before becoming the 48th overall pick in 2010. Then there was Jeremy Tyler, who left after his junior year of high school to play overseas for two years before earning a second-round pick in 2011.
In 2013 (Glen Rice Jr.) and 2014 (P.J. Hairston), players were drafted who signed with the D-League after effectively being kicked off their college teams. And last year, we had Emmanuel Mudiay taken with the seventh overall pick after spending a year in China.
But Thon Maker is about to become the first player to go straight from high school to the NBA since 2005.
Maker's case is a unique one. We spent the first half of last summer unclear whether he would be eligible in 2015 or 2016 before finally getting a ruling in mid-June that he would stay in the 2016 class. However, he evidently did enough coursework in those few months for these past 10 months at Orangeville Prep to count as a "post-graduate" year of high school.
In theory, we could see more players abuse this loophole. And if Maker is taken with a lottery pick in June, all of the talking heads will proceed to argue over whether more players should abuse it. There's certainly an argument to be made that guys like Enes Kanter, Josh Selby, Cliff Alexander, Skal Labissiere and Cheick Diallo would've been better off never going through the rigmarole of trying to prove themselves eligible to play in the NCAA.
In due time, though, that theory will fade, just like it does every year.
The Conversation to Make CBB a Second Semester Sport Restarts in Earnest
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The number of players declaring for the draft without hiring an agent is ridiculous and it's only going to get worse in subsequent seasons if nothing changes.
However, no coach in his right mind is going to be the first to come out and complain about the fact that his program is being hurt by the one rule the NCAA has that actually benefits the players—even though every single coach with a player on the fence is losing hair, sleep and weight over trying to balance supporting that player in his decision while simultaneously preparing next year's roster for either outcome without ostracizing anybody in the process.
And the NBA isn't going to change its schedule, either. The draft will always be in late June because the playoffs don't end until then and the combine will always be in mid-to-late May because four-to-six weeks before the draft is the optimal time for that one final evaluation of players who have already been scouted a million times.
But a perfectly rational solution to this limbo problem would be to make college basketball a second-semester sport, pushing back its annual timeline a little more than a month. Because if the CBB season started in late December instead of mid-November, it would end in mid-May instead of early April, narrowing the gap between the end of the NCAA tournament and the start of the NBA combine from six weeks to more like six hours.
This probably won't come up until the first few days after the draft because, again, no coach wants to be labeled as the one spewing sour grapes about the new draft withdrawal deadline. However, at some point in late June or early July, look for at least one high-profile coach—we're talking a Mike Krzyzewski, a John Calipari, a Bill Self, etc.—to speak out in support of the idea to make basketball a one-semester sport.
At Least 1 Major Mid-Summer Transfer Announcement
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There will undoubtedly be a fair amount of transfer news throughout the month of May as roster situations at Top 25 programs further crystallize with each NBA draft declaration/withdrawal.
But that's not the "mid-summer" transfer announcement we're referring to here.
In early July, Austin Nichols rocked the college basketball landscape with his decision to leave Memphis. A good scorer and excellent defender, Nichols was immediately recruited by top-notch programs (he chose Virginia) and left the Tigers with virtually no chance of making the NCAA tournament.
We're expecting another great schism this July or August when a Top 50 program is shaken to its core by an important player deciding he would rather not play a single game until November 2017 than spend another minute at that school.
Maybe it happens because of fallout from the academic scandal at North Carolina or the prostitution scandal at Louisville. Perhaps the big transfer is the result of another big scandal that breaks this offseason. Or perchance it comes completely out of left field like the Nichols news last year.
Whatever the reason, there's always something in the doldrums of the summer that temporarily brings all of the national CBB analysts out of hibernation. And if you want a little extra boldness in this prediction, I'll even go so far as to say that the player that makes waves is one that leaves a Big 12 school.
A 2017 5-Star Recruit Makes a Conference-Altering Commitment
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By now, we don't even need to look at recruiting news to know which schools are at the top of the list of options for 5-star recruits. Arizona, Duke, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan State and UCLA seem to be in on everyone every single year, and at least half of the 5-star players end up choosing those schools each season.
But there are usually a few who deviate far from the beaten path. Last year, Malik Newman (Mississippi State), Henry Ellenson (Marquette) and PJ Dozier (South Carolina) decided to stay close to home to play for major-conference programs that went a combined 16-38 in conference the season before their arrival.
This coming season, there's nothing too outlandish, though. Jonathan Isaac (Florida State) and Dennis Smith (NC State) are as "bad" as it gets, but both of those ACC teams were better than their records last year.
To make up for a year off from studs trying to rebuild programs, there will be at least one top-20 2017 recruit who makes a decision this offseason with potential hierarchical ramifications on a major conference.
The Big East is the one most likely to be impacted, as Nick Richards has received offers from Creighton and Seton Hall while St. John's is a strong candidate to land Hamidou Diallo from Queens, New York.
However, the biggest possible shake-up would be Michael Porter signing with Missouri. Rated as the No. 3 overall recruit by both 247Sports and ESPN, Porter is currently playing high school ball at Father Tolton in his hometown of Columbia, Missouri—which is about an eight-minute drive from Missouri's main campus.
The Tigers have gone 3-15 in SEC play in each of the past two seasons and can't seem to keep players from leaving the program, so for Missouri to sign one of the top players in the entire country would be like Kevin Durant deciding to sign with the 76ers this summer. But you just never know when a 17- or 18-year-old kid will decide that staying close to home is more important than potentially playing for a national championship.
Recruiting information courtesy of 247Sports.
Kerry Miller covers college basketball for Bleacher Report. You can follow him on Twitter @kerrancejames.
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