An Early Guide to the 2016-17 College Basketball Season: From A to Z
Amazingly, we're only five weeks away from the start of the 2016-17 college basketball season. The first games are set for Nov. 11, which will start five months of nonstop action that will excite us on a daily basis.
College basketball doesn't begin with a bang like other sports, though. Its start gets treated like an unwitnessed tree falling in the forest due to so many other sports' seasons being in full swing.
That's where we come in. With a little more than a month left until we get going, we've put together an early primer of what's on tap for 2016-17.
A Is for Allen
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Grayson Allen isn't just a candidate for national Player of the Year honors, he's also the front-runner for most hated player in college basketball. So it goes when you're a star player at Duke, one who's developed a reputation for tripping players.
Allen's 2015-16 season saw him average 21.6 points per game as a sophomore, which ranked 15th in the country. Along the way, he was reprimanded by the ACC after tripping Florida State's Xavier Rathan-Mayes during a game. That was one of several instances when Allen's actions got him in trouble and furthered his image as a villain in the mold of past Duke stars such as Bobby Hurley, J.J. Redick and Christian Laettner.
Oh, and he also bears a striking resemblance to former U.S. presidential candidate Ted Cruz.
By returning to college, Allen blesses us with another season of high-motored play that may or may not involve times when he gets under the skin of opposing players and their fans. And we can't wait.
B Is for Bubble
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Most of the year, bubbles are for baths and children's birthday parties. But during college basketball season, they have a completely different meaning, and not a great one for those associated with being on them.
The "bubble" is the name given to the group of teams whose NCAA tournament resumes aren't strong enough to ensure they would earn a bid without winning their conference tourney. More than half of the 68-team field is comprised of at-large selections, most of which are locks due to their strong play throughout the season, but the last handful end up going to teams whose shot at getting in changes with every performance in February and early March.
Bubble teams are among those who garner the most attention heading into the tourney, especially if most experts didn't have them getting in, and quite often someone from that group ends up going on an unexpected run. Syracuse was among the teams that grabbed one of the final at-large spots this past season, much to the surprise of many, and it went on to reach the Final Four.
C Is for Champions Classic
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Since 2011, four of the most storied programs in college basketball have been getting together in mid-November to show off their championship trophies, their Hall of Fame coaches and their amazingly stacked rosters in a top-notch doubleheader. And we'll be getting the Champions Classic through at least 2019 after ESPN extended the event another three years.
Duke, Kansas, Kentucky and Michigan State compete annually in the event, which this season is set for Nov. 15 at Madison Square Garden in New York City. Kentucky and Michigan State tangle in one game, with Duke and Kansas meeting in the other.
Between them, those four teams have 19 national championships, including six since 2000. Their coaches have won more than 2,700 games during their careers with nearly 2,100 at their current schools. And the players on display this time around include more than a dozen former McDonald's All-Americans and possibly as many future first-round NBA draft picks.
D Is for Duke's Freshman Class
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Our apologies for having three Duke-centric slides in the first four, but sometimes the alphabet falls in your favor. And with the newcomers the Blue Devils have brought in, highlighting them is completely merited.
Marques Bolden, Harry Giles, Frank Jackson and Jayson Tatum are all among the top 20 players in the 2016 recruiting class, giving Duke the top-ranked class, according to Scout. Adding them to returning stars such as guards Allen, Matt Jones and Luke Kennard as well as forward Amile Jefferson is why Bleacher Report's Kerry Miller and many other experts have the Blue Devils ranked first in their preseason polls.
Giles, a 6'10" forward ranked second overall, recently underwent arthroscopic knee surgery and may not be available for the start of the season. But even if his college debut is delayed, this is still a potent roster, one that could bring Duke its sixth national title and second in three years.
E Is for Exempt Tournaments
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Division I schools are allowed to play 29 games each season, but there's a loophole they can use to get around that limit and play 30 or 31 contests during the regular season. It's called being part of an "exempt" early-season tournament, of which there are now dozens, to the point that the majority of the 351 D-I teams are set to play in one during November or December.
According to Chris Dobbertean of SB Nation's Blogging the Bracket, a team that plays in an exempt event "can play 27 non-exempt contests and up to four games…as part of an exempt tournament" to get to 31. If they don't participate in one, then the limit is 29.
Naturally, most schools have jumped at the chance to get in the extra games, especially those from the power conferences. Every team from the ACC, Big East, Big 12, Big Ten, Pac-12 and SEC are playing in one, along with all but 48 schools from the remaining leagues.
These tourneys are held throughout the first two months of the season and run the gamut from four- or five-team round-robins held at campus sites to eight-team bracketed events in far-off locales such as the Bahamas (Battle 4 Atlantis) and Hawaii (Maui Invitational, Diamond Head Classic). We've even ranked the best ones to check out.
F Is for Florida's Preseason Journey
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Florida's Stephen O'Connell Center, more commonly known as the O'Dome, has traditionally been one of the toughest places to play in the SEC, if not the country. But the 35-year-old arena was in need of $64.5 million in upgrades, which are ongoing and have forced the Gators to play away from Gainesville until mid-December.
The Gators are making the most of this inconvenience, turning their nonconference slate into a statewide barnstorming tour.
Florida is set to play games in Jacksonville (Nov. 11 vs. Florida Gulf Coast, Nov. 13 vs. Mercer and Dec. 1 at North Florida), Lakeland (Nov. 17 vs. St. Bonaventure), Tampa (Nov. 21 vs. Belmont), Orlando (Nov. 24-27 in the AdvoCare Invitational), Tallahassee (Dec. 11 at Florida State) and Sunrise (Dec. 17 vs. Charlotte) before christening the newly named Exactech Arena on Dec. 21 against Little Rock.
Last season, the Gators were 12-4 at home and 9-11 in road and neutral-site games, including 6-9 in true road games.
G Is for Glendale
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The ultimate goal for every Division I school is to make the Final Four, which will be played at University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale, Arizona, this season. It's the first time the Final Four is being held west of Texas since 1995, when UCLA beat Arkansas in Seattle.
Like every Final Four venue since 2000, UofP Stadium is a football stadium that will be retrofitted to have a basketball court in the middle with plenty of portable seating around it. This results in tremendous crowds—last year's Final Four at NRG Stadium in Houston drew 75,505 for the semifinals and 74,340 for the title game—as well as a unique atmosphere with the potential for impacts on the line of sight for shooters attempting to gauge a perimeter shot.
However, that's a minor inconvenience for the schools that end up playing in the Final Four and a problem every team would love to have to deal with.
H Is for Hollins
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Offense is what drives interest in college basketball, as it is with most sports, but when a player devotes himself so intently toward making defensive stops, it's worth some attention. And with that, we introduce most of you to Omaha's Tra-Deon Hollins.
The 6'2" guard led the nation in steals last season with 127, 33 more than any other player and the most since 2001-02. That was in addition to averaging 12.5 points, 4.8 rebounds and 6.1 assists for the Mavericks, which went 18-14 to finish third in the Summit League.
Hollins had a 23-point, 13-assist, eight-steal game in a January loss to league regular-season champ IPFW and managed at least two steals in 30 of 32 games. In three games against power opponents, he averaged 13.3 points, five rebounds, six assists and four steals.
He'll have a few more chances to show off those quick hands against big-name programs in 2016-17, as Omaha plays at USC, Kansas State, Iowa, Iowa State and Pittsburgh.
I Is for Ineligible
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Not all the news heading into the 2016-17 season is good, particularly for players and teams that face eligibility issues. All told, seven schools aren't eligible to play for a national title, and dozens of individual athletes have yet to be cleared to participate this season.
The NCAA uses an Academic Progress Rate score to determine if teams are eligible for postseason play, and because of low scores, Alcorn State and Savannah State aren't able to play beyond the regular season. The same goes for Hawaii, but that's due to a postseason ban as part of NCAA sanctions coming from former coach Gib Arnold's tenure.
Four other schools—Grand Canyon, Houston Baptist, Incarnate Word and Massachusetts-Lowell—are ineligible because they're still going through the transition process after moving up from Division II.
On the player front, eligibility issues are most often related to incoming freshmen who don't get through the NCAA clearinghouse. Among those having to sit out 2016-17 include Texas A&M guard J.J. Caldwell and Villanova center Omari Spellman, while other notables such as North Carolina State forward Omer Yurtseven are still waiting to get cleared.
J Is for James Daniel
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If you're a fan of big scoring in small packages, Howard's James Daniel is the player for you.
The 5'11" guard led Division I at 27.1 points per game last season, 2.1 ahead of Oklahoma's Buddy Hield. However, because he only appeared in 30 games, his 812 points were fourth-most in the country. He's scored 1,899 points in his career, the most in program history.
Howard was 12-20 last season and hasn't made the NCAA tournament since 1992, so the opportunities to see Daniel put up points may be limited to the regular season. The Bison will play at Michigan and Marquette as part of the 2K Classic as well as at Georgetown, Maryland and VCU.
If he's able to finish atop the scoring chart again, Daniel would join a list of two-time champions that includes Doug McDermott and Stephen Curry.
K Is for Krzyzewski
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Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski is synonymous with college basketball, the winningest coach in Division I history and the only one to reach 1,000 career victories. He's also won five national titles, most recently in 2015, and is so well-known that most reporters can easily spell his name without needing to look it up, while the others just go with Coach K.
Heading into his 37th season with the Blue Devils, Krzyzewski doesn't look like he's ready to slow down anytime soon. Despite undergoing four surgeries this offseason—a double knee replacement, hernia surgery and two procedures on his left ankle—the 69-year-old is ready to go for a run at another championship.
"It’s been a good spring to get better," Krzyzewski told Luke DeCock of the News & Observer in June.
L Is for Louisville
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Louisville had a Top 15 team that was capable of making a run in the NCAA tournament last season, but we never got to see whether that was possible after the school banned itself from the postseason in the wake of an NCAA scandal involving escorts. The move was among several self-imposed sanctions meant to placate the NCAA and keep it from adding further penalties.
Cardinals coach Rick Pitino believes his school has done enough to satisfy the NCAA, per Gary B. Graves of the Associated Press (h/t Denver Post): "Certainly, we’re guilty of certain things and that’s why we took the penalty. We would not have taken the penalty if we didn’t find ourselves guilty of those violations."
But will it be enough? The NCAA hasn't commented publicly, and there's no timeline for when it will be done with its investigation. Until something happens, expect Louisville to be eligible for the 2017 NCAA tourney as well as the ACC tournament.
M Is for Marathon
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As mentioned in the intro, college basketball doesn't get the same kind of season-opening introduction as other sports. There are more than 150 games set for opening night on Nov. 11, including some high-profile clashes such as Arizona-Michigan State and Indiana-Kansas (both in Hawaii), and plenty more over that first weekend.
But the unofficial start of the 2016-17 season is Nov. 14-15. For the ninth year in a row, ESPN has put together an all-night/all-day marathon of games for diehard college basketball fans.
This year's College Hoops Tip-Off Marathon features 13 games, starting at 6 p.m. ET with a pair of women's games. Men's games begin at 10 p.m. ET with Princeton at BYU, followed by San Diego State at Gonzaga (midnight ET), Green Bay at Pacific (2 a.m. ET), Florida Atlantic at Hawaii (4:15 a.m. ET), Niagara at Hartford (6:30 a.m. ET), Winthrop at Manhattan (8:45 a.m. ET), Longwood at Stephen F. Austin (11 a.m. ET), Dayton at Alabama (1:15 p.m. ET) and Oregon at Baylor (3:30 p.m. ET).
That's followed by the Champions Classic games in New York City, first Kentucky against Michigan State at 7 p.m. ET and then Duke against Kansas at 9:30 p.m.
When it's all over, if you've watched the entire marathon, it will mean having taken in more than 30 consecutive hours of college hoops.
N Is for New Coaches
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For every Jim Boeheim or Mike Krzyzewski, coaches who have held the same job for more than 30 years, there are dozens who are switching on a seemingly annual basis in college basketball. Fifty of the 351 Division I schools have first-year coaches for the 2016-17 season, while another 42 are only entering their second year in that gig.
This massive turnover is a product of a vicious cycle—known as the "coaching carousel"—that usually begins rather innocently with a coach getting fired or opting to retire or resign. Then he's replaced with a coach who was in charge of another program, and that school often ends up plucking a guy away from another team, and so on.
For example: Georgia Tech fired Brian Gregory in late March, hiring Josh Pastner from Memphis two weeks later. Memphis responded by luring Tubby Smith away from Texas Tech a few days later, and Tech filled that vacancy by hiring Chris Beard from UNLV on April 15. Oh, and Beard had just taken the UNLV job 19 days earlier, and his sudden departure forced UNLV to steal Marvin Menzies from New Mexico State.
NMSU mercifully ended the carousel by promoting Paul Weir, who had been one of Menzies' assistants with the Aggies since 2007.
O Is for Offense
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After several consecutive seasons of decreases in offensive production, the NCAA finally made some rule changes meant to spark scoring for 2015-16. The most significant of those, lowering the shot clock from 35 to 30 seconds, produced some great results last season.
Numbers were way up across the board, according to Ken Pomeroy, noting the 71.6 points scored per 40 minutes in games involving two Division I teams was "the highest figure since the mid-90s." The 34.7 percent rate on three-point shooting was the best since 2008, the final year before the line was moved back.
Pomeroy also pointed out that turnovers were down despite shorter possessions, with teams giving it away 18.1 percent of the time. "That’s the lowest turnover rate in, well, as far as we can go back," he said. "That would be 1993, the year that the NCAA started tracking turnovers nationwide."
Eleven schools topped the 100-point mark at least four times in 2015-16, with 32 doing so at least three times. In 2014-15, only eight schools had three 100-point games, and none did it four times.
P Is for Peters
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If you don't know who Alec Peters is, either you haven't been following our offseason coverage or don't pay much attention to players from outside the power conferences. Either way, Peters is someone worth finding out about before he embarks on what should be a monster senior year.
The 6'9" forward is one of the best all-around players in college, regardless of level, coming off a junior year at Valparaiso when he averaged 18.4 points and 8.4 rebounds while shooting 50.5 percent overall and 44 percent on three-pointers. The Crusaders won the Horizon League but lost in their conference tournament final, though they went on to reach the NIT championship.
Peters put his name into the NBA draft but withdrew just before the deadline, and many speculated he might take advantage of the graduate transfer rule and finish his career at a bigger school. Instead, he chose to return to Valpo despite coach Bryce Drew leaving for Vanderbilt, and he should keep his team in contention for another conference title.
Valpo's non-league schedule will provide Peters with three chances to show his stuff against power opponents: on Nov. 17 at Oregon, Nov. 21 against Alabama in Las Vegas and Dec. 7 at Kentucky.
Q Is for QJ Peterson
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The 2,000-point club is an exclusive one in college basketball, with about a dozen players joining each season. Last year's additions included Oklahoma's Hield and Iowa State's Georges Niang.
Last month, we ranked the players most likely to get to this scoring threshold during the 2016-17 season, and high on that list is a player who might already have gotten to 2,000 if not for some injuries.
QJ Peterson enters his senior year with 1,611 points, having averaged 19.4 points for his career. That's over 83 games, though his VMI teams have played 95 over the past three seasons, with Peterson missing 12 in his sophomore year.
VMI was one of the highest-scoring teams in the country during Peterson's tenure, when Duggar Baucom was coach, and though Baucom left before the 2015-16 season, the 6'0" guard still kept up the scoring pace by averaging 19.8 points.
R Is for Rabb
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Ivan Rabb is projected to be a lottery pick in the 2017 NBA draft, according to DraftExpress. Then again, he was also expected to go rather high had he turned pro after a solid freshman season at California.
But Rabb never put his name into the draft, even for the sake of going through the combine or getting feedback from scouts. This was a major surprise for a player who came into college with plenty of hype—he was the No. 5 prospect in the 2015 class—and did nothing last season to lower his draft stock.
The 6'10" forward averaged 12.5 points, 8.5 rebounds and 1.2 blocks per game and shot 61.5 percent. And that was on a Golden Bears team where he was the fourth option on offense behind Jaylen Brown, Jordan Mathews and Tyrone Wallace.
All three of those players have moved on, putting Rabb in position for a huge sophomore year and likely a high draft slot if he heads to the pros next spring.
S Is for Streaks
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By running the table to claim the NCAA title, Villanova enters the 2016-17 season with the longest active win streak in college basketball. Right behind is George Washington, which has won five straight after taking down the NIT.
Once the season gets going, though, expect plenty of other streaks to happen. Last year, Stephen F. Austin won 21 consecutive games before falling to Notre Dame in the second round of the NCAA tournament, while SMU and Stony Brook each won 18 in a row at one point.
Also worth tracking are home win streaks, with Kansas' 42 consecutive victories at Allen Fieldhouse the longest active run in Division I, followed by Kentucky's 37 wins in a row at Rupp Arena. Kansas visits Kentucky on Jan. 28 as part of the Big 12/SEC Challenge.
And when we get to March, we'll be keeping an eye on whether several teams can keep their lengthy NCAA tournament streaks alive. Five schools (Duke, Gonzaga, Kansas, Michigan State and Wisconsin) are on runs of 18 or more years in a row getting into the Big Dance, with Kansas appearing in the last 27. Another bid and the Jayhawks will break a tie with North Carolina for the longest NCAA tourney streak.
T Is for Transfers
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When a high school basketball prospect signs a national letter of intent with a college, the expectation is he'll be at that school for up to five years, and the only reason he wouldn't is if he turned pro. In theory, sure, but in the reality of today's game, more and more players are finishing their careers at a different school from where they started.
Hundreds of players swap schools each season, some moving two or more times during their careers. NCAA rules require a transfer to sit out a year unless they've completed their degree at the first school, with the graduate transfer rule becoming more and more prevalent.
ESPN.com's list of transfers for the 2016-17 season includes more than 100 such grad transfers. Among those are guard Andrew White III, who announced in June he was leaving Nebraska and ended up choosing Syracuse in late August.
Some players who sat out last year who could make a big impact this season include former Memphis forward Austin Nichols, now at Virginia, and ex-Washington guard Nigel Williams-Goss with Gonzaga.
U Is for Upsets
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The beauty of college basketball is that almost every team can beat anyone or get beaten, which is why there hasn't been an unbeaten Division I school since Indiana in 1975-76. Upsets happen throughout the year—Wisconsin, fresh off consecutive Final Four appearances, lost its opener last November to a Western Illinois team that would finish 10-17—and never get old.
The No. 1 team in the Associated Press poll seemed to fall on an almost weekly basis in 2015-16, with six different schools holding the top spot. This set things up for a wide-open NCAA tournament, which did not disappoint in the upset department.
Ten teams seeded 10th or worse won their first-round NCAA tourney games in March, the most in tournament history. That includes Middle Tennessee's epic upset of No. 2 Michigan State, which was one of those teams that spent time atop the AP poll.
If you're a fan of the favorites winning almost all of the games, look elsewhere. College basketball is an underdog's game.
V Is for Villanova
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No A-to-Z breakdown of the upcoming season is complete without giving a little love to the defending national champion. Villanova won its second title in April in thrilling fashion, with forward Kris Jenkins draining a long three-pointer at the buzzer to beat North Carolina, and the Wildcats have a relatively decent shot to repeat.
Jenkins and guards Jalen Brunson and Josh Hart return along with some strong reserves, while Fordham transfer Eric Paschall becomes eligible after sitting out the 2015-16 season. At the very least, Villanova should have a great shot to win a fourth consecutive Big East regular-season championship.
Being the defending NCAA champs isn't a guarantee of success the following season, though. Duke won it all in 2014-15 but was bounced in the Sweet 16 in March, and that's as far as any team has made it after winning a title since Florida won consecutive championships in 2006 and 2007.
W Is for Win Shares (and Other Advanced Statistics)
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Watch a Major League Baseball game, and you can't avoid hearing the broadcasters bring up a variety of odd statistics that don't make sense to the average fan—things like exit velocity, OPS or BABIP—and often, they don't get explained.
Rest assured, college basketball fans: When we break out advanced statistics, we'll make sure to tell you what they mean or at least provide a link to where you can learn more.
For instance, an advanced statistic that tends to get used a lot in basketball is win shares, which is meant to gauge the value of a player in terms of the number of wins his offense and defense provided to his team. And win shares per 40 minutes (WS/40) takes that statistic and breaks it down by how much a player contributes to each individual victory, with 0.1 serving as the average in this stat.
The best returning player in college basketball, based on WS/40, is South Dakota State sophomore Mike Daum at 0.292. The 6'9" forward averaged 15.2 points and 6.1 rebounds in just 20.8 minutes per game last season, posting a 97.8 defensive rating, which estimates the number of points he'd allow over 100 possessions.
X Is for Xavier
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Xavier is a good basketball program and has been for quite a while. The Musketeers won 28 games last season, during which they spent most weeks in the Top 10 and earned a No. 2 seed in the NCAA tournament, where they were upset by Wisconsin in the second round.
Thus, Xavier remains a good program but not one of the greats, unless you're rating teams by their inability to win a national title or even go deep.
Sporting News included the Musketeers among the 10 best programs never to make the Final Four, their 26 NCAA appearances second only to BYU among teams without a Final Four. They've made the Sweet 16 seven times, most recently in 2015, and got to the Elite Eight in 2004 and 2008.
Could 2017 be when Xavier gets off that list and makes it to Glendale?
Y Is for Yakwe and Yankuba
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St. John's had a really bad season in 2015-16, and that's putting it nicely.
The Red Storm finished 8-24 overall and 1-17 in the Big East, losing 16 consecutive games at one point for first-year coach Chris Mullin. The former St. John's great was brought in to turn around a program that's among the 10 winningest in NCAA history but has been in a prolonged slump for most of this century. His first go-around didn't provide much of a change in that direction.
If St. John's is able to rebound, it will be on the backs of plenty of young talent, including two shot-blocking frontcourt guys who stood out last season as freshmen.
Kassoum Yakwe and Yankuba Sima combined to swat 122 shots in only 1,174 minutes of action. Each had a block rate of better than 10 percent to rank among the top 13 nationally.
Yakwe, a 6'7" forward, scored 7.1 points with 5.3 rebounds per game, while 6'11" center Sima put in 7.3 points and 5.7 rebounds per game.
Z Is for Zips (and Other Cool Team Nicknames)
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We wrap things up with one last reminder that college basketball is an enormous sport, one with 351 teams playing at the Division I level. And that means 351 team nicknames, including plenty of awesome and unique ones beyond the standard fare.
Sure, there are plenty of Bulldogs (15), Eagles, (15), Hawks (15), Tigers (13) and Wildcats (10) of some variation. But there are also the Akron Zips, named for the zipper that was invented in that city (but whose mascot is a kangaroo), or the Manhattan Jaspers, whose nickname is a homage to a former priest from the school.
Other great nicknames you'll likely hear at some point during the 2016-17 season: Chippewas (Central Michigan), Chanticleers (Coastal Carolina), Blue Hens (Delaware), Purple Aces (Evansville), Phoenix (Green Bay), Cyclones (Iowa State), Ragin' Cajuns (Louisiana-Lafayette), Delta Devils (Mississippi Valley State), Norse (Northern Kentucky), Golden Grizzlies (Oakland), Billikens (Saint Louis) and Golden Hurricane (Tulsa).
All statistics courtesy of Sports-Reference.com unless otherwise noted. All recruiting information courtesy of Scout.com unless otherwise noted.
Follow Brian J. Pedersen on Twitter at @realBJP.
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