NCAA Basketball Teams that Have Changed Significantly During the 2014 Offseason
Not a single college basketball game has been played in more than 200 days, but there are at least 10 teams that have changed significantly since our early expectations formed in April.
For many of us, our relationship with our favorite college basketball team is like that of a marriage. In sickness and in health. Forsaking all others. Til death do us part.
Today, though, we're focusing on the "for better or for worse" portion of our vows.
Whether the changes were caused by transfers, health issues or eligibility issues, there are several teams that are either looking considerably better or worse than they did six or seven months ago.
If you haven't paid any attention to the world of college hoops since the end of the NCAA tournament, here's your chance to catch up on some of the noteworthy news of the offseason.
Note: Early entrants to the NBA were not counted as significant offseason occurrences, as many of them were pretty well foreseeable before they were official.
For Better: Auburn
1 of 10
Offseason Timeline
March 18: Bruce Pearl hired
April 13: Cinmeon Bowers commits
May 19: K.C. Ross-Miller transfers in
June 11: Antoine Mason transfers in
Aug 10: Trayvon Reed commits
In addition to everything listed above, Bruce Pearl also picked up a pretty big transfer in early June when he got Kareem Canty to commit to transferring to Auburn for the second time in a matter of two months. He won't be eligible to play until next season, but it was just one of many great moves for Auburn this offseason.
When Auburn's season ended on March 12 with an 18-point loss at the hands of a South Carolina team that finished the year with a 14-20 record, prospects for the 2014-15 season were grim, at best. A Tigers team that was already working on a streak of five consecutive sub-.500 seasons was losing a 19.1 PPG player in Chris Denson.
They might not have been unanimously voted as the last-place finisher in the SEC, but no one was expecting them to finish in the top 11.
Even after the Pearl hiring, @BPredict had Auburn finishing in 13th, saying, "Auburn is not a program that can be fixed in a single season."
At the time, we couldn't have agreed more. This program was a train wreck that needed at least two or three years of tender loving care from Pearl's mastermind.
But then he signed Cinmeon Bowers. He added K.C. Ross-Miller. He got Antoine Mason—the highest scoring player in the country last year who wasn't named Doug McDermott. He even got Trayvon Reed for the second semester of the season after Reed was dismissed from Maryland.
All of a sudden, Auburn can be fixed in a single season.
The Tigers aren't winning the SEC. They might not even make the NCAA tournament. However, "might not" is a pretty huge step up from their "maybe when pigs fly" chance of dancing in mid-March.
For Worse: Oregon
2 of 10
Offseason Timeline
April 10: A.J. Lapray transfers out
April 11: Ben Carter transfers out
May 9: Dominic Artis, Damyean Dotson and Brandon Austin dismissed from team
July 30: Ray Kasongo denied admission
Sept 12: Elgin Cook and Jalil Abdul-Bassit arrested for shoplifting
Sept 17: JaQuan Lyle removed from roster
Oct 9: Lyle enrolls at IMG Academy
Oct 22: No timetable on Michael Chandler
Bruce Pearl was pretty busy adding players at Auburn, but Dana Altman was extremely busy finding out what players he won't have this season.
The great irony here is that in the report of A.J. Lapray's decision to transfer, it was mentioned that this solves Oregon's problem of having one too many (14) scholarship players.
Forget scholarships. The Ducks only have 10 players on their roster at present. One of them (Michael Chandler—the only player on the roster taller than 6'7") is indefinitely injured. Two of them (Elgin Cook and Jalil Abdul-Bassit) were arrested for shoplifting less than two months ago and may or may not face some sort of school- or NCAA-imposed penalty.
Even before returning players started not returning and new players started being denied admission, the Ducks were already going to need to recover from losing five seniors who each averaged at least 10 minutes per game last season.
We love Joseph Young as much as the next guy, but he isn't Michael Jordan. Moreover, Dwayne Benjamin isn't Scottie Pippen.
A lot of people are giving Altman and the Ducks the benefit of the doubt for having won at least 24 games in three straight seasons, but this could be a really ugly year in Eugene. Even if Young puts up 30 PPG, where are they going to get the other 52 points to match last year's scoring average?
For Better: Gonzaga
3 of 10
Offseason Timeline
May 18: Byron Wesley transfers in
June 29: Eric McClellan transfers in
Oct 9: Kyle Wiltjer makes 70 of 75 three-pointers in five minutes
Maybe the Kyle Wiltjer thing was just a dumb viral video, but forgive us for wanting to list at least three noteworthy things that happened to Gonzaga just one slide after listing the litany of issues with Oregon.
Back in April, I listed Gonzaga as one of the top teams getting a boost from someone who transferred during the 2013 offseason before sitting out a year (Wiltjer). At the bottom of that slide, I noted that the Zags were solid on four of their five starters, but that the fifth was a bit of a question mark.
Until Byron Wesley came to town, that is.
Rather than hoping for the best from Kyle Dranginis, Gonzaga added a small forward who averaged 17.8 PPG and 6.4 RPG last season. Rather than last season's problem of only really having one go-to scorer, Gonzaga is now in the enviable position of having too many scorers.
And the Bulldogs will have even more shooters in the second semester when Eric McClellan becomes eligible.
An under-the-radar acquisition during the doldrums of the summer, McClellan was dismissed from Vanderbilt for academic reasons after just 12 games. However, the combo guard averaged 14.3 PPG and 3.2 APG in those dozen contests.
All told, Gonzaga adds a trio of players who were most recently at major conference programs.
That should go a long way in the West Coast Conference.
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For Worse: West Virginia
4 of 10
Offseason timeline
March 24: Eron Harris transfers out
May 9: Terry Henderson transfers out
May 10: Remi Dibo leaves for France
When the 2013-14 season ended, West Virginia was shaping up to be a great sleeper team for the year ahead.
The Mountaineers had a mildly disappointing 17-16 record last year, but it was a young team still finding its legs. Two years ago, not a single West Virginia player averaged 10.0 PPG, but three of the top six scorers left the program—one of which (Aaric Murray) had a massive season with Texas Southern.
The top scorers who did return became a much bigger part of the offense. Eron Harris averaged 17.2 PPG. Terry Henderson added 11.7 PPG. And Remi Dibo was no slouch in his first season with the team at 7.3 PPG.
Every single player on last year's team had at least one more year of eligibility. Led by Harris and Juwan Staten, the Mountaineers hoped to return to the tournament in 2015 after a two-year hiatus.
Except Harris left the program less than a week after the season ended—even though he didn't decide on a new home (Michigan State) until June. Rumors starting circulating that Dibo was going to play professionally overseas, but before those reports were even confirmed, Henderson had also transferred out of the program.
Now, they're young and inexperienced all over again. By Jon Rothstein's estimation, the Mountaineers will go with a starting lineup that includes a freshman (Jevon Carter), a JUCO transfer (Jaysean Paige) and a senior who hasn't played D-I ball since the 2011-12 season (Jonathan Holton).
Could they win a significant number of games with that starting five? Sure. Who am I to say differently? But West Virginia would have been more likely to win more games if it hadn't unnecessarily lost those three key contributors from last year's team.
For Better: Iowa State
5 of 10
Offseason Timeline
April 13: Bryce Dejean-Jones transfers in
May 10: Giorgos Tsalmpouris commits
July 25: Georges Niang's weight loss photo goes viral
At times, it looked like Iowa State might qualify for a "For Worse" slide.
On the same day that they landed Bryce Dejean-Jones, a different transfer was suspended indefinitely from the team. Abdel Nader sat out the 2013-14 season after transferring in from Northern Illinois, but that didn't stop him from drinking and driving in early April.
Two months later, reserve shooting guard Matt Thomas received an OWI of his own.
Fred Hoiberg announced in early October that the two players will each miss a whopping two regular season games for doing something that would get us normal people fired from our jobs in a heartbeat.
It was also announced in July that Jameel McKay will be ineligible to play until Dec. 20.
However, those minor setbacks are nothing compared to what the Cyclones gained this summer.
Dejean-Jones averaged 13.6 PPG and 3.0 APG last season for UNLV and should go a long way toward helping the team replace the veteran leadership of DeAndre Kane.
Hoiberg also got a late signing in the form of Giorgos Tsalmpouris, a 7'1" left-handed big man from Greece who should get some minutes on a roster that won't have a single player taller than 6'8" until McKay (6'9") becomes eligible.
Less than two weeks after that, Hoiberg picked up another transfer in Hallice Cooke, formerly of Oregon State. Cooke is sitting out this season due to transfer rules and is undergoing hip surgery, but he should be good to go with three years of eligibility starting next year.
Business as usual for Iowa State, which seems to add a huge transfer or four every year.
For Worse: Maryland
6 of 10
Offseason Timeline
April 8: Shaq Cleare, Nick Faust and Roddy Peters transfer out
May 2: Seth Allen transfers out
May 22: Charles Mitchell transfers out
Aug 1: Trayvon Reed dismissed from team
Oct 19: Evan Smotrycz fractures foot
It's pretty incredible that Maryland still has a full roster after all it lost this offseason.
The trifecta of transfers on the day after the national championship was only the tip of the iceberg. The Terrapins had four players who averaged at least 10.0 PPG last season, but Shaq Cleare, Nick Faust and Roddy Peters weren't among that quartet.
Still, each played a key role last season, combining to average 60.0 minutes per game.
The bigger losses came the following month. Seth Allen—perhaps for fear of job security with Melo Trimble on the way in—transferred to Virginia Tech at the beginning of May. And Charles Mitchell transferred to Georgia Tech near the end of the month.
It was a nice little going-away present for two of Maryland's former conference rivals.
All was quiet for a couple of months until 4-star center Trayvon Reed was kicked out of the program before ever getting a chance to play a preseason game. Here's hoping his sugar tooth, noted by Don Markus of the Baltimore Sun, doesn't cause any similar problems in his new home at Auburn.
Adding injury to insult, swingman Evan Smotrycz recently fractured his foot and will likely miss the first couple games for the Terrapins.
But, hey, they still have Dez Wells and Jake Layman, right?
For Better: Ole Miss
7 of 10
Offseason Timeline
April 14: Rod Lawrence commits
April 16: Terence Smith transfers in
April 18: M.J. Rhett transfers in
While most of us were either still suffering from tournament hangover or busy trying to keep up with all the hires, firings and draft declarations that abounded for the first few weeks of the offseason, Andy Kennedy was rapidly filling roster spots at Ole Miss with quality players.
Kennedy had already signed one JUCO guard (Stefan Moody) in the fall, but he added another in Rod Lawrence on April 14. Rated by 247Sports as the third-best shooting guard of this year's class of transfers, he could be a solid complement to Jarvis Summers in the backcourt.
Two days after Lawrence signed, the Rebels got Terence Smith from Tennessee-Martin. Another new shooting guard in Kennedy's system, Smith shot 43.8 percent from three-point range while attempting just 4.4 triples per game. Both numbers will be a refreshing change from the Marshall Henderson regime.
Only two more days passed before Kennedy landed another huge transfer in M.J. Rhett. The 6'9", 240-pound power forward averaged 10.9 points and 9.1 rebounds per game last season with Tennessee State. He will immediately challenge Sebastian Saiz and Aaron Jones for a starting job.
All in all, this is a much deeper and more well-rounded team than we saw in recent seasons. Summers will still take a ton of shots, but the Rebels now have more than two players who are capable of scoring. They could be a serious sleeper candidate in the SEC.
For Worse: Georgia
8 of 10
Offseason Timeline
March 11: John Cannon transfers out
April 17: Tim Dixon transfers out
July 14: Brandon Morris dismissed from team
Did anyone really know what to make of Georgia last season?
The Bulldogs won 20 games, but they were blown out by virtually every competent opponent they played and were never even remotely considered for a tournament berth. What's more, the roster was packed to the gills with players whose names wouldn't resonate with any average CBB fans.
Still, it was a relatively young roster that could stand to do some damage this season. Donte' Williams was the only senior, and he ranked sixth on the team in both minutes played and points scored.
But things slowly started to unravel.
Williams was 6'9" and one of the team's best rebounders. He was also one of just three players on the roster who was taller than 6'8". The other two—John Cannon and Tim Dixon—transferred shortly after the season ended, leaving the Bulldogs without any traditional options at center.
Losing Brandon Morris was the bigger blow, though. Morris was dismissed from the team after a felony pot arrest. He was their starting small forward for the final three months of the season. He ranked third on the team in points per game.
On a team that was hardly writing the instructional manual on offensive efficiency to begin with, he could be tough to replace.
We'll find out early and often what Georgia is made of this year. Unlike last season, Georgia will face half a dozen quality nonconference opponents.
For Better: Syracuse and Michigan
9 of 10
Offseason Timeline
April 7—Oct 30: Head coaches stayed put
We touched on this earlier in the week while detailing the games you need to watch for the first three weeks of the season.
We all overreacted at the outset of the offseason. Tyler Ennis and Jerami Grant left early for Syracuse. Michigan lost Nik Stauskas, Glenn Robinson III and Mitch McGary to the NBA. They also lost Jon Horford to Florida via transfer.
But Jim Boeheim is still coaching for the Orange. John Beilein is still at the helm for the Wolverines.
There are undoubtedly a few stragglers out there who haven't yet bought back into what those coaches have been able to do throughout the years, regardless of the players involved, but most of us have seen the light.
Do we suddenly believe that Mark Donnal, Ricky Doyle and Max Bielfeldt are going to dominate in the paint for Michigan? Did we flippantly decide that Trevor Cooney actually has what it takes to be the alpha dog for a Sweet 16 Syracuse team?
Nope. Not really.
We just remembered that great coaches deserve the benefit of the doubt, especially when they each still have at least five former 4-star recruits at their disposal.
For Better and Worse: SMU
10 of 10
Offseason Timeline
June 3: Justin Martin transfers in
July 14: Emmanuel Mudiay goes overseas
Oct 20: Markus Kennedy reported not eligible
Oct 24: Ben Emelogu granted waiver
While some teams seemed to receive nothing but good news and others have done nothing but catch bad break after bad break, SMU sampled the best of both worlds.
On the good side of things, the Mustangs added some key transfers. Justin Martin averaged 11.7 PPG and 5.2 RPG last season for Xavier, and Ben Emelogu was surprisingly ruled eligible last week after averaging 10.5 PPG as a freshman at Virginia Tech.
Coincidentally, they might both be needed in a huge way this season because of eligibility issues with the two players who were expected to be their stars.
Markus Kennedy might still be able to gain back his eligibility if he can improve his grades, but Emmanuel Mudiay is off making $1.2 million, per Matt Norlander of CBS Sports, playing in China.
Arguing over which of those two players was going to be more important to SMU's game this season is like debating whether food or shelter is more crucial for survival in a zombie apocalypse. Kennedy could have been the AAC Player of the Year. Mudiay could have been the best freshman in the country.
But Larry Brown's squad isn't hopelessly crippled without them, thanks in large part to Martin and Emelogu. They'll lean heavily on Nic Moore, Ben Moore, Keith Frazier and Yanick Moreira, as well.
That should be good enough for the Mustangs to reach the tournament, but our expectations for them sure have been swinging on a pendulum over the past few months.
Kerry Miller covers college basketball for Bleacher Report. You can follow him on Twitter: @kerrancejames.
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