The 2016-17 NCAA Basketball Season by the Numbers
It has been more than 5,200 hours since Kris Jenkins hit the unforgettable shot to give Villanova its first national championship since 1985, and we are beyond ready to find out what the 2016-17 college basketball season has in store.
By now, you've probably read more than your fair share of season-preview content, but there's always room for some fun with numbers.
No need to fear, math haters. There's no calculus or graduate-level regression analysis here. It's just a bunch of good-to-know tidbits for the upcoming college basketball season, presented in numerical form, ranging from how many points the nation's top returning scorer put up last year to how many projected starters on Top 25 teams didn't begin their careers with those teams.
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So, without further ado, how many of these games are you planning to watch on Friday?
160: Games on opening night, including such gems as Arizona vs. Michigan State and Indiana vs. Kansas. There are also a few solid under-the-radar games like Nevada vs. Saint Mary's, Vanderbilt vs. Marquette, Georgia vs. Clemson, Florida Gulf Coast vs. Florida and Harvard vs. Stanford (in China). We made it, y'all. Hoops is back.
46: Games on opening night pitting a Division I team against a non-Division I team, including such schools as Tougaloo, Antelope Valley and the John Jay College of Criminal Justice. As if the college basketball offseason isn't long enough, many coaches curiously insist on one more exhibition game after the regular season has already begun.
52: Head coaches in new places. From a percentage standpoint, it's not that many. With 351 schools, 52 coaching changes is equivalent to about four firings in the NBA. Still, it's quite a bit of movement, headlined by the shuffling at Pittsburgh and Vanderbilt that sent Kevin Stallings to Pitt, Bryce Drew to Vandy and Jamie Dixon to TCU.
812: Points scored last season by the nation's leading returning scorer, James Daniel from Howard. Daniel has the permanent green light and led the nation in free-throw attempts while playing just 30 games. Other noteworthy returning scorers include Duke's Grayson Allen (779 points) and Davidson's Jack Gibbs (725 points).
786: Combined total of career D-I points scored by players on Kentucky's roster. Sophomore Isaiah Briscoe leads the way with 326, followed closely by senior forward Derek Willis at 288. Expectations for Kentucky are just as high as usual, but this year's batch of returning players is a far cry from what the team has had in recent years. Better hope those incoming freshmen are much more like Jamal Murray than Skal Labissiere.
32: Former 5-star recruits still playing college ball this year. Most of them are sophomores from last year's class, but that also includes a trio of fifth-year seniors from the 2012 class: Rodney Purvis, Amile Jefferson and DaJuan Coleman. Everyone is obsessed with the new McDonald's All-Americans, but guys like Isaiah Hicks should be oldies but goodies.
97.5: Percentage of points from last season that Hawaii lost. The Rainbow Warriors had one heck of a run last season, going 28-6 and upsetting California in the NCAA tournament, but they'll be lucky to win five games this year after losing each of their eight leading scorers. They're banned from postseason play due to a violation of ethical conduct rules by former head coach Gib Arnold, but this depleted roster was never going to sniff the tourney.
55: Consecutive failed attempts by New Hampshire to reach the NCAA tournament. That's not quite as bad as Northwestern's 0-for-78 batting average, but this might finally be the year the New Hampshire Wildcats get the job done. They set a school record with 20 wins last season and bring back six of the seven leading scorers from that team. Meanwhile, both Albany and Stony Brook were decimated by graduations, leaving Vermont as possibly the only team standing in New Hampshire's way. If you have any interest in America East hoops, that should be a fun border war to watch.
21: Consecutive games in which Hofstra's Rokas Gustys recorded at least 10 rebounds to end the season, including six games with at least 20 boards. One more shoutout for the smaller schools, as Hofstra's big man ought to lead the nation in double-doubles this season. The Pride lost four of their six leading scorers. Aside from Gustys, the only one returning is a three-point shooter (Brian Bernardi) who averaged two rebounds per 40 minutes. He may well join Tim Duncan and Blake Griffin as the only players in the past two decades to average at least 20 points and 14 rebounds per game.
48.8: Percentage of three-point attempts that went in for Virginia's London Perrantes last season. Whether he can replicate (or even improve upon) that as a senior remains to be seen, but Perrantes had one of the most lethal shots in the country. Also of note: His hair might be the best among all players this season.
129: Points that Nigel Hayes' field-goal percentage dropped between his sophomore and junior years. If Wisconsin expects to contend for a title, it'll need the Hayes who made nearly one out of every two shots, not the one who barely made one out of every three shots.
80: Percentage of shots that Indiana's OG Anunoby has made in two exhibition games, including shooting 7-of-11 from three-point range. There's a huge difference between scoring efficiently against Bellarmine and doing the same against Kansas and Wisconsin, but it's a promising start for a guy near the top of everyone's list of breakout stars to watch.
112: Days since word first surfaced of the hot spot on Dillon Brooks' foot that eventually necessitated surgery. During that time, we've learned next to nothing about his situation. Oregon head coach Dana Altman told Jon Rothstein of FanRag Sports on Saturday that there's still no timetable for Brooks to return. The Ducks will still make the NCAA tournament even if he doesn't play, but all that "fringe No. 1 seed" talk will disappear if he doesn't come back soon.
14: National championships represented in the Maui Invitational. Obviously, Chaminade doesn't have any of those. Neither does Tennessee. But North Carolina (1957, 1982, 1993, 2005 and 2009), Connecticut (1999, 2004, 2011, 2014), Oklahoma State (1945, 1946), Georgetown (1984), Wisconsin (1941) and Oregon (1939) could just about clothe the homeless of Hawaii if they brought their championship banners with them for this outstanding tournament.
11: Projected first-round draft picks in the Champions Classic, according to DraftExpress. Duke leads the way with four, but Kansas (three), Kentucky (three) and Michigan State (one) are well-represented, too. There might be a few scouts in attendance for those Nov. 15 games.
Approximately 800: D-I transfers in the past calendar year. People get mad when you call it an epidemic, but the fact of the matter is this is a continually growing trend in which we're well over two transfers per year per school. And for those of you who want to believe it's just no-name players jumping from one inconsequential school to another…
24: New or former D-I transfers likely to contend for a starting job on a preseason Top 25 team. A handful of teams have no impact transfers whatsoever—West Virginia, UCLA, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Kentucky and Duke—but then you have Gonzaga (Nigel Williams-Goss, Jordan Mathews and Johnathan Williams III), Creighton (Mo Watson Jr., Marcus Foster and Cole Huff), Connecticut (Rodney Purvis and Terry Larrier) and Syracuse (Andrew White III and John Gillon) with multiple transfers likely to start.
Would Xavier even be ranked without Norfolk State transfer RaShid Gaston? What about Iowa State if it didn't have Louisiana Tech transfer Merrill Holden and Northern Illinois transfer Darrell Bowie? One of Michigan State's only veteran presences is former West Virginia transfer Eron Harris. And Virginia is a strong candidate to win it all with the addition of Memphis transfer Austin Nichols.
But, please, keep pushing your "transfers aren't that big of a deal" narratives by pointing out the guys like Novian Cherry, who played 95 minutes at Savannah State before transferring to a Division II team. It's impressive that you can type with your head that deep in the sand.
Let's end that little rant by diving into the countdown!
10: Minutes into last season that Rhode Island guard—and 2015-16 preseason Atlantic 10 Player of the Year—E.C. Matthews lasted before tearing his ACL. But even that was better than North Carolina State's Terry Henderson, who sat out an entire season after transferring from West Virginia and went down for the count with an ankle injury after just seven minutes. Rhode Island and N.C. State were not good teams as a result, but look for both shooting guards to play crucial roles on teams that win at least 20 games this year.
9: Five-star players on Duke's roster. Folks joked two years ago that Kentucky's bench would have been a Top 10 team, but a Duke starting five of Grayson Allen, Matt Jones, Jayson Tatum, Amile Jefferson and Harry Giles (if and when he's healthy) means a second unit of Frank Jackson, Luke Kennard, Chase Jeter, Javin DeLaurier and Marques Bolden that would at least be in the conversation as a Top 10 team. DeLaurier is the only one of the bench that wasn't a 5-star recruit, but at No. 41 overall in this year's class, that's not a bad 10th-best option.
8: Years since Duke last played without someone named Plumlee. From Miles to Mason and Marshall, there was a Plumlee at Duke for twice as long as Perry Ellis was at Kansas. "The three Plumlee boys are all in the NBA," coach Mike Krzyzewski proudly told Bleacher Report at ACC media day. "So, now, it's gotta be the Jeter guy and the Bolden guy, but thank goodness we had all three of them."
(By the way, if you're already sick of hearing about Duke in this column, buckle up for a long five months. The Blue Devils probably won't flirt with perfection quite like Kentucky did in 2014, but this team could and should be just as good. Much will be said and written about it by season's end.)
7: Height in feet of Arizona's stud freshman Lauri Markkanen. Both Brian Pedersen and I listed Markkanen as the freshman we're most excited to see this season. And with players on that roster dropping like flies, he's going to play an even bigger role than initially thought. His name isn't quite as great for rhyming as Frank the Tank—unless you like Lauri the Glory—but at 7'0" with three-point range, Markkanen could make as much of an impact on the game as a freshman as Frank Kaminsky did as a senior.
6: Points from last season that Wisconsin needs to replace. Riley Dearring scored two points before transferring, and Jordan Smith scored four points before graduating, but every other Badger is back this year. Sure, there are great returning players like Nigel Hayes and Ethan Happ, but that carryover from last season is one of the main reasons this is a preseason Top 10 team. Also worth noting, Princeton only lost 15 points from last year and regained a guy (Hans Brase) who averaged 11.5 points per game two years ago.
5: ACC teams ranked in the Top 20 of both the AP and coaches preseason polls. Duke is No. 1 in both, followed by North Carolina, Virginia, Louisville and Syracuse. Even more noteworthy, seven other ACC teams received at least six votes in one of the two polls. That means 80 percent of the teams in this conference are Top 25 teams in the eyes of several of the people tasked with determining who the best teams are.
4: Nonconference games that Saint Mary's scheduled against KenPom.com top 100 teams—three of them away from home, no less. The Gaels will also face No. 114 Nevada and No. 121 UC Irvine. That's considerable progress for a team that scheduled a road game against California and virtually nothing else last season, missing the NCAA tournament with 29 wins because of it.
3: Schools in the past half-century to win back-to-back national championships. We had Florida 2006-07, Duke 1991-92 and UCLA 1967-73. But unlike most reigning national champions, Villanova has the returning pieces to get the job done. Josh Hart and Kris Jenkins have a chance to go down in college hoops lore next to guys like Joakim Noah and Corey Brewer.
2: Healthy forwards on Michigan State's roster with any collegiate experience. And that's being generous with the definitions of "forward" and "experience." Matt Van Dyk, a 6'5" senior, put up solid numbers at St. Clair County Community College before becoming a walk-on at MSU, but he has played just 49 minutes in his D-I career. Kenny Goins, a 6'6" sophomore, got a decent amount of run last year but still only scored 52 points in 266 minutes. Until Gavin Schilling and/or Ben Carter are healthy, it'll be up to freshmen Miles Bridges and Nick Ward to shoulder the load.
1: Team in the preseason AP Top 25 that finished below .500 last year. The UCLA Bruins become the first team to get that treatment since Georgia Tech in 2009. The Yellow Jackets went 12-19 the previous year, but they opened at No. 22 in the AP poll with the fifth-best recruiting class in the country, headlined by Derrick Favors. They never quite lived up to the hype, though, bouncing in and out of the polls before earning a No. 10 seed in the NCAA tournament. Lonzo Ball and company are hoping for a better result.
0: Times in the past three seasons that a single player has scored at least 50 points in a game. There were seven games with at least 45 points last year, including two by Iona's A.J. English, but you have to go back to South Dakota State's Nate Wolters in February 2013 to find the last collegiate 50-burger. Will we break that drought this year? Might it happen on opening night?
Stats are courtesy of KenPom.com and Sports-Reference.com. Recruiting information is courtesy of Scout.
Kerry Miller covers college basketball for Bleacher Report. You can follow him on Twitter @kerrancejames.
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