College Basketball Season Preview

It’s finally that time of year again: from now until the end of March, there will be nonstop basketball everyday until the final tournament. We are coming off of one of the best years in recent history for college basketball, finishing with a tournament filled with upsets, Cinderella stories, fantastic games, and titans of college basketball clashing against each other finishing with Kansas winning the National Championship. There are many storylines coming into this year that will be fascinating to watch as the year goes on as this year is sure to be action packed and a year to remember for many reasons.

One of the most unique things about this season is there is no clear cut best team in college basketball. Last year, Gonzaga was the number one team in the country for most of last year, but Gonzaga has not been very impressive in the tournament and their isolation in the northwest corner up in Washington does not help their case since they don’t play the same level of competition that other teams do in conference.

Gonzaga isn’t the only team from a smaller conference to be high up in the rankings as Houston has quietly become a powerhouse in college basketball over recent years with a strong run to the Elite Eight last season.

Kentucky is another team in the mix for the number one spot in the country. It is no surprise that Coach Callipari knows how to put together a good team, but there have been some questions over his coaching as Kentucky has had some disappointing performances in March Madness as they lost in the first round last year to Saint Peter’s in a shocking upset.

Baylor is a team, similar to Kentucky, with a lot to prove this year. Head coach Scott Drew helped the Bears win a National Championship in 2021, but went out in the second round last year despite being a 1-seed. While Baylor had a bad year in terms of recruiting, with only one five-star, the top three scorers from last year are all coming back meaning they have a lot of experience to build around.

Part of the changing landscape of college sports is the transfer portal as the portal gives a chance to teams that aren’t able to recruit at the same caliber as Duke, North Carolina, or Gonzaga. It also gives a chance for players who have spent a few years playing for smaller schools to show off their abilities at the national level. This gives the chance for teams like Texas Tech and Illinois to reload after reaching success last year but losing many of their star players to the draft or the transfer portal and a chance for teams like Georgetown to reassert themselves on the national level after years of disappointment. 

The transfer portal has also given some unexpected teams the opportunity to get players who might not have gotten their chance at a big school but will have a bigger role at smaller ones. Case in point is Eastern Michigan who landed former five-star recruit Emoni Bates. Bates played his freshman year at Memphis after coming out of high school as the fifth-highest ranked player in his class but underperformed in his first year while dealing with injuries.

There are many coaching changes that will headline this college basketball season, the most important of which was the end of Coach Mike Krzyzweski’s historic time at Duke. It doesn’t feel the same without Coach K. as he has spent a whopping 42 seasons as the head coach of the Blue Devils while leading them to five national championships and a record 1,202 career wins. It will be almost impossible to replace Coach K., but new coach John Scheyer will try his best to fill the shoes with high expectations and a stacked roster with four five-star recruits including the number one, two, and four recruits in the class of 2022.

Unlike the NFL draft, the NBA draft is only three rounds, and college basketball includes a much larger pool to select from in terms of college basketball teams as well as international players and those who went to play professionally straight out of high school. This means that some great players who might not get picked in the first round or even in the later rounds are able to return to college basketball and improve their draft stock in order to be picked in the next year’s draft.

An example of this is Armando Bacot, one of the biggest surprises from last season’s tournament. Bacot led North Carolina on a run to the finals that shocked everybody while scoring over 15 points in 6 of the 7 tournament games he played in and with the last two being injured. 

Another player who has been in the spotlight for a few years now is Drew Timme from Gonzaga. Timme, now a senior, has been an instrumental part of Gonzaga’s success for three years and has led them in scoring for the last two seasons.

Of course the most obvious player for this category is Oscar Tshiebwe who was undoubtedly the best player in college basketball last season, winning the National Player of the Year award and scoring 17.4 points per game while bringing in a whopping 15.1 rebounds. If Kentucky goes on a run in the tournament this year, Tshiebwe will be the guy to lead them on it. 

If there is anything to learn from last year’s tournament it is that the best teams often are not the highest ranked teams. There are sure to be many surprising teams this year as well. One team to watch out for is Texas A&M. Texas A&M went on a surprising run last year in the SEC Tournament, making it to the conference championship and losing to Tennessee. Shockingly Texas A&M was left out of March Madness, and they showed why they should have been in the tournament as they went on to win the NIT. Headed into this year, Texas A&M was able to hold on to most of their roster from last year. The SEC is going to be one of the best conferences in college basketball this year as Kentucky, Alabama, and Arkansas have all brought in high ranking recruits and Auburn, Tennessee, and Florida have all held onto the bulk of their rosters from last year and hope to improve upon them. 

Another team looking to turn a lot of heads and return to glory is Indiana. The historic Hoosiers have fallen from grace over the last decade but are coming off their first tournament appearance since 2016 as a 12 seed last year. The standout piece of this team is easily Trayce Jackson-Davis who averaged 18.3 points per game last season and is seen by many as one of the best players in college basketball this year. Indiana also has a great combination of experienced veterans who are in their fifth or even sixth years of college basketball paired with the number 11 recruiting class in the country with a five star and two four stars. Indiana does not have the odds in their favor as they look to battle it out with powerhouses Michigan, Illinois, Iowa, Purdue, and Michigan State for the B1G title. 

In a conference so dominated by Duke, North Carolina, and a returning Virginia, Miami is not often a team many think about as a basketball powerhouse. They surprised many people last year as they snuck into the tournament as a 10 seed after a hot streak to finish the season and then went on to make it all the way to Elite Eight and losing to the eventual winner, Kansas. The idea of the traditional blue-bloods of college basketball is sure to be challenged from a variety of teams this season. 

The college basketball 2022-2023 season is shaping up to be a year like no other: returning stars looking to lead rejuvenated teams, transfers with the chance to make their names known, a Kansas team trying to repeat on top of the college basketball world, a young Duke coach with giant sized shoes to fill, and a world of surprises that not even a person with a crystal ball could predict are sure to leave college basketball fans at the edge of their seats, screaming at the TV, locked in another room, or fists through the wall. It’s going to be a great year.