Wednesday, April 30, 2014

Morning News: Jordan Adams And Chane Behanan Go Pro, Missouri Hires Kim Anderson, And More

How many college basketball fans know who this guy is?
With the NBA Draft declaration deadline passed, it's time for a discussion of the final player decisions, as well as some other college basketball news from the last few days:

Jordan Adams Goes Pro Adams had announced a week ago that he was staying at UCLA, but... yeah. UCLA now loses Adams in addition to Kyle Anderson and Zach LaVine to the Draft. Steve Alford has three blue chippers coming in and gets Isaac Hamilton back, but that's going to be a very young team without much experience returning. I previous had UCLA projected as a 6 seed, but they're going to have to drop several lines now.

Missouri Hires Kim Anderson Taking the pulse of the average fan, this seems to be a pretty underwhelming hire. Kansas fans, in particular, are making a lot of fun of it. Kim Anderson is basically a total unknown. That said, you never know here... Bo Ryan is an example of an in-state non-Division I head coach who made the step up to the big leagues and had a ton of success (although Ryan did coach two seasons at Wisconsin-Milwaukee between his DIII job and Wisconsin).

Considering the fact that it's not exactly like Missouri's previous coach was John Wooden, we might as well give this new guy a chance. The key test will be to see if he can add any players over the summer. Without an infusion of talent, it's hard to see an NCAA Tournament trip in season #1.

Chane Behanan Goes Pro This was basically leaked a couple of weeks ago, but Behanan finally made it official on Monday. He was due to join Colorado State after transferring from Louisville. The thing is, he has continued to have off-the-court problems, and was very likely going to face a hefty suspension. As a guy who is at best 50/50 to be drafted (and I'd argue his odds are actually worse than that), this is probably more a case of a guy just going pro because he doesn't think he's going to be eligible to play college ball this coming season. He'll likely be on his way to the D-League or Europe.

But this is still a blow for a Colorado State team that I think is likely to be right on the bubble. Behanan would have given them a real rebounding threat.

Jon Horford Transfers To Florida This was rumored as soon as he announced he was leaving Michigan. With Mitch McGary going pro, Horford would have been in line to start at Michigan, but it seems as if there were some personal reasons where he either didn't get along with his teammates or John Beilein.

With Horford eligible to play right away, do not sleep on Florida to win the SEC title. Yes, Kentucky is likely going to start the season the #1 team in the country, but... we've seen this movie before. And I already had Florida as a 3 seed prior to adding Horford (who will be eligible to play right away). So if Kentucky stumbles a little bit, Florida will be right there waiting for them.

Nimrod Hilliard To NC Central This isn't any news that is going to impact the bubble, but this is a big pickup for NC Central. With Lamar banned from postseason play next season over APR issues, all of their players can transfer without sitting for a season, and Hilliard was their best player - a point guard who also could score efficiently. In my 2014-15 MEAC preview I said that NC Central was my narrow favorite because I figured they'd find a point guard. They've now got that point guard, and are the fairly clear MEAC favorite.

1 comment:

David Mann said...

As a Missouri fan, your take on Kim Anderson is about spot on. There's no way to know he'll succeed. But most people associated with MU are pretty hopeful. He has a lot of in-state connections due to his time as an assistant at Mizzou and later at CMU, and the fact that he actually focuses on defense is about the nicest contrast to Frank Haith possible. It's not a home-run right now, but at the end of the day I think it will turn out to be a great hire.