The third and final edition of our journey through the summer foreign tours of major college basketball programs takes us to the SEC — the conference that has put 24 of 32 teams in the NCAA Tournament over the past two seasons, and could be poised to benefit from the tournament’s expansion to 76 teams next March.
Below we’ll look at Arkansas, which could have a top-10 team entering the season, as well as Auburn and Texas A&M, two teams looking to build momentum in the second season for their respective head coaches.
In case you missed it, on Tuesday we analyzed how Final Four teams Michigan and Arizona looked on trips to Europe. On Wednesday, it was Purdue, Indiana and Cincinnati.
Arkansas is ‘loaded’ in Cal’s third season
Outside of Arizona, Arkansas had the highest ceiling among teams who took trips this summer. I believe John Calipari, entering his third season at Arkansas, has his best team yet, and I’m not alone.
“I think Arkansas is loaded,” Cincinnati coach Jerrod Calhoun said, unprompted, during a discussion about his team’s trip to the Baha Mar Summer League in The Bahamas, where Arkansas was also playing. “I got to see them live. They got a good team, man. Elite. Athletes. Just a really, really good team. I thought they were phenomenal.”
Arkansas cruised in four games against The Bahamas national team (106-59), Carleton (Canada) University (98-58), Toros del Valle (Colombia) (91-49) and the University of Calgary (105-48). One reason Calhoun was smitten is freshman guard Jordan Smith Jr., who Calhoun called “a top player in college basketball.”
Smith, the No. 3-ranked player in the freshman class, per the 247Sports Composite, is the unquestioned leader of the group. He will immediately be one of the best defenders in college basketball. Standing 6-foot-2 with a 6-foot-9 wingspan, he wants to take the ball and your soul. And he has tools that do not usually get talked about in basketball, like incredible hand strength.
Smith raises everyone else’s level by how hard he plays, and he makes plays that few can. He had one block of a mid-range jumper while guarding his own man. You just don’t see that.
With Smith setting the tone, the Razorbacks are built to fly around the floor, disrupting actions with their switchability and recovery time. For Arkansas to reach its ceiling, it’ll need to embrace a Houston-like mentality of wanting to make life miserable for opponents. Calipari hasn’t had a team rank in the top 100 of defensive turnover rate since 2015, but there’s no reason for this team not to get there, and forcing turnovers will help the offense which is built to run.
Offensively, Calipari once again has microwave scorers who can get hot and take over games. It’s not going to be like last year, where it was the Darius Acuff Jr. show. Smith, Georgia transfer guard Jeremiah Wilkinson and freshman wing Abdou Toure will each have stretches where they take over games. Junior wing Billy Richmond III can also get hot but doesn’t force the issue as much as the other three, and as he’s shown in the past, he’ll be at his best in transition.
The swing piece for this group, who could determine if Arkansas is a title contender or somewhere in the 10-20 range, is Finnish big man Miikka Muurinen. Muurinen did not play this summer because he has not yet been cleared by the NCAA, and considering the NCAA seems to be cracking down on international pros, the availability of any international pro is up in the air. Muurinen played last season in the Adriatic League and EuroLeague, so who knows how the NCAA will view him. But if he is allowed to play, he is another big-time athlete who fits the blueprint.
If Muurinen is not eligible, Furman transfer Cooper Bowser is a solid backup plan and fit well with the starting group. Bowser has good size and athleticism and brings some experience to a very inexperienced frontline. Calipari also has some young options off the bench in freshmen Caleb Ourigou (6-11), Maper Maker (7-0) and Ilia Frolov (7-0). He can afford not to have Muurinen, but the ceiling is higher if Muurinen is eligible and follows Smith’s lead of playing with a high motor.
Auburn’s new glue guy
Second-year coach Steven Pearl had two big retention wins by convincing guards Tahaad Pettiford and Kevin Overton to return. The Tigers scored 121.9 points per 100 possessions with those two on the floor last season, per CBB Analytics. Both are built to score and seem as confident as ever, and they are Auburn’s clear go-to scorers.
Auburn was playing shorthanded with only seven scholarship players on its trip to Greece where the Tigers played Mega Superbet, a Serbian pro team in the Adriatic League. So Pearl decided to limit the minutes for Pettiford and Overton to make sure they got out of the trip healthy. Plus, sometimes these trips are more about seeing what you have in newcomers.
The big win from the trip is that Pearl knows he has a trustworthy wing in former Troy star Thomas Dowd. Dowd, a 6-8 senior, had 28 rebounds in two games and will be Auburn’s glue guy. He’s a capable shooter, but his more important roles will be looking to set up Auburn’s shooters, rebounding and playing defense.
“He’s so impactful,” Pearl said. “He just makes multiple effort plays. He’s one of the best rebounders. I don’t want to overreact here, but he’s one the better rebounders we’ve ever had as far as his ability to just go find 50-50 balls, offensive rebounds. He makes winning plays.”
New center Bukky Oboye, a Santa Clara transfer, also had some promising moments on the trip, offering rim protection (nine blocks) and a vertical threat at the rim. He should benefit from the gravity of Auburn’s shooters.
Pearl feels great about the center spot, which will also include 7-footer Narcisse Ngoy, who did not play on the trip, but will split time with Oboye. Ngoy, a 22-year-old from France, was a second-round pick by the LA Clippers this year. Former Creighton/Iowa big man Owen Freeman will also be an option at the five when Pearl wants to go with more skilled lineups. My concern watching the Tigers in their summer games was their size and physicality up front outside of Ngoy, but if Freeman is able to get healthy and Ngoy is eligible, Pearl does not see that as an issue.
“I think it’s probably as good as we’ve been at the five, minus Johni (Broome) and Dylan (Cardwell), in a long time,” Pearl said.
A five-star finds form for Texas A&M
Texas A&M looks to be a better version of what Bucky McMillan had in his first year. I thought the Aggies were the biggest overachiever in the SEC last year, winning 22 games and reaching the second round of the NCAA Tournament, and while the conference will be better overall, it feels like McMillan has upgraded his talent overall.
My biggest takeaway from A&M’s summer games was the play of 6-9 senior Mackenzie Mgbako, who appeared in only seven games last season because of a foot injury. The competition was light — Texas A&M easily defeated two Canadian university teams and a Colombian pro team in The Bahamas — but Mgbako was super productive, scoring 57 points on 26 shots in 53 1/2 minutes. If the former five-star can stay healthy, this team has a pretty high offensive upside with Kansas State transfer guard PJ Haggerty and Texas transfer guard Jordan Pope (assuming Pope, one of the fifth-year transfers trying to gain another season, is eligible). The key will be getting those three to play off each other and embrace McMillan’s team ball approach.
These trips are a good head start on the season, and these are three SEC teams that should all enter the year expecting to be NCAA Tournament-bound, especially with the expanded field.