{"id":72407,"date":"2025-06-02T19:08:12","date_gmt":"2025-06-02T19:08:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/72407\/"},"modified":"2025-06-02T19:08:12","modified_gmt":"2025-06-02T19:08:12","slug":"college-basketball-insiders-name-alabama-kentucky-offseason-winners","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/72407\/","title":{"rendered":"College basketball insiders name Alabama, Kentucky offseason winners"},"content":{"rendered":"

With the draft deadline<\/a> having passed and many portal decisions<\/a> also having been made, offseason assessments are starting to come out around college basketball<\/a>. That includes the latest from \u2018The Field of 68\u2019 today in naming two winners out of the Southeastern Conference.<\/p>\n

Jeff Goodman and Rob Dauster named several winners and losers during their latest episode<\/a> this morning. Among two early winners, at least based on the news regarding draft withdrawals last week, were Alabama<\/a> and Kentucky<\/a> following the respective returns of Labaron Philon<\/a> and Otega Oweh<\/a>.<\/p>\n

For Philon (10.6 points (45.2% FG, 31.5% 3PT), 3.8 assists, 3.3 rebounds, 1.4 steals), Goodman broke down the draft positioning for him had he remained in as originally planned. He, in returning to Tuscaloosa, could now improve his stock into being a lottery selection rather than just a borderline first-round pick, making all the money that comes with that rise, after another season playing for and earning from the Crimson Tide.<\/p>\n

\u201cI mean, huge\u2026Obviously, these guys are realizing, hey, if we\u2019re not lock first-rounders, which Yaxel (Lendeborg<\/a> at Michigan<\/a>) wasn\u2019t and Labaron certainly wasn\u2019t, there\u2019s more money on the table to go back. And, for Labaron, I think a big part of it too was not only go back for the money now. Go back for the opportunity to put yourself where you are potentially a lottery pick next year,\u201d said Goodman. \u201cRight now, I think he was outside the first round. I think he was somewhere in that 25 to 45 range from what NBA execs<\/a> had told me. And, I think he\u2019s the type of guy that could really improve his draft stock enough to be a lock first-rounder, maybe even a late lottery pick.\u201d<\/p>\n

As for Dauster, Philon coming back was the biggest outcome of the draft deadline, if for no other than reason than the shock of it. That then leads to the effect it\u2019ll have on Alabama with his return taking the Tide from just a team in the Top-25 or so to one in the Top-10 to Top-15.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo me, the single biggest piece of news, and probably the biggest surprise of the entire draft cycle to me, was Labaron Philon \u2013 out of nowhere, 30 minutes before the deadline passed \u2013 having an announcement<\/a>,\u201d said Dauster. \u201cIt\u2019s not just the money situation, right\u2026Labaron Philon is one of these guys where, if it clicks for him, he\u2019s got, like, lottery potential next season if it all goes well, and I do believe it\u2019ll go well for him at Alabama.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it was a good move for Labaron to come back to school and I think it\u2019s massive for Alabama. Huge. One of the, kind of, underrated storylines was I thought that Alabama had, like, a quietly disappointing offseason, right. You\u2019re losing Mark Sears<\/a>, you\u2019re losing a couple of veteran pieces and they didn\u2019t exactly kill it in the portal\u2026There wasn\u2019t a lot on this roster<\/a> that really kind of made you say oh, wow, like, you\u2019ve got to look out for this team<\/a>. And, that wouldn\u2019t have been a problem but Alabama and Nate Oats<\/a> have set the expectation that, like, competing for national championships in \u2018hoops is what they do now, right. If you\u2019re kind of like a Top-20ish, Top-25ish kind of a team in Alabama? That\u2019s one where it\u2019s like, eh, what\u2019s happening here? Getting Philon back changes some things because I think he is a guy that has, like, legitimate All-SEC potential,\u201d Dauster said. \u201cTo me, he really changes things for Alabama in terms of what their ceiling can be if this all clicks and if this all hits.\u201d<\/p>\n

A few minutes later, Dauster and Goodman also got to Oweh (16.2 points (49.2% FG, 35.5% 3PT), 4.7 rebounds, 1.7 assists, 1.6 steals), who also pulled his name out of the draft<\/a> to come back to Lexington<\/a>. Neither of them thought his return was necessarily as impactful of that for Philon. That said, with him coming back as a candidate for SEC Player of the Year or as an All-American, it\u2019s one that they thought does take the Wildcats into the debate of if they could be Preseason No. 1 for \u201924-\u201925<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cI will say this about Kentucky, right. Like, I don\u2019t think Oweh coming back<\/a> has anywhere near the impact on what Kentucky\u2019s season could be as Philon coming back does for Alabama or (Tahaad) Pettiford<\/a> coming back does for<\/a> Auburn<\/a>. I think it takes both of those teams from borderline, Top-25ish, if that, to Top-10 to 15 in the country, right. Whereas, with Kentucky, I think that getting Oweh takes them from being, like, a Top-8 to 10 team in America to, like, we\u2019ve really got to have a conversation about whether or not this team could be the No. 1 team, could be the best team in college basketball,\u201d said Dauster. \u201cI think it\u2019s still probably Purdue<\/a>, Houston<\/a>, Florida<\/a> to me in that order but I don\u2019t think you can have the conversation of who is the best team in college basketball without having Kentucky in that conversation.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not ready to say that yet but, maybe. I mean, again, I think they\u2019ve got the depth that those other teams don\u2019t have. But, when you\u2019re talking about the Top-7, I\u2019m not sure,\u201d said Goodman. Like, they\u2019re in the mix, I guess. I don\u2019t think they\u2019re in the mix for the preseason number one, for me, but they\u2019re somewhere from four to eight. And, again, it\u2019s going to be figuring out role allocation for them and, you know, to me, up front, I think it\u2019s going to be huge for them, is how they figure that part out.\u201d<\/p>\n

Philon and Oweh give Alabama and Kentucky, two of the best teams in the league and nation last season, a pair of guards who could be all-conference players and among the better ones in the entire sport. That\u2019s more than enough for \u2018The Field of 68\u2019 to include both the Crimson Tide and Wildcats as offseason winners going into the summer and ahead of next season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With the draft deadline having passed and many portal decisions also having been made, offseason assessments are starting…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":72408,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3723],"tags":[7,217,1477,231,772,1544,2339],"class_list":{"0":"post-72407","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-basketball","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-college-basketball","10":"tag-labaron-philon-24-link-academy","11":"tag-ncaa","12":"tag-ncaa-basketball","13":"tag-ncaab","14":"tag-otega-oweh-22-blair-academy"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/114615347061196067","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72407","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=72407"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72407\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/72408"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72407"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72407"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72407"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}