Many years ago, I was interviewing an NBA scout for my world-renowned annual “Finch” column about the upcoming draft. When I raised a certain player, the scout replied, “His problem is LOFT.”
“What do you mean by LOFT?” I asked.
“Lack of f—— talent.”
I’ve since seen that acronym pop up in many places, and it came to mind again as I watched Kentucky get dismantled by Michigan State, 83-66, on Tuesday night in the Championships Classic. The Wildcats were likewise outclassed at Louisville on No. 11 en route to a 96-88 loss. That score is not reflective of how the game went as the Cardinals led by 20 midway through the second half, and Kentucky led for all of 1 minute, 41 seconds.
To be fair, the Wildcats are dealing with a couple of key injuries to their top two projected transfers. Jaland Lowe, a 6-foot-3 junior point guard from Pittsburgh, dislocated his right shoulder during the Blue-White game on Oct. 17. He missed two exhibition games as well as the season opener, played two games, but then re-injured the same shoulder in practice and missed the Michigan State game. Kentucky coach Mark Pope said on Thursday that Lowe is “day-to-day,” but it doesn’t sound like he’ll be available anytime soon.
Kentucky’s other prized transfer, 6-foot-11 sophomore forward Jayden Quaintance, who came from Arizona State, has not played since tearing an ACL in February. He is going to undergo a strength test in the next week or so, and it is possible he could be on the floor sometime next month.
Still, Pope was near disconsolate following the Wildcats’ loss to the Spartans in Madison Square Garden. He bemoaned the team’s lack of chemistry and connectedness, took blame for those failings, and promised he would fix them. Cohesion issues are to be expected for a roster that brought in eight new players. Then again, Louisville also brought in seven newcomers, and the Cards sure look connected.
So what’s the real problem with Kentucky? Could it be the Wildcats biggest issue is not health or chemistry, but rather a lack of f—— talent?
One way to answer that question is by looking at NBA Draft projections. According to Hoops HQ draft expert Jonathan Wasserman, Kentucky’s top projected draftee is Quaintance at No. 8. The only other Wildcat that appears anywhere on Wasserman’s board is 6-foot-4 senior guard Otega Oweh, whom Wasserman has going 58th. Those two players also appeared on Hoops HQ’s top-100 rankings coming into the season. Lowe (No. 82) and 6-foot-5 freshman guard Jasper Johnson (No. 88) were also on that list, although it appears we may have overrated Johnson, who is averaging 7.2 points in 16.6 minutes off the bench through the first five games.
It might be hard to wrap your head around the notion that a team with a reported $22 million payroll could be suffering from a lack of talent, but we have found in many cases that spending big does not always correlate to results. It could well be that Pope has fallen into what I call the “money trap,” whereby a coaching staff is able to stockpile players without being forced to consider how well those pieces fit together.
The point is not that Kentucky doesn’t have enough talent to be a really good team, and maybe even a great one. The point is that Kentucky is not good enough to be a) disconnected and b) missing two top players, and still be able to beat good teams this early in the season. There is still a long way to go, of course, but as Yogi Berra might put it, it’s getting late a little early in the Bluegrass.
Has Shaka Smart taken his no-transfer policy too far?
Kentucky’s transfer-heavy off-season was contrasted, and not in a flattering way, with Michigan State’s culture of continuity. Of the seven players who logged double-digit minutes for the Spartans Tuesday night, all but one have played their entire college careers in East Lansing. That includes two senior starters. Spartans coach Tom Izzo all but crowed about this afterwards, saying, “I don’t give up on the people I got. … You stick with them and they stick with you.” He added, “The transfer portal recruitment is almost bigger than winning games. Not at Michigan State.”
That is even more true at Marquette, which is the only high-major program that has not brought in a single transfer over the past four seasons. Shaka Smart’s philosophy has worked as he led the Golden Eagles to four straight NCAA Tournaments, a Big East championship, and a trip to the 2024 Sweet Sixteen. But now that Marquette is off to a 3-3 start with losses to Indiana, Maryland and Dayton, it’s fair to ask whether Smart’s no-transfer policy might be a little too rigid, a little too Dabo Swinney-ish. That would be in reference to the Clemson coach’s well-known refusal to bring in transfers. The result has been a stark downgrade for what was once one of the nation’s premier football programs.
Smart has acknowledged that his way of doing things carries risks. First and foremost, it leads to younger teams. Marquette ranks No. 13 in minutes continuity on KenPom but it is 199th in experience. Moreover, the Golden Eagles are playing without 5-foot-10 junior guard Sean Jones, who missed the last three games due to a separated shoulder. Jones will likely be out at least another couple of weeks.
It’s still very possible that Smart can find a way to get this team into the NCAA Tournament. Or, it might be a bit of a rebuilding season. If that’s the case, his philosophy of recruit and develop as opposed to plugging in transfers could pay off next season (presuming he can continue to retain his players). Either way, it will be interesting to see how long Smart sticks with his way of doing things.
Other hoop thoughts
- Last season, the ACC sent just four teams to the NCAA tournament, its lowest since 2013. (The league had just 12 teams then. It now has 18.) The league ranked fifth on KenPom, with eight teams outside the top 100. Now, however, the league appears to be much improved. The ACC is No. 4 on KenPom, with only Boston College outside the top 100 (and the Eagles are No. 104). North Carolina is looking like North Carolina again (although the broken arm suffered by Seth Trimble is an unfortunate setback). Louisville’s momentum is continuing in Pat Kelsey’s second year. And first-year coaches have initiated badly-needed makeovers at N.C. State Virginia, Miami and Florida State.
Now the big test will come on Dec. 2 and 3 with the resumption of the SEC/ACC Challenge. Last year’s challenge was a bloodbath, with the SEC winning 14 of the 16 games. The ACC never recovered, either in the metrics or with respect to its reputation, but this year’s challenge affords a chance to reset the narrative. Whatever the results over those two days, the ACC is in a much better place than it was a year ago, with plenty of room for growth yet to come.
- I’m not sure any of us had “Dylan Darling Is The Key To St. John’s’ Season” on our preseason Bingo card, but here we are. Rick Pitino originally signed North Carolina’s Ian Jackson out of the transfer portal to be his point guard, but when it was evident over the summer that Jackson was not ready for that role, Pitino declared that the team would basically have no point guard. Then he gave Oziyah Sellers, a 6-foot-5 senior transfer from Stanford, a whirl the first couple of games. That, too, didn’t work.
Pitino might have finally found his answer in Darling, a 6-foot-2 senior who transferred from Idaho State. Darling, who spent his first two college seasons at Washington State, had 10 assists to just 1 turnover in his first two games off the bench. He missed the Red Storm’s Nov. 8 home game against Alabama with a calf injury, and the team lost, 103-96. Pitino moved Darling into the starting lineup for the next two games, and he responded with a combined 158 rebounds, 8 assists and 1 turnover in easy wins over Quinnipiac and Bucknell. With all the talent this team has in the frontcourt, it doesn’t need a superstar point guard. But it does need a competent one, and it appears Darling is able to fulfill that role. We’ll see how well this new lineup works when the Johnnies compete in the Players Era Festival in Las Vegas next week.
- Speaking of Alabama, an already-good Crimson Tide squad just added another significant piece in Keitenn Bristow, a 6-foot-8 sophomore transfer from Tarleton State who missed the first three games due to an ankle injury. Bristow, who was named the WAC’s Freshman of the Year last season, had 10 points, 8 rebounds, 1 block and 1 steal in the Tide’s 90-86 win over Illinois Wednesday night. Illini coach Brad Underwood said Bristow was the difference in the game, especially after Alabama got out-rebounded 48-23 in its home loss to Purdue on Nov. 13.
- Injuries are never fun, but a team can benefit in the long run if a key player is out for a limited amount of time, because it forces other guys into playing more minutes. So I see a lot of upside in recent injuries to Kansas freshman guard Darryn Peterson and UConn center Tarris Reed Jr. The Jayhawks were looking a little too dependent on Peterson before he sat the last three games with a tender hamstring. Without him, 6-foot-7 senior forward Tre White, who transferred from Illinois, has stepped up as the team’s primary scorer, and freshmen Kohl Rosario and Bryson Tiller had to play bigger roles.
UConn is not quite as dependent on Reed as Kansas is on Peterson, but Reed is a critical force down low. He missed Wednesday’s home game against Arizona, and though the Huskies lost 71-67 without him, they did get a solid 15-point, 4-rebound outing from freshman center Eric Reibe. Peterson and Reid are expected to return soon, and when they do they will be joining better teams than the ones they left.
- Michigan is getting better play of late from its top transfer, 6-foot-9 senior forward Yaxel Lendeborg. He battled a hand injury in the preseason and came off the bench in the season opener with his hand heavily wrapped. Lendeborg also seemed to have early trouble adjusting to his role as a small forward after playing the four at UAB. Witness his 1 for 7 performance from three in the Wolverines’ near escape over Wake Forest.
In each of his last two games, Lendeborg took more two-point shots than threes and went 10 for 10 from the foul line. He played his best game in a Michigan uniform at TCU Wednesday night, finishing with 25 points, 12 rebounds, 3 assists and 2 steals. That’s a good sign moving forward for the Wolverines as they head to Vegas for The Players Era Festival next week.
- Auburn is also competing in the Players Era, and while the Tigers have had some good moments in their 4-1 start (their best game was a one-point loss to Houston in Birmingham), they have two major issues working against them. The first is a foot sprain to their leading scorer and rebounder, Keyshawn Hall, the 6-foot-7 senior transfer from UCF. There’s an outside chance Hall will be able to play in Vegas, but it doesn’t seem likely.
The other issue is a disappointing start from Auburn’s lone returning player, 6-foot-1 sophomore guard Tahaad Pettiford. He came close to staying in the NBA Draft and was a preseason All-SEC selection, but he has been struggling in the early going, averaging 10.8 points and 3.4 assists on 28.8 percent shooting (19.4 percent from three). Pettiford had a terrific freshman season, but he was also a sixth man playing a role alongside accomplished vets. Now he is at the top of ever opponent’s scouting report, and he is having a hard time adjusting. It’s only a matter of time before Pettiford makes considerable improvement, but without Hall in the lineup to take that pressure off, that challenge becomes even steeper.
- The plan at Creighton was for 6-foot-7 freshman wing Hudson Greer, the highest-ranked recruit in program history, to redshirt this season because of a logjam at his position. To quote the great philosopher Mike Tyson, everyone has a plan until they get hit. The gut punch came on Nov. 11 when the Bluejays suffered a 90-63 beatdown at Gonzaga. Two games later, coach Greg McDermott sent Greer into a game against North Dakota. Greer had just one point in 13 minutes in the 75-60 win, but he’ll likely play a larger role as the weeks roll on. McDermott made clear that he made this move because of his frustrations about the lack of effort from the other Bluejays. “I’m just done asking guys to do what I want done,” McDermott said after the game. “And if they’re not able to do it, then we’re gonna have to play somebody else. And when Hudson goes in the game, I know he’s going to give me everything that he has.”
- I am not a good enough researcher to find out for sure, but I would venture to guess that never in the history of college basketball has a team played two double-overtime games in a three-day span. That’s what Troy did this week in winning at San Diego State 108-107 on Tuesday night and then falling 107-106 at USC on Jordan Marsh’s circus buzzer beating three-pointer. The loss dropped Troy to 4-3 on the season and No. 111 on KenPom.
The beauty of this is that the Trojans’ coach, Scott Cross, was fired by UT Arlington in 2018 even though he had led the team to 21 wins. While UTA is now on its fourth coach since then, Cross has turned Troy into a formidable mid-major program. The Trojans lost four starters from the team that won the Southland regular season and tournament titles last season, but Cross clearly has them positioned to be winners again. They were one wacky shot away from back-to-back road wins over top opponents.Finally, one of the great careers in college athletics will wind down in the spring when Atlantic-10 commissioner Bernadette McGlade steps down from her position. McGlade has held a variety of leadership positions during her 45-year career, including the last 18 as the A-10 commissioner. As her swan song, McGlade is overseeing the league’s 50th anniversary celebration, which she hopes will end with the A-10 returning to multi-bid status for the NCAA Tournament. Regardless of how the season ends, she has made her mark as one of the most impactful, innovative and trailblazing commissioners in history.
Meet your guide
