Few teams in the country can lose their best three-point shooter and not miss a beat. But that’s exactly what Alabama has done since Latrell Wrightsell, Jr. ruptured an Achilles tendon in early December.
That’s because the Crimson Tide had 6-foot-6, 220-pound grad transfer Chris Youngblood waiting in the wings. After three years at Kennesaw State and another at USF, Youngblood, last season’s co-player of the year in the American Athletic Conference, averaged double figures in each of his first four seasons and was a career 39.3 percent three-point shooter. He was perfect for Alabama coach Nate Oats’ up-tempo, three-heavy system.
But Youngblood underwent ankle surgery in late September and was sidelined for the first nine games. He made his debut during a home win over Creighton on Dec. 14 and entered the starting lineup three games ago. Youngblood enjoyed what Oats called his “coming out party” in a Jan. 29 game at Mississippi State, scoring 23 points on 7 of 10 shooting from behind the three-point line.
How big has Youngblood been for Alabama (19-3, 8-1 SEC)? The three-pointer is as vital to the Tide’s system as any team in the country, but this season it has shot a pedestrian 33.6 percent (175th in the country) from behind the arc.
“As I play more, the goal is to get better and better every game,” Youngblood said after torching Mississippi State. Youngblood also told the press he thought his “feel” was returning after his long layoff from competition.
Further evidence came in Bama’s next game, when he made 2 of 3 shots from behind the arc in a 10-point effort during a 90-69 win against Georgia. Alabama leads the nation in scoring at 90.2 points per game so there is no shortage of firepower on this team. But if Youngblood can continue to contribute at this rate, it will go a long way toward helping the Crimson Tide play in their second consecutive Final Four.
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Tennessee’s Mashack may be unsung, but he can also score
In practice the day before Tennessee was to play Florida on Feb. 1, Tennessee senior guard Jamai Mashack noticed his teammates didn’t quite have a pep in their step. The Vols knew point guard Zakai Zeigler, who had tweaked his right knee earlier in the week, wasn’t going to play against the Gators and that starting power forward Igor Milicic, who was fighting flu-like symptoms, probably was going to sit out, too. Considering Florida pounded a full-strength Tennessee team, then ranked No. 1 in the country, by 30 points last month in Gainesville, there were plenty of reasons for the Vols to be concerned.
Mashack didn’t see it that way. After practice, with teammates and coaches circled around him, Mashack spoke up. “I wanted to bring everybody together,” he told Hoops HQ. “All the odds were stacked against us, but I told everybody right there in that huddle that we had enough [players] to win.”
The next day, Tennessee made Mashack look like a prophet. Playing their most cohesive game in a season filled with significant victories, the No. 4 Vols shut down then No. 5 Florida, 66-44. Mashack, who played 36 minutes, contributed eight points, but more importantly, eight rebounds, five assists, two steals and a blocked shot while playing his usual relentless defense on Florida’s talented quartet of guards.
Plenty of coaches say they have players who can impact games without scoring a point. When Tennessee’s Rick Barnes says that about Mashack — who on Wednesday was chosen to the Naismith Defensive Player of the Year watch list — he’s right. Mashack is an atypical college player. Offense isn’t his strength and he doesn’t care. That’s because, at an early age, his father, who had played in the old NBA D-League, told him defense wins.
“That became front of mind,” Mashack says. “When I got to college, I didn’t want to be a carbon copy of everybody else. Everybody wants to score the ball. I wanted to do whatever it took to win.”
Mashack is cut from the Rick Barnes mold for “program guys.” In every game, he’s tasked with guarding the other team’s leading scorer. Sometimes that means doing battle with a power forward five inches taller and 50 pounds heavier, a long-limbed, jumping-jack wing, or a cat-quick point guard. He’s also an unselfish playmaker, he’s willing to give up his body diving on the floor for 50-50 balls and he rebounds his position.
“Jahmai has won a lot of games in a lot of ways here,” Barnes said after the Florida game. “He impacts winning.”
More recently, as opposing teams have dared Mashack to shoot, he has taken them up on their offer, driving to the rim and even knocking down the occasional three-pointer. And as the season progresses, he plans on becoming even more assertive. “Honestly the biggest thing for me is to get more shot attempts,” Mashack says. “There’s a reason teams play me like they do. I haven’t been that aggressive offensively. But I know I can shoot the ball. The key for me is making the right reads and the right decisions.”
It’s not a stretch to suggest that, despite the presence of Cousy Award candidate point guard Zeigler and high-scoring transfer guard Chaz Lanier, as Mashack goes, so go the Vols (18-4, 5-4 SEC).
“I still think the sky’s the limit for this team,” Mashack says. “The teams we’ve lost to have all been ranked. And we’ve beaten a lot of good teams. I think in the Florida game, a lot of guys started to put it all together. We’ve got the best defense in the country. Once our offense can pick up a little more pace, everybody’s moving and touching the ball and driving to the rim … that’s when we can be hard to beat.”
Around the Rim
• As February approached, Arkansas senior guard Johnell Davis had gone from being one of the most coveted shooting guards in the portal last spring to, as one major sports website recently rated him, one of the biggest transfer busts of this season. A variety of factors contributed to that reversal of status. Start with a preseason injury to his right (shooting hand) wrist. Mix in a ball-dominant freshman backcourt mate in Boogie Fland. Add a dash of declining confidence and you have a good player mired in a slump. It also didn’t help that Razorbacks coach John Calipari tried to make Davis more of a standstill shooter even though he was at his best at FAU when he was driving.
In four seasons at FAU, which he helped lead to the Final Four in 2023, Davis averaged 11.2 points and shot 48.0 percent from the floor and 36.6 percent from three. In 2023-24, he averaged 18.2 points, 4.9 rebounds and 2.9 assists and shot 41.4 percent from three. Through his first 16 games — he missed two with an injury in late December — Davis averaged 8.3 points on 32.1 percent three-point shooting.
Things turned for Davis when Fland went out for the season after undergoing thumb surgery on Jan. 22. Davis scored 18 points on 16 shots during the Razorbacks’ 65-62 home loss to Oklahoma on Jan. 25. Then came the Kentucky game on Feb. 1 when he helped Calipari stroll into the place where he’d coached the previous 15 seasons and come out with a victory few expected could happen. Davis played a big role, scoring 18 points on 7 of 14 shooting, including three three-pointers, and handing out a season-high six assists.
“I think [he] is growing into it,” Kentucky coach Mark Pope said. “He’s getting the chance now to be the ball-dominant guy that he’s used to being. … I expect him to be more and more dangerous as the season goes on.”
On Wednesday night, Davis looked like his old self, scoring a team- and season-high 24 points to go with five rebounds and two assists in a win at Texas. Davis made four of the eight three-pointers he attempted. It isn’t mathematically impossible for the Hogs (14-8, 3-6 SEC) to claw their way back into NCAA consideration in a league where Quad 1 games are around every corner. If Davis continues his resurgence, he can help Arkansas make the remainder of the season interesting.
• The USBWA’s Oscar Robertson Trophy, along with every other player-of-the-year awards, seems like it’s been pared down to a two-player race between Auburn’s John Broome and Duke’s Cooper Flagg. Flagg might have taken a lead when Broome sat out two games after suffering an ankle injury, but Broome has come back as strong as ever, winning SEC Player of the Week honors the last two weeks.
This week’s award came after a pair of 20-point, 10-rebound efforts in wins at LSU and Ole Miss. Broome torched the Tigers for 26 points, 16 rebounds and three blocks and came back with 20 points, 12 rebounds, four assists and two blocks against the Rebels. He wasn’t needed to contribute quite as much in Tuesday’s 98-70 rout of Oklahoma, but he still delivered a game-high tying 15 points, five boards, six assists and three blocks.
“It’s pick your poison,” Ole Miss coach Chris Beard said. “You want to stay on everybody and watch him do his thing. You want to go double him, and he’s become such a better passer. I think he’s a better passer this year than he was last year, and last year he was an All-American. … He can do it in different ways.”
• After missing last Saturday’s win against Florida with flu-like symptoms, Tennessee’s 6-10 senior forward Igor Milicic scored 21 points, grabbed 10 rebounds, handed out five assists, made two steals and blocked four shots while shooting 8 of 10 from the field, 2 of 3 from three and 3 of 4 from the free-throw line in an 84-81 victory over Missouri on Wednesday.
Per Stats Perform, since 2000 Milicic is the only player in Division I basketball (men’s or women’s), the NBA or the WNBA to collect at least 20 points, 10 rebounds, five assists, four blocks and two steals in a game while shooting at least 75.0 percent from the field, 50.0 percent beyond the arc and 75.0 percent at the free-throw line.
Milicic, a versatile stretch-four, had been struggling with his three-point stroke, but if his last two games are any indication, the career 36 percent three-point shooter has worked his way out of his slump. During a home loss to Kentucky on Jan. 28, Milicic scored a game-high 19 points on 4 of 8 shooting from behind the arc.
Games to Watch
Florida at Auburn, Saturday, ESPN2. It’s the pupil versus the master when former Bruce Pearl assistant coach Todd Golden brings his sixth-ranked Gators to face Pearl’s No.-1-ranked Tigers. Under Pearl, Auburn has built a raucous homecourt environment, so Florida will have to shake off its atypical weak offensive performance a week ago at Tennessee to have a chance for the upset.
Texas A&M at Missouri, Saturday, SEC Network. Here’s yet another match-up between two ranked SEC teams. This game will showcase excellent guards in Missouri’s tandem of 6-foot-5 senior Tamar Bates, who’s flirting with the elusive 50/40/90 shooting split and 6-foot-3 senior Caleb Grill (49.5 percent from three) against the 10th-ranked Aggies’ primary instigator Wade Taylor IV (15.1 ppg) and his sidekick Zhuric Phelps (14.8 ppg), who is one of the nation’s most impactful transfers.
Texas at Vanderbilt, Saturday, SEC Network. This game has taken on paramount importance for two teams looking to battle their way into the NCAA Tournament. Vanderbilt has fared well in Saturday SEC home games, though it has proven costly; the school has had to fork out $750,000 in fines to the league because of court storms after beating Tennessee and Kentucky.
