As we mentioned in our Five Burning Questions for the Southeastern Conference, the league has a hard act to follow. After dominating college basketball last year from start to finish, including Florida’s national championship, what can it do for an encore?
No team in the SEC — 14 of which played in the NCAA Tournament — rested on its 2024-25 accomplishments. All 16, including the two that finished at the bottom of the standings, LSU and South Carolina, retooled, restocked and, in some cases, rebuilt. Despite the surprise retirement of Auburn coach Bruce Pearl — who led the Tigers to the Final Four last season and has been replaced by his son Steven — and two other new head coaches, Sean Miller of Texas and Bucky McMillan of Texas A&M, SEC fans don’t have to worry about the league suffering a drastic downturn.
Optimism was high among coaches and players at the league’s annual media day in Birmingham, Ala.
Alabama is going to play faster and shoot more threes
Wait. What? The team that’s led the NCAA in scoring the last two seasons is going to ramp up its offense? It sounds crazy, but the Crimson Tide has the firepower, and more importantly in these days of fluid rosters, the experience, to pour it on.
Two key contributors are graduate students — 6-foot-5 Houston Mallette and 6-foot-3 Latrell Wrightsell, Jr. Both are lights-out three-point shooters who have been through the wars. Aiden Holloway, another prolific shooter, is a junior. All are capable of shooting 40 percent or better from behind the arc.
Add to that trio a pair of talented sophomores — Jalil Bethea, a 6-foot-5 transfer from Miami about whom Oats said, “has every measurable that the NBA is looking for,” and 6-foot-4 Labaron Philon, Jr, who seemed committed to the NBA Draft until he pulled his name out only minutes before the midnight, May 28 deadline. Like Bethea, Philon is athletic. He can play the point or the two, and he came back to school to work on his jump shot. “He’s a better shooter now than he was before,” Oats said.
Philon was no doubt enticed to return by NIL riches, but he also likes the potential of this team, as he told the media in Birmingham.
“This team could be really special,” Philon said. “We got a lot of guys that want to be here and want to be on this team, and a lot of guys believe in coach Oats and what he says. I think if we keep building on that, we’re going to be such a great team, and it’s going to be hard to stop us. We have a lot of guards that can play at a really high level. The frontcourt — the three bigs that we have now — it’s perfect for the way we play. We want to get guys open, attack the paint, and have shooting bigs to spread the opponent out.”
Watch out for Auburn’s Keyshawn Hall
Bruce Pearl may be gone, but he didn’t leave behind a threadbare roster for his son to coach. Among the more talented of the Tigers’ 11 newcomers is 6-foot-7, 240-pound senior Keyshawn Hall, who last season at UCF led the Big 12 in scoring. Hall has been around — he began his career at UNLV, played at George Mason and spent last season at UCF, where he showed stretch-four ability.
“You look at historically what we’ve had at that position, you look at Chuma Okeke, JT Thor, Jabari Smith, and even Johni Broome to an extent when he slid over to play some four last year, Keyshawn has a mold of all those guys as far as his ability to shoot the ball,” Steven Pearl said in Birmingham. “I would say the one area that Keyshawn is probably ahead of all those guys is his ability to put the ball on the floor, get to the rim, get contact, score through contact. He’s really quick and versatile.
“If you put a smaller guy on him, he’s going to be able to post him up. If you put a bigger guy on him, he’s just going to drive right around you. His ability to play both three and four is something we’re going to work with this year. Obviously just excited for the different options that he gives us on the offensive end to be able to put him in situations to be successful.”
Josh Hubbard is a leader for Mississippi State
In a league crawling with All-American caliber guards, 2024-25 second-team All-SEC point man Hubbard can get overlooked. But not by his coach. As the most experienced player on a team that lost four starters from its 2025 NCAA Tournament group and brings in nine newcomers, Hubbard is the guiding light.
“He’s been crucial,” State coach Chris Jans said. “He took a leadership role last year as a sophomore, along with Cameron Matthews. He was definitely the little brother of the duo. He did it more silently than Cam did it. He’s got all the qualities you would want if you’re looking at it from a coach’s perspective in terms of his ability. He’s got respect that way. He’s as hard a worker as we have in the program, which gives him a little more confidence in allowing him to say things to his teammates.
“I really don’t like the kids who start kind of taking over leadership role and they’re not doing the right thing every day. That’s counterintuitive. I get frustrated when I see that happening. With Josh, no worries at all.”
Some point guards are strictly set-up guys, and some like to score. Place Hubbard in the latter category. But he spent the offseason trying to become a better facilitator, learning to read defenses and make the right pass at the right time. Not that Hubbard is a black hole once the ball is in his hands. Last season he became the only player in Mississippi State history to score at least 600 points and hand out at least 100 assists, a feat matched by only 10 other power-conference players, including Duke’s Cooper Flagg, and three more from the SEC — Alabama’s Mark Sears, Auburn’s Johni Broome and Florida’s Walter Clayton, Jr.
Portal gives Oweh strong support in Kentucky’s backcourt
Kentucky coach Mark Pope and his assistants were thrilled when 6-foot-4 senior guard Otega Oweh withdrew from the NBA Draft. But even Oweh, recently chosen the SEC Preseason Player of the Year in a poll of media that covers the league, needed help. The Wildcats found it in the portal.
Last season, Oweh played all three perimeter positions and even took a turn or two at power forward, but his primary benefits to Kentucky are as a scorer, lockdown defender and leader. Pope needed a point guard and found his man in 6-foot-3 junior Jaland Lowe, who can score — last season he logged 10 games of 20 or more points — and distribute (5.5 assists per game). It wasn’t a hard sell to land Lowe. “(Pope) talked about the way his offense is played and how I would be a great fit in his system, how he has helped players before me reach their potential, and then, of course, the opportunity to win at the highest level,” Lowe told the media in Birmingham. “When you have a coach that instills confidence in you and wants you to win, that’s a great position for yourself.”
Denzel Aberdeen appeared to be headed for a starter’s role at Florida after the national champions lost their three perimeter starters, including Final Four Most Outstanding Player Clayton. The Florida staff was surprised when Aberdeen bolted for Kentucky, which needed to surround Oweh with another shooter. Long before Aberdeen entered the portal, Pope knew he was a force. Watching film from Kentucky’s 106-100 victory over the Gators in the season opener for both teams, Pope couldn’t help but notice Aberdeen. “As I kept watching film, this guy coming off the bench was terrifying to me, and it showed during the season,” Pope said. “But he’s also one of the finest young men I have ever known and he’s going to be a superstar here.”
Despite primarily coming off the bench during his career, Aberdeen has proven what he can do when he’s been given more responsibility. He started five times last season and averaged 14.4 points and shot 41.4 percent from three in those games.
Can Gillespie replace a Tennessee legend?
Tennessee has had great luck in the portal the last several seasons and might have found another gem in former Belmont and Maryland point guard Ja’Kobi Gillespie. Gillespie’s job will be tougher than some Tennessee transfers that came before him, as he’s replacing Vols legend Zakai Zeigler, the program’s all-time leader in assists and steals and the heart and soul of consecutive Elite Eight teams.
Gillespie has put up impressive numbers everywhere he’s been, and he got Vol fans excited during a recent public intrasquad scrimmage when he led all scorers with 34 points. Gillespie, a native Tennessean, had long been on Tennessee’s radar, but with Zeigler holding down the point for three years, Gillespie sought other opportunities.
Barnes is happy to finally get the chance to coach Gillespie. “We always had our eyes on Ja’Kobi,” Barnes said. “The year he left Belmont to go to Maryland, with Zakai coming back, it was a really hard sell for us to try to convince him. We’re excited because he brings a lot. I mean, are (Zeigler and Gillespie) similar in some ways? The biggest way is their competitiveness. Both of them are highly competitive. They’re not going to back down. They both play the position differently.
“(Gillespie’s) durability is very similar to Zakai. He never wants to take himself out. He wants to go every rep in practice. He probably has put in more mileage than anybody. That would have been the same with Zakai. We’re lucky to have him. We’re blessed to have him because he’s better than I thought. The more I’m with him, the more I realize that he’s just going to continue to get better throughout the year.”
The Top 100 Players in College Basketball: Part Four
Forget Top 25 rankings. Hoops HQ delivers you the definitive list of the Top 100 players in college basketball for the 2025-26 season.
Anthony Robinson II has a big part to play for Mizzou
Missouri coach Dennis Gates can put a large team on the floor, but one of the Tigers’ smallest players will serve an outsized role. Point guard Anthony Robinson II, a 6-foot-3 junior, was invited to the Chris Paul Elite Guard Camp during the summer — he was the only underclassmen there — and he impressed NBA scouts.
“His defense is so far ahead of anybody in the country,” Gates said. “Now people want to see him be a consistent offensive threat.”
Gates thinks Robinson’s offense might have gotten a bad rap last year. “What people don’t know is that a lot of times, he deferred (so other teammates could score),” Gates said.Robinson didn’t defer on the other side of the court. He led the SEC in steals percentage (5.1) and was fourth in the league in steals (67). Robinson thinks his inclination to affect games defensively comes naturally. “I believe it’s just like an instinct, just being a competitive person and just wanting to win,” he said. “And you know, watch a little Jrue Holiday and Andrew Nembhard, just guys who watch the little stuff.”
