Influx of top coaches, talent have SEC poised to shed poor reputation

Mandatory Credit: Jim Brown-USA TODAY Sports

The SEC has been a bit of a laughing stock among the major college basketball conferences of late. It was embarrassingly lopsided last season, leading to little drama at the top. Kentucky was always going to be the champion, and there wasn’t a close second. Only one other team, Arkansas, spent a fair amount of the season ranked in the top 25.

Four SEC teams aside from Kentucky received an NCAA Tournament bid last season. Although that’s two more tournament bids than in 2014, those teams lacked the top quality you might expect from a power conference, and it showed when three of the five teams were swiftly departed in the round of 64.

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This offseason was one full of changes on the coaching front for many SEC teams, and those changes could be just what it needed to regain respectability and evoke fear in foes. The conference did not have more than just a handful of well-known coaches with impressive resumes over the last several seasons, but now the list of top coaching names runs deep. John Calipari, Billy Donovan, Bruce Pearl, Mike Anderson, Ben Howland, Rick Barnes, Avery Johnson, and Johnny Jones will all patrol the sideline for an SEC team next season.

Hiring coaches is just the first step towards great improvement. With coaches of that caliber, the recruits tend to quickly follow. It’s likely only a matter of time until the new guys on the block (Howland, Barnes, Johnson) start reeling in top recruits on a regular basis, thus strengthening programs that have been mired in mediocrity for too long.

Mississippi State is already reaping the benefits that have historically come from hiring Ben Howland. Malik Newman, a five-star shooting guard in the high school class of 2015, recently committed to the Bulldogs, creating a buzz around the program that hasn’t been there since the middle of the Rick Stansbury era. If things go as planned and Newman ends up playing for the Bulldogs, he will be the highest rated player to ever suit up for the program.

Rick Barnes is walking into a difficult situation at Tennessee, but his record with the NCAA (where the Vols have run into trouble) is squeaky clean. He has a history of nabbing big-time recruits, and his resume is strong enough to speak to many kids by itself. Barnes’ history with sending players to the NBA is certainly part of his resume, and that will make it tough for top recruits to turn him down.

Avery Johnson is in the most unique situation of the bunch, having never coached in college basketball. However, I suspect his coaching experience in the NBA will at least enable him to get his foot in the door with many kids. He’s at least somewhat familiar with the AAU scene because his son Avery Jr. just went through it, and connections he made could prove to be very valuable.

Aside from the newcomers, things are changing, notably on the recruiting trail, among the incumbents that will bring more parity to the SEC. LSU, not Kentucky, is poised to begin next season with the best recruiting class on paper. Johnny Jones has improved his squad on the court in each of the three seasons he’s been in Baton Rouge, and the trend should continue with the influx of elite talent.

Five-star small forward prospect and LSU commit Ben Simmons is the top prospect in the country, according to ESPN’s recruiting rankings. Antonio Blakeney, a five-star shooting guard, finally settled on LSU after a whirlwind of a recruitment. Brandon Sampson, a highly rated shooting guard in his own right, rounds out LSU’s class. The Tigers mix of experience (several key role players are returning) and young, ridiculous talent is going to make them tough for any SEC team to beat, even Kentucky.

At Auburn, Bruce Pearl is already working miracles. He has four class of 2015 recruits rated four-stars locked up to play for the Tigers next season. He crushed the recruiting trail at Tennessee, and it looks like he will do the same at his second SEC school. His teams will only get tougher the longer he remains in the position if history is any indication.

Things continue to look up for Arkansas and head coach Mike Anderson, fresh off of the program’s first NCAA Tournament since 2007-08. Point guard Jimmy Whitt and power forward Ted Kapita are both four-star recruits committed to Arkansas. The departure of Bobby Portis and Michael Qualls will sting a great deal, but Anderson is already making strides towards putting a respectable team on the court once again next season.

It’s a foregone conclusion that John Calipari and Billy Donovan will continue to recruit well to Kentucky and Florida, respectively. Those two programs have long been perceived as the class of the SEC, but that’s rapidly changing with the influx of new coaches and top talent into long-stagnant programs.

Maybe it’s still too early to say how things will shake out next season in the SEC. But that’s exactly the point. For the first time in a while, a team that is not a traditional powerhouse could have a legitimate chance to be crowned king of the conference. There will be more parity in the SEC than there has been in a long time, and college basketball will be better for it.