This whole St. John’s situation has been a big ol’ ‘YIKES’
Wade and Miller won’t be testifying. Good news for Arizona’s top-ranked recruiting class. 
St. Johns hires Mike Anderson. Honestly not awful considering how dreadful that job will be next year. Though I don’t think Anderson has any roots in the northeast.
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Anderson will definitely be a fish out of water in the NE considering all his stops have either been in the midwest or the south. He is a decent coach, though I don’t think that he’ll necessarily be a program changer for the Johnnies.
After adding Johnny Juzang, Kentucky supposedly making a real push for Jaden McDaniels. I don’t see any way MSU, Duke, and Kentucky are not consensus preseason top 3. I don’t think a fourth team is very close to that trio on paper for now.
It’ll be interesting to see what their frontcourt will look like. Travis and Washington are gone. Montgomery and Richards both applied for the draft and you never know with the guys and the people surrounding them will say about staying there.
I enjoy how Kentucky is a top three team in the preseason every year and rarely finishes that high
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To be fair, the Okafor/Winslow/Jones Blue Devils and Davis/MKG/Jones Wildcats are pretty much the only one and done driven teams that met expectations.
Turns out turning over 70% of your rotation every year is hard.
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In 2015 Kentucky lost 1 game in the final four. Also went to the final four the year before that. This year’s Duke Team was the #1 seed and lost in the elite 8 to the team everyone considered the best 2 seed. If the expectations are higher than that then those are tough to live up to.
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Duke has made two final fours from 2005-2019 (granted they won it all both years), but when you’re a one or two seed 12 out of the 15 years (and a 3, 4 and 6 the other three years), that’s not very good from a statistical standpoint… when you get the amount of talent they do, you should have a higher success rate
Yes, everyone would love to recruit on their level, but I think they are a bit overrated given the rosters they are turning out every year.
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Duke, Kentucky, and Kansas have been in the top five recruiting classes for over a decade, and Duke and Kentucky have been 1 or 2 for the past 6.
2 titles between the three in that time doesn’t seem like what you’d expect from that kind of talent.
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Raw talent notwithstanding, there are inherent weaknesses in any team where multiple guys are used to being THE guy, and all trying to showcase themselves for the NBA at the same time. It’s very hard to develop team cohesion when everybody wants to be a star, and when you’re having to replace 3,4,5 early departures every year. A well coordinated team defense doesn’t easily come together in one season; you really need a group of guys who have played together for a couple years.
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Calipari does a great job getting buy-in and fielding a team defense. Sometimes it takes much of the season to get there, but they are often a tough out in the tourney in those years where they haven’t been ranked elite.
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I don’t know where else to put this, but VCU’s defense saw a massive turn-around this season. Despite the 177th best offense, they finished seventh in defense and 42nd in KP overall. Last year their defense was 156th. That’s a HUGE turnaround, and Jamal Brunt is a key person for it. He’s been described as their ‘defensive coordinator’ in a couple articles I read, and this has been his first season at VCU so it would make sense that he’s a driving force. If Yaklich leaves for Texas (presuming Shaka doesn’t come/doesn’t retain him) that would be an interesting assistant hire for the defense. Just some conversation about a team other than Michigan.
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Guess he saw the writing on the wall with only a year left on his contract at Northern Arizona.
Workout video hype season. Xavier’s shooting motion does look a lot more natural here. Hopefully he can get the consistency down.
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Clearly years of playing for John Beilein have been holding back has development as a shooter
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Dre Haynes to Maryland.
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Good for him! I don’t feel bad for him anymore 
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