College Hoops Mailbag: Will Chris Mullin succeed at St. John's? – CBSSports.com
To help you prepare for the coming college basketball season, college basketball writer and NBA Draft expert Sam Vecenie will be answering questions sent via either Twitter or email once a week before the season starts.
Here are answers to the best questions he received this week. As always, you can reach him at @Sam_Vecenie on Twitter, by following him on Facebook, or by emailing him at [email protected].
Q: Do you think that Chris Mullin will succeed at St. John’s? — John DeRosa
A: You have to feel pretty good about it at the moment, right?
Let’s start at the top. Mullin was a guy that had very little experience with college basketball at the highest levels and dealing with recruiting. So what did he do?
He went out and hired two of the best recruiters in the country in Matt Abdelmassih from Iowa State and Barry “Slice” Rohrssen from Kentucky. They’ll get him the players that he needs to succeed as long as he’s there, and they’ve already had a strong performance in that regard. The Johnnies picked up Marcus LoVett, Federico Mussini, Yankuba Sima, and Kassoum Yakwe as freshmen and Tariq Owens and Durand Johnson as transfers this year. He’s also prioritized the city of New York in a way that it seemingly hasn’t been at the school in a while, and this week it paid off with Shamorie Ponds, a four-star prospect from Brooklyn.
He’s basically built a roster from the ground up after Steve Lavin left him with very little in the way of returning talent. From that point, it’s up to Mullin to coach the guys up. The jury will be out on that until he actually does it, but Mullin’s a smart basketball mind, at the very least, given his involvement with the Warriors and the Kings. There’s a good chance that he’ll be able to get his guys in the right spots for them to succeed.
I don’t think you can realistically complain about what you’ve seen from him to this point. There will be some bumps along the way, of course, but he’s done and said all the right things since taking over, and looks to be on the right track toward building up St. John’s back to what it was when he played there. Right now, I think I’d bet on this working out as long as he has hard-working recruiters on his staff.
Just don’t look for it this year necessarily, as they continue to rebuild and stockpile talent. They’ll be competitive, but probably not in the mix for an NCAA Tournament bid.
Q: Who is the Aaron Craft of college basketball this season? — @KGeter92
A: This is such a terrific, fun question. I actually talked to Craft about his college reputation at Summer League this year when he was with the Warriors, and here’s what he said about what it was like to be hated by college basketball fans around the country.
“It’s a little crazy,” Craft said. “Opposing fans defintiely weren’t too fond of me while I was in college. Now that I’m out, I haven’t heard anything but respect from the different players and different fans around the country…The hardest part then was trying not to give them a reaction, because some of the stuff they say is pretty funny. But I don’t want to laugh, because I don’t want to make them feel good. My teammates and I would actually have a pretty good laugh afterward in the locker room. But every time you’re on the floor you just try not to show emotion.”
The funniest things he heard?
“A lot of the funniest stuff came after Jared (Sullinger), Jon (Diebler), and I sang that Party in the USA video,” Craft said. “I got made fun of for wearing cargo shorts. You know, just stuff that’s pretty clever.”
Back to the question though, let’s just go ahead and make this an award. The Craftsmith Trophy, bestowed upon the player who most annoys opposing collegiate fanbases. I think the criteria we’re looking for here is a recognizable face on a traditional powerhouse that is prone to annoying fans. He also needs to be an all-conference-level talent. Other recent recipients of this award (that I just made up): Gerry McNamara, Chris Kramer, Joakim Noah, Greg Paulus (ironically, one of Craft’s future coaches at OSU), and J.J. Redick — another player who this award could be named for.
I’ll note a few quick candidates before giving who I think is the clear answer.
Bryce Alford: He’s the coach’s kid and his father was charged with nepotism in playing him over Zach LaVine. The reality is that Alford can really play, and when he’s hot there isn’t anyone in college basketball that can slow him down. His nine 3s in UCLA‘s upset win over SMU in the NCAA Tournament last year was a big performance on the big stage for a kid who has always been in his father’s shadow. But having said all of those nice things, it’s really not difficult to envision people hating him.
Trevor Cooney: Cooney Face, guys. Cooney Face.
Adam Woodbury: No, this award is not limited to just guards! Woodbury receives this nomination due to a penchant for eye-poking, accidental or not. Have to wonder if Iowa qualifies as a big-time enough program this year and if he qualifies as a big-time enough player to receive enough hatred nationally, but Woodbury will likely be booed in many gyms this year.
However, there is a clear preseason favorite here, and that would have to be Duke‘s Grayson Allen. Big name program with a history of producing annoying players. Looks eerily like Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz. Plays with a ton of emotion. Slaps the floor on defense. Coach K calls him an “asshole” in practice. Openly discusses how he is WILLING to be college basketball’s villain.
This is pretty much a no-brainer, right? We might as well hand Allen the award now.
Q: Which current college basktball player would make the best MMA fighter? — John Valentic
A: There are so many different ways you can go with this question. Are we talking just simply the best cage fighter? Best fighter within his weight class? It’s a tough one, and realistically there are a ton of answers given that we’re talking about guys with ridiculously long arms and limbs as well as incredible strength in some cases. My thought on this is that you don’t want someone who is overly tall (knocking out everyone 6-foot-10 and bigger), but also still want someone who is big.
I’ll throw a couple of names out there for this year in a second, but I’ll note that last year had some really tough ones too. Jabril Trawick from Georgetown and Darion Atkins from Virginia particularly came to mind as guys that play angry, have the right physical dimensions, and have the right confidence levels to want to step in and be a cage fighter. Former Louisiana Tech coach and now current Florida coach Mike White also told me last year that if you locked Speedy Smith in a closet with someone and made them fight to get out, he’d pick Smith 100 times out of 100, and meant it entirely as a compliment. He and Norman Powell would probably be my picks in the guard division. The year prior, Patric Young of Florida would have been the pick.
But let’s get to the list of guys for this year.
First, my pick for the title is VCU‘s Mo Alie-Cox. The Rams’ center is about as strong and physical as any player in America. At 6-6, 260 pounds of muscle, that’s not a guy that anyone in the country would want to try. He’s also physical, not afraid of contact, and tough as nails on the floor. Plus, with a 7-1 wingspan he’d be really tough to get inside on in a stand-up contest. He can run a 5:40 mile as well, which points to strong cardio. Yup, that’s pretty much everything you’re looking for in a fighter if he has the wherewithal to do it. Another guy: Ryan Spangler at Oklahoma. That is one tough dude that plays angry. He’s also got a thick chest, strong lower body, and doesn’t stop working, even when he gets bloodied. In the guard division, I’ll note Yogi Ferrell and Frank Mason in this year’s under-six-foot division. Both of those guys are scrappy, tough, physical dudes who have low centers of gravity and strong upper bodies.
Mo Alie-Cox might always be smiling, but that’s one tough dude. (USATSI)
Q: Could FSU win the ACC Championship this year the way Notre Dame shocked us all last year? — Kinchen Taylor
A: I mean, maybe? Anything can happen in a league tournament. I get that the league calls the team that wins its tournament the champion, but that’s pretty ridiculous to me. The regular season is a much better way of determining a league champion just simply due to the much larger sample size of games at play and the largely similar strength of schedule. So in my mind, Virginia is the ACC Champion each of the last two years. But whatever. Do you, ACC.
Getting to the meat of the question though, I do think Florida State will be an NCAA Tournament team this year. However, I don’t think the Noles will be a contender for the regular season crown. Xavier Rathan-Mayes and Dwayne Bacon are pretty great, and Montay Brandon, Devin Bookert and Phil Cofer will make up a really nice supporting cast with Michael Ojo and Boris Bojanovsky manning the middle. But, simply put, I don’t think they’re as talented as the teams ahead of them.
North Carolina is returning just about everything next season from a team that was three games better than Florida State. Virginia returns a lot from a team that was eight games better. Duke reloaded. NC State looks solid. Louisville will be solid. Miami, Syracuse and Pittsburgh will be better. It’s just an extremely deep league this year. My guess is the Seminoles finish higher than some of those teams, but all of them? Not something I’d count on. Again though, hey, anything can happen in a tournament.
Q: Are the Miami Hurricanes serious contenders for the ACC title? — @tobiasmax3000
A: You can basically copy and paste my thoughts from the above question into this section, replacing Rathan-Mayes, Bacon, Bookert, Cofer, Ojo and Bojanovsky with McClellan, Jekiri, Reed, Murphy, Rodriguez, and Newton. There’s just too much talent in the ACC, and it’ll be tough for the Canes to get to the top.
Q: Thoughts on Temple this year? How long before Fran Dunphy goes? He needs to win in the Tournament. — Tom Murray
A: Man, there’s an impossibly high standard at Temple if we’re talking about potentially getting rid of an awesome coach like Fran Dunphy. Dunphy had made the NCAA Tournament for six years in a row before his two-year sabbatical in 2014 and 2015, and his team probably did have an NCAA Tourney resume last year on the way to winning 26 games.
Temple should compete in what looks like a stronger American this season, as solid players like Quentin DeCosey, Jaylen Bond and Obi Enechionyia return. They’ll have two keys to their season ending in an NCAA Tournament bid. First, can they replace Will Cummings, their steady point guard who was a first-team All-AAC player last year? If Josh Brown can take over some of the playmaking duties of Cummings and get the Owls into their offensive sets, that would really help. While Cummings is certainly the best player they’ll be missing, arguably equally as important is Jesse Morgan, their 3-point shooting wing from last season. Morgan and DeCosey were the Owls’ only reliable shooters last year, as they shot 30.4 percent from beyond the arc, good for 314th in the nation. The shooters on this team must improve to pick up the slack, otherwise teams will just pack the paint against them on offense.
And that’ll be the key. Can they get enough offense? They were the 18th-best defensive team in the country last year per KenPom, and it’s not tough to see that happening again. If they get an improvement on offense, they can contend at the top of the AAC with SMU, Cincinnati, Tulsa, and Connecticut. Regardless though, Dunphy’s job really shouldn’t be in any danger.
Q: Does Washington have enough young firepower to compete for a top-four spot in the Pac-12 this season? — Chris Reichert
A: In a word: no. They’ll have to get pretty lucky to stay out of the bottom-four of a Pac-12 that, according to a coach I spoke with who has spent the last decade in the league, is looking better and deeper than it has in a while. Any team that brings in eight newcomers is going to struggle to start the year, and Washington won’t be immune from that.
All of that turnover will likely be good for the program in the long run, given that it finished 5-13 in the league last year. Having a guy like Nigel Williams-Goss to stem the tide of inexperience would have helped immensely, though. Instead, they’ll only have one upperclassman that was there last season in Andrew Andrews. I think 2016-17 is probably the year the Huskies start to turn it around, given that their seven scholarship freshmen will be a year older and they’ll get to play with Markelle Fultz, an elite five-star guard in the Class of 2016. But for this year, I’m not high on their chances.
Q: What team do you think has the most high level prospects this year? — @mrwilson555555
A: The easy answer is Kentucky, right? Skal Labissiere and Jamal Murray are legitimate potential top-four picks. Isaiah Briscoe and Marcus Lee are also guys tracking as potential first-rounders at this point in time. Then, Alex Poythress and Tyler Ulis are the wild cards here, potential of going anywhere from late-first if things went perfectly to undrafted. So I’d go Kentucky, given that those six are all in my top-80 prospects right now. Worth noting that Kansas and North Carolina also each have five guys in my top-150, followed by California, Maryland and Indiana with four each (or in the case of Indiana, three plus Thomas Bryant).
Q: Purdue has 3 skilled bigs. Thoughts on how they will use them? Rotation vs. All on floor? What is ceiling for Boilers? — @KitMeltsFaces
A: I’m relatively high on the Boilermakers this year. I like their guard rotation, think Vince Edwards is an All-Big Ten player, and can’t help but be intrigued by their forward rotation. It’s definitely a preason top-25 team for me, and might even be a top-four team in the deep Big Ten.
Having said that, I think the part of the team I’m most worried about is the frontcourt, even with the talent. A.J. Hammons is the best guy in the middle, and he’ll command as many minutes as he can handle as an All-Big Ten guy. Luckily for the other two in the rotation, that might only be around 25 per game given his foul troubles. That means Isaac Haas will step in and take those minutes, in all likelihood. My biggest question mark right now is going to be how they utilize Caleb Swanigan, a player who I think was pretty miscast as a five-star prospect by scouting services.
Don’t mistake it: he’s a good college player that will be able to have an immediate college impact. But he’s also an undersized 5 that struggles to finish round the rim against size due to his lack of lift, doesn’t move well on the perimeter, and is still overall pretty raw regarding his feel for the game. Having said that, given his pedigree, he’s still probably a guy that expects a certain number of minutes this year. My guess is that he sees a lot of his time at the 4 with one of the other two at the 5 due to his lack of height, which scares me. Offensively, he has a decent enough midrange game to where he’ll be able to hopefully space out the post for Hammons, plus his post game is strong. However, I think he’s going to struggle in the pick-and-roll on defense. Having him on the floor with either Hammons or Haas is just inviting teams to kill them with the ball-screen.
Because of that, I think that a lot of Purdue’s best lineups this year will involve Edwards at the 4 with only one true “big” (although at 6-8 with a 7-0 wingspan, Edwards certainly qualifies on this level). He’s a jack of all trades who can defend, pass, slash, and generally do it all for you. That, along with guys like Dakota Mathias, Raphael Davis, Kendall Simmons, the transfer point guard Johnny Hill, and freshman Ryan Cline, will give you the right kind of floor-spacing on offense and defensive potential on the other end to slow down other teams. It might be a limited minutes thing, but this is the best way to counteract teams killing them with screens.
It’s not ideal to have three of your best players basically play the same position — especially when that position is center — and the Boilermakers are certainly one of the teams to watch in preseason practice in order to see how this shakes out. If it was me, my plan going in would be to allocate 60 minutes between the three of them: 26 minutes for Hammons, 20 for Swanigan, and 14 for Haas. Then I’d push Edwards down to the 4 for extended stretches of time. But I’d predict Matt Painter plays the three of them more minutes than that, with Swanigan seeing more minutes at the 4. Tough, weird spot for the coach.
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