NCAA Basketball Mailbag: Projecting ACC race, Memphis success and more

The NCAA Basketball Mailbag is back and we’re breaking down all the biggest questions of the offseason and looking ahead to the new year.

It’s been a while since we did our last NCAA Basketball Mailbag following the Final Four and, even though we’re in the college basketball lull of July, there’s still plenty to discuss.

From projections for the season ahead, coaches with a lot on the line, and recruiting that just finished up, we touched on a myriad of topics on all of your minds.

So, without further ado, let’s dive in and discuss the team that has ruled headlines more than anyone else going into next season – the Memphis Tigers.

I think Penny will be successful at Memphis and will be there for as long as he wants to be. Personally, I think concerns about him are overblown – he’s proven himself at every level and has paid his coaching dues.

At the same time, winning a championship is extremely tough, and it’s even harder doing it in your first time around. We’ve seen so many talented freshmen classes fall short of a title and the only two that won – the 2012 Kentucky team and 2015 Duke team – had two of the best and most experienced coaches every in Coach K and John Calipari.

Memphis will be trying to win with an inexperienced roster and with someone coaching in the NCAA Tournament for the first time. They’re talented enough to make a long run and even make the Final Four (I think they’ll get that far), but I don’t see them winning a title this year.

This year will, however, set the stage for Memphis being a national power on a yearly basis once again.

Michigan will do fine, but I don’t know how that will be perceived by the fan base. This is a very important year for Hardaway and Howard, yet the latter is facing some very real challenges.

The Wolverines got used to being a contender under former head coach John Beilein, but they were set up to struggle this season no matter who was on the sideline. Their three leading scorers – Iggy Brazdeikis, Jordan Poole, and Charles Matthews – are all gone and Howard didn’t have time to even try to replace them during this recruiting cycle.

I think Howard is a better coach that he gets credit for and the returning core of Zavier Simpson, Isaiah Livers, and Jon Teske will put Michigan back in the NCAA Tournament after what I believe will be a bubble year. That may have been the year they would’ve had under Beilein given the talent on the roster, too, but that may not matter.

Absolutely. They play that pressing style that’s tough to handle, Brad Underwood is too good a coach for them to finish in the bottom part of the conference again, and they finally have some real high-level talent, headlined by Ayo Dosunmu and Kofi Cockburn.

The Big Ten is so wide open that I think the Illini will fall in that range, behind the likes of Michigan State, Ohio State, Maryland, and Michigan.

I think Louisville will win the league but Duke will be the preseason favorite. Though they have another roster consisting of mostly freshmen, Coach K has proven he can win with those rosters and he probably has the most talent. That said, Louisville has the best mix of talent and experience, which I think bodes well for them.

Virginia will be good again even without the talent of last year’s group. Tony Bennett is still Tony Bennett and he has the core in tact for what should be great teams in 2020-21 and 2021-22. They’ll still finish in the top third of the conference – the development of Mamadi Diakite and Kihei Clark will determine where they fall in that mix – but I don’t think they’ll be able to make it out of the first weekend.

(Side note for Virginia: look out for freshman Casey Morsell. He’s going to be a star sooner rather than later.)

As for Syracuse…they’ll be lucky to find themselves on the familiar NCAA Tournament bubble this year. There’s a real chance they finish in the bottom third of the conference this year.

I really think this first season will be Mick Cronin’s best at UCLA. They have a talented roster that is going from an offensive-focused system to a defensive-focused one, and the first year of that transition usually yields the best results (there’s some carry over offensively as they learn to become more stringent defensively).

That being said, I don’t think they finish anywhere higher than fifth in the Pac-12.

Recruiting is the biggest question mark with Cronin’s fit at UCLA, and I don’t think he’ll be able to at a high enough level, so I don’t think his tenure is going to be that successful. But the Bruins may surprise some people this year.

Calipari has said repeatedly throughout his career that he enjoys mentoring his players and helping them achieve their dreams – making it to the NBA and being able to support themselves and their families – and I really think he means that. It’s not about selfish reasons of being able to say his program puts the most players in the NBA (even if it boosts his ego and helps with recruiting), but that is his top motivation. He compares his job to that of a normal teacher all the time – his goal his to get his guys ready for the next level and prepared for the future by teaching them the skills they need.

While he has said the players are his focus (he says his season doesn’t end until the NBA Draft is over) he obviously wants to win games and championships. He’s too competitive not to.

Yes. The A-10 is going to be really good this year – our guy Stu Luddecke is a must-follow for all A-10 fans – but everyone will be looking up at VCU.

This would be a good time to shamelessly plug by article detailing the biggest winners from Summer League but I was most impressed with Chris Clemons. We’ve seen several elite scorers from small colleges fail to make an impact at the NBA level and, while Summer League isn’t that, it’s the next step. Clemons dominated to the point where he’ll probably find his way onto an NBA roster sooner rather than later.