Year of the freshmen reigns in SEC thus far

Collin Sexton has been one of the best SEC newcomers. (Vasha Hunt/vhunt@al.com)

By David Ching, special to AL.com

Roughly a month into college basketball season, one trend is becoming abundantly clear around the SEC: This is the season of the newcomer.

It's not just a thing at Kentucky, where freshman-heavy lineups have become a state tradition as common as horse racing and barrel-aged bourbon. Look around the league. Nearly every conference school is relying heavily on players who will make their first trip around the SEC this season.

The league's leading scorer? A freshman. The top assist man? Freshman. Eight of the top 25 rebounders? All first-year SEC players.

Perhaps that's merely the way college basketball has shifted over the last several years, but the influx of important fresh faces seems especially noticeable in the SEC in 2017-18.

Around these parts, for example, both Auburn (8-1) and especially Alabama (7-3) are getting huge contributions from newcomers.

Recruiting experts billed Alabama's Collin Sexton-led freshman class as one of the best in program history, and it's easy to see why. Sexton (21.8 ppg) is the only SEC player scoring more than 20 points per game, already has broken the school's single-game freshman record - 40 points in a remarkable performance against Minnesota - and kept the Crimson Tide alive in several other close games.

Sexton and fellow freshmen John Petty and Herbert Jones rank among the team leaders in minutes played, and rusty Ohio State transfer Daniel Giddens could very well join that group as the season progresses for an Alabama that has the potential to reach the NCAA tournament for the first time since 2012.

Over in Auburn, Presbyterian College transfer Desean Murray is the most valuable addition to the Tigers' roster, leading the team in rebounding (8.0 rpg) despite ranking among the nation's shortest power forwards at 6-foot-3. Murray, freshmen Chuma Okeke and Davion Mitchell and junior college transfer Malik Dunbar all became even more valuable when teammates Austin Wiley and Danjel Purifoy were indefinitely suspended during an eligibility inquiry, and thus far the new guys have helped Auburn get off to its best start since 2011-12.

This isn't just a local story, though.

In keeping with Kentucky coach John Calipari's tradition, the Wildcats (8-1) - the SEC's highest-ranked team at No. 8 in this week's Associated Press Top 25 - are loaded with blue-chip freshmen. Calipari's leading scorer (Kevin Knox at 15.2 ppg), leading rebounder (Nick Richards, 6.7 rpg) and leading assist man (Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, 4.4 apg) are freshmen, and six freshmen rank among the top seven Wildcats in minutes played.

At LSU (6-2), freshman guard Tremont Waters - who leads the SEC in assists (6.6 apg) and ranks second in steals (2.1 spg) and fifth in scoring (18.3 ppg) - already looks like a budding superstar. Meanwhile, Missouri (8-2) and its collection of new faces are off to a strong start even after losing five-star freshman Michael Porter Jr. to a possible season-ending back injury just two minutes into the Tigers' season opener.

This isn't a story solely about freshmen, either. The number of high-value veteran transfers playing big roles in the SEC this season is striking.

For No. 22 Florida (6-3), Jalen Hudson and Egor Koulechov might be new to the SEC, but they have plenty of experience as college performers. Graduate transfer Koulechov (16.1 ppg, 6.9 rpg) was a first-team All-Conference USA performer last season at Rice who led the league in 3-point shooting percentage (47.4, good for a new school record). Hudson (third in the SEC with 19.1 ppg) has provided an instant scoring punch after sitting out last season as a transfer from Virginia Tech.

Canisius College transfer Kassius Robertson (team-high 14.0 ppg) is helping Mizzou cope with the devastating loss of Porter Jr., and he's getting help from freshmen Jeremiah Tilmon (9.8 ppg, 5.1 rpg) and Jontay Porter (8.7 ppg, 6.8 rpg) on a team that boasts the highest NCAA RPI in the SEC (fourth nationally as of Thursday afternoon).

No. 20 Tennessee (7-1) is an outlier here - all of the Volunteers' regulars are second-year players and up - but even the Vols have a new face in the lineup. James Daniel III, among the national leaders in assist-to-turnover ratio (plus-3.56), is a grad transfer from Howard, where he led the nation in scoring (27.1 ppg) in 2015-16 and established himself as NCAA Division I's active career scoring leader (1,984 points and counting).

As anyone who has watched Avery Johnson's young, gifted and sloppy Alabama team can attest, though, continuity is often key in college basketball. It's no coincidence that a Texas A&M team (9-1) that returned All-SEC performers Tyler Davis and Robert Williams (also last season's SEC Defensive Player of the Year) and boasts a deep collection of veteran regulars would be among the SEC's highest-ranked clubs in the AP poll (No. 9) and RPI (No. 10).

In a sport where the top rookies frequently play just one season and then bolt for the NBA, some young teams never overcome their youthful disorganization. Sometimes a moderately talented team with veteran leadership can overcome even the roster loaded with freshmen who will someday play in the pros. Witness Kentucky's close-but-no-cigar results each season since freshmen Anthony Davis and Michael Kidd-Gilchrist carried the Wildcats to the 2011-12 NCAA title.

Many SEC teams have upgraded their talent with this season's new additions, but the lingering question for each of these squads is the one that Calipari faces each year that he rebuilds his roster with fresh faces. Will they jell once January arrives and conference play begins, developing into the contender that their fans hope they can become?

We'll start learning teams' answers to that question in two weekends once SEC play begins.



WEEKEND SCHEDULE
UAB vs. Alabama A&M, Saturday, 2:15 p.m. (BJCC Legacy Arena)
South Alabama vs. Eastern Illinois, Saturday, 3:05 p.m.
Auburn vs. Middle Tennessee, Saturday, 5 p.m. (BJCC Legacy Arena), SEC Network
Troy vs. Arkansas, Saturday, 7 p.m. (North Little Rock, Ark.)
Alabama vs. Mercer, Tuesday, 8 p.m. (Huntsville), SEC Network

LAST TIME OUT
Arizona 88, Alabama 82 on Saturday
Auburn 85, UAB 80 on Saturday
Southern Miss 89, Troy 71 on Sunday
Southern Illinois-Edwardsville 76, South Alabama 75 on Sunday

GAME OF THE WEEKEND
Auburn (8-1) is off to its best start since 2011-12, but the Tigers haven't exactly faced a collection of world-beaters thus far. Aside from a stout Temple team that handed Auburn its only loss of the season, the Tigers have not faced many significant challenges from a schedule that ESPN Daily RPI rates as the SEC's easiest to date.

That is about to change. Not only is Saturday's opponent in the BHM Jam, Middle Tennessee (7-1), one of the nation's better mid-major programs, but the Tigers await three more competent non-conference opponents - Murray State, UConn and Cornell are all hovering around the top 100 in the NCAA RPI rankings - before jumping into SEC play at Tennessee on Jan. 2.

Auburn faces an MTSU team coming off back-to-back wins over Vanderbilt and Ole Miss. Kermit Davis' Blue Raiders have played in the NCAA tournament in three of the last five seasons - they reached the second round in each of the last two - and seem well on their way to another postseason appearance.

Beating major-conference opposition is a great way for a program like MTSU to prove it belongs in the Big Dance, and the Blue Raiders have already proven that it's not an upset when they take down an SEC club. Auburn might have to play its best game of the season to avoid becoming the third SEC pelt on the Blue Raiders' wall.



OPPOSING PLAYER TO WATCH
Area college basketball fans will probably recognize the name of MTSU forward Nick King.

He was on Alabama's roster last season after transferring from Memphis, but was hampered by a lung infection early in the season and appeared in just seven games. King left for MTSU in the offseason as a graduate transfer and lit up both of the Blue Raiders' recent SEC opponents.

King earned Conference USA Men's Basketball Player of the Week honors after scoring 23 points against Vanderbilt and 25 against Ole Miss - part of a run of seven straight games with 20 points or more.

As of Thursday afternoon, King ranked fifth nationally in scoring (24.3 ppg) and he's also averaging 6.6 rebounds and 2.0 assists per game. He never got to face Auburn while playing at Alabama - heck, he didn't play against any SEC team while in Tuscaloosa - but King will be a major matchup concern for the Tigers on Saturday.

LOCAL PLAYER TO WATCH
UAB (6-4) might not need another big performance from Chris Cokley to beat Alabama A&M (0-10) on Saturday, but there's a good chance the Blazers will get one anyway. The senior forward has been a force thus far, ranking among Conference USA leaders in both scoring (18.5 ppg) and rebounding (10.0 rpg).

With 26 points and nine boards in last Saturday's 85-80 loss to Auburn, Cokley fell just one rebound short of his sixth double-double of the season. Tigers coach Bruce Pearl was relieved to note afterward that this was his last meeting with the Blazers senior.

"I am glad I don't have to play against Chris Cokley ever again. He's a real man in there," Pearl said in the postgame press conference. "He played terrifically, and much of what we tried to do was stop him. It was difficult."

ON THE HORIZON
The 10-day layoff between last Saturday's loss at Arizona and Tuesday's game against Mercer in Huntsville should be useful for Alabama (7-3). And not just for the chance to regroup after a rollercoaster last month for Avery Johnson's young team.

By all indications, preseason All-SEC forward Braxton Key (knee surgery) should be ready to make his first appearances of the season in the upcoming neutral-site games against Mercer and Texas (Dec. 22 in Birmingham). That would give the Tide two games with one of their key performers back in the lineup before a huge SEC opener against No. 9 Texas A&M in Tuscaloosa on Dec. 30.

SIGNIFICANT STAT
Yes, it's still early, but this could wind up being an extremely competitive season in the SEC. Four conference teams - No. 4 Missouri, No. 7 Tennessee, No. 9 Arkansas and No. 10 Texas A&M - sat inside the top 10 in the NCAA RPI rankings on Thursday. Meanwhile, No. 27 Alabama, No. 36 Kentucky and No. 47 South Carolina linger just behind, and several additional teams - No. 51 Mississippi State, No. 57 Auburn, No. 58 Florida and No. 62 Georgia - are threatening to crack the top 50.

NOTABLE QUOTE
"The frustrating thing is in the last three years, Middle Tennessee obviously the last two and then us the year before, have all gotten into the NCAA tournament and won a game and upset somebody that was a higher seed. So our conference has proven itself in March. I think it's a great thing for the league. I think what's happening is this year, it's setting up for multiple teams to get postseason. Maybe it's not the NCAA tournament, but it's the NIT. Anytime you can do that, it would be great." - UAB coach Robert Ehsan discussing the overall strength of Conference USA on "The Opening Drive" Thursday on WJOX 94.5-FM

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