The College Basketball season is starting to ramp up as we're just weeks away from the start of Conference Play. There is a strong case that the SEC is the most dominant league in College Basketball this season especially after the SEC dismantled the ACC in the SEC/ACC Challenge. In the AP Poll, the SEC has 3 of the top 5 teams, 5 of the top 10, 7 of the top 15, and 8 of the top 20 for a total of 8 ranked schools.
Coaches like Nate Oats, Bruce Pearl, Alex Golden, Rick Barnes, Chris Beard, and Mark Pope have brought the SEC to the forefront of efficient basketball. What's interesting is when you look at the points per game in the SEC, it's showing that scoring less may be more this year.
The Texas A&M Aggies boast the worst scoring offense in the SEC yet, they're 9-2 ranking 12th in the AP Poll. The Aggies have on elite scorer in Wade Taylor IV who's scoring 16 points per game but, they also get great games out of several players who don't have great numbers. The Aggies don't need to shoot the lights out either when they're allowing just 65 points per game.
The South Carolina Gamecocks are a tough team and a tough offense to get a read on in the early portion of the basketball season. In the Gamecocks two biggest games thus far vs Indiana and Xavier they averaged 68.5 points which could be a red flag going into SEC Play. Collin Murray-Boyles has taken a massive step up to 15.9 PPG leading this team. When the Gamecocks face Clemson, it should give us a better read on this team.
Coming into the season, there was a much higher expectation for the LSU Basketball team offensively given their additions but, the Tigers haven't met those expectations as they struggle to hit the three shooting 31.3% from deep. The Tigers offense is led by transfer guards Cam Carter and Jordan Sears who combine to score 32.5 points per game. Outside of the two leaders, LSU needs to find a consistent third option as center Jalen Reed will be out for the season with a torn ACL but, ranked third on the team with 11.1 points per game.
it's so rare to see a John Calipari team ranked so low in the SEC offensively when he typically has hoards of NBA caliber players on his roster. The thing everyone needs to remember is that this team has little experience playing together and as the group gels the offense will continue to improve. As the young guard tandem of Boogie Fland and DJ Wagner continue to develop this team's offensive output will only start to tick up.