The 2021-2022 college basketball season will witness a moment of truth for John Calipari at Kentucky. His Wildcats have simply not been very good the past few seasons. Is this the year of a rebirth, or will the struggles continue in Lexington for one of college basketball\u2019s ultimate blue-blood programs?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Team Likely To Surprise<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The SEC had a number of standout teams last season which hadn\u2019t been regular heavyweights in the conference the previous few seasons. Alabama won the conference title and the conference tournament championship as well. The Crimson Tide reached the Sweet 16 and would have gone deeper into the NCAA Tournament if they had made a few more free throws in an agonizing March Madness loss to UCLA. Arkansas made the Elite Eight in a redemptive year under coach Eric Musselman, who is pushing all the right buttons for the Razorbacks. With other teams rising, Auburn was ineligible for the NCAA Tournament due to continued violations under head coach Bruce Pearl. Yet, in a pandemic season with all the disruptions felt by many teams in college basketball, it was not the worst time to have a one-year break from March. Pearl is reloading with a talented group this season. Getting big-man transfer Walker Kessler from North Carolina is a huge (literally and figuratively) addition. The Tigers have considerable depth and balance and will be in position to finish in the top four of the SEC once again, maybe even the top two since Alabama has endured a key injury before the season has even started. Alabama lost five-star recruit Nimari Burnett for the year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Auburn truly could finish second in the SEC. Other pundits might not give the Tigers that much credit heading into the season.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Team Likely To Disappoint<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The Florida Gators under Mike White had everything lined up. They got a huge break when 15th<\/sup>-seeded Oral Roberts stunned No. 2 seed Ohio State in the NCAA Tournament. Florida had a golden ticket to the Sweet 16, but it lost to Oral Roberts in the second round. That sums up the Mike White era, a series of missed opportunities. Florida loses Tre Mann, an electric and clever scorer, from its 2021 team. Finding enough offense could be a real challenge for the Gators this year. Colin Castleton was outstanding for Florida last season, but he might not have enough help this season, and opponents might be able to figure out ways to contain him. Florida has lost the superpower status it had under Billy Donovan. Don\u2019t expect this season to be a journey in which the Gators regain a measure of their lost stature.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Conference Champion<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The Kentucky Wildcats were bad last season. There are no two ways around it. They were bad. John Calipari pushed a lot of buttons, but nothing worked. He always recruits well, but he has not found the right mix of players in recent seasons. Guys aren\u2019t meshing on the court. Calipari knew he needed to hit the transfer portal with seasoned veterans who could add shooting and instant offense to his team. He landed C.J. Fredrick from Iowa and Kellan Grady from Davidson. Those two players should create the right roster balance which will enable Kentucky to quickly and substantially rebound from 2021. The Cats should win the SEC and restore order in 2022.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The 2021-2022 college basketball season will witness a moment of truth for John Calipari at Kentucky. His Wildcats have simply…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":5320,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[135],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19632","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ncaab"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19632","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19632"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19632\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19646,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19632\/revisions\/19646"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5320"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19632"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19632"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19632"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}