Mike Siroky’s SEC Report: Next Season Will Be A Little Less Whacky With Two New Coaches Aboard

By Mike Siroky

 

There will be one more season of Covid-affected women’s college basketball.

But the impact will not be as zany in the Southeastern Conference as it could have been.

For instance, South Carolina, the top NCAA finisher in conference, is totally unaffected as it loses no one of significance, returns all starters, including Lisa Leslie award winner (top national center) in Aliyah Boston. 

Everyone else, with additions and subtractions , is playing for second.

The NCAA offered every player who lost a season (2020) to Covid a magic ticket to get a free extra year if they chose to come back.

 The wackiness of that, in theory, is every team could retain every player. If they all duplicated their season, just Xerox the conference and NCAA standings.

But that did not happen as most listed as seniors moved on in life.

Statistically, though, one of the possibilities was a school record-holder who would have had five seasons of accumulated numbers instead of four.

Sports information directors and the NCAA plan to asterisk anyone whose cumulative ends statically higher, though using averages would clarify it. 

For instance, the all-time leading scorers and rebounders at some schools could put the mark out of reach, but not the career average.

But now comes the WNBA and its agreement with the NCAA. 

Any player who declares for the WNBA automatically acknowledges her college eligibility has ended.

Keep in mind that hope springs eternal but reality smacks you in the face. 

A player may get bad advice. 

Last season, for instance, the two-time college player of the year didn’t make the league except as a late-season injury replacement. 

No SEC player is the college player of the year or even close.

Experience has shown you’d better be a first-round draft pick to have any shot at all.

 Players look at A’ja Wilson of SC,  the top draftee in her time, who made and stayed in the WNBA.

No SEC player is thought of that highly. 

It is a safe bet no SEC player will crack the league this season. 

So one train of thought said stay in school and get your Master’s subsidized, as four starters did at Georgia this year, playing on as grad students.

But the other train leaving the career station said, “Hey, you had your four years of your four-year plan.” That is also true.

 The rookie salary in the league tops out at $74,00, fair change for any new graduate. If you make it.

Go overseas where mandates at least some Americans on each team, and you can start a nice run in the $100,00 range, always away from home. If you make it.

The difference between the men’s game and the women’s game still is the payoff, as Texas A&M’s Gary Blair said, “Butts in the seat” generating viewers and attendees wrapped up as revenue. 

The women’s pro game in the States does not have that. 

It is subsidized by the men’s game.

In the toughest  conference of them all – the Southeastern – the effect of players coming back for a fifth season seems to be minimal, just by reviewing who declared for the WNBA draft. 

The declarations cannot be retracted.

Arkansas’ all-time leading scorer and All-America Chelsea Dungee was a key. She declared. Surprisingly so did classmate Destiny Slocum, who is not serious drafted material. 

A third Razorback, leading scorer Amber Ramirez, is coming back, so there is one all-league performer remaining. 

She is the best of the fifth years and will get a second Senior Day honors, a unique experience.

Four Georgia starters -- Maya Caldwell, All-America Gabby Connally, Que Morrison, All-America Jenna Staiti –- declared, so that program is back to being sixth or seventh with fortuitous play.

The Vols had a Tennessee two-step of seniors, including a sturdy  All-America in Rennia Davis, but she is unlikely to stick in the WNBA.

Kasiyahna Kushkituah is gone too, to the relief of spell checkers everywhere.  

The other Lady Vol to declare was a surprise transfer out, freshman Destiny Salary. 

She is the first Kelli Harper player to go. She posted online “it was best” to move on. 

She personally apologized to Davis, her “basketball mentor.” 

She’d be a great catch for homestate Arkansas. She was an All-SEC Freshman, having started 24 of 25 games.

Three seniors moving on from Kentucky are Chasity Patterson (declared for WNBA) and Kameron Roach and KeKe McKinney.

A&M loses its all-time All-America rebounder, N’dea Jones, and another All-SEC player, Aaliyah Wilson. 

The Aggies were already deep without some superlative incoming freshmen. The delightful 6-5 center Anna Dremaine is transferring out, perhaps to open roster space.

 She took the extra year.

Auburn, with a new coach, lost its All-American Unique Thompson , freed at last with no return to no team.

The Tigers obviously knew who they wanted as the next coach.

They waited less than a week to bring in Johnnie Harris, after her previous commitment ended in the NCAAs.

She was a top assistant for Mississippi State until she moved with Vic Schaefer to Texas for a season. 

Harris was highly thought of with him to handle post-game coaches ‘ radio interviews. She was his top recruiter.

One wonders if some of those fleeing other SEC schools might not find  the comforts of her as their next coach.

She upgrades the Tiger tradition immediately. 

Harris is the fourth of five Black coaches to be hired in the league in three seasons, keeping that number at seven, far more  than the rest of the top leagues combined. 

Another historical note is that it gives the SEC six coaches with two years or less. That has never happened and keeps the number of teams coached by men at three.

Harris was with Schaefer since 2012 but also assisted in the league at Texas A&M and Arkansas. Her recruiting is what built State,

It obviously is her third physical move in three season which ought to be enough.

None of the other SEC schools had a senior worth worrying about.

South Carolina and A&M still will be the best-coached league teams, with SC the favorite again, adding the national recruiting class of the year and already returning four starters who will be juniors. 

Tennessee coach  Harper keeps them in third, tussling for the space with Kentucky. 

The two best All-Americas play on, Aliyah Boston at SC and Rhyne Howard at Kentucky, restarting that argument for SEC supremacy.  

The Gamecocks have more thoroughbreds and an edge in coaching.

Jasmine Walker left Alabama. 

After that it is pick-’em with another coach surprisingly released.

Florida ended the season with three starters out injured. 

Three bench players, two freshmen and a reserve, left Mississippi,  5-10 in the league. 

Ole Miss lost its bid to become the 65^th best team in America in the WNIT and was eighth overall in the league. They could hold at eighth, behind Alabama.

LSU remains plateaued, with no reason to expect improvement, especially with five nondescript players transferring away. 

This is a fourth season of a death watch for a regime change. There’s still time for a 9-13 team.

Vandy cut its season short, so whatever they did during an extended break brings a possibility of not being the worst team in conference. Auburn and LSU lock that up again. 

Didn’t see this coming: The  Commodores released Stephanie White as coach after she ran a very clean program and survived multiple injuries, not to mention accepting the curtailing of her season due to Covid considerations. 

She will be welcomed back to the WNBA. 

If anyone wondered if a university would avoid firing coaches because of the national medical emergency, the answer was resoundedly delivered twice. 

This is the first major dismissal by the new female athletic director

What might have been the tipping point is within the past week, three starters announced they are transferring, including top scorers Koi Love and Chelsie Hall and three-year starter Autumn Newby.

 Hall and Newby are graduates, Hall transferring to Louisville, Newby staying in conference at LSU. Love will be a major catch for someone.

Then there is Mississippi State, where a coaching change flopped. Hard, 5-7 in conference.

 Even a one-year assistant has already left to coach elsewhere.  

An astonishing seven players are fleeing, a third of the returning scoring average. They are years away from a rebuild.

Three are mostly starters Sidney Cooks, junior forward, junior guard Xaria Wiggins and senior guard Andra Espinosa-Hunter. 

Wiggins’ mom said the player simply didn’t fit in anymore, a true blast at the new coach. 

She had played in 29 and then 32 games before this season. Espinosa-Hunter got to Seton Hall and eligible at midseason to make the Pirates an NCAA tourney contender that fell short of being picked.

 All did damage to competitive SEC teams under former coach Vic Schaefer and bought into the myth the replacement would be swell. 

We told you last season there would be more leaving State, but could not have projected this much irreparable damage.

Cooks played two seasons at Michigan State. Freshman forward McDonald’s All-America Madison Hayes was the last recruit of the former coach. 

She was a SEC All-Freshman.

 Other starters to vacate are 6-6 senior center Yemiyah Morris, to Top 25 West Virginia with the extra season of eligibility; 5-8 sophomore guard JaMya Mingo-Young, a strong bench player when not starting; and 5-7 sophomore scoring guard Aliyah Matharu.

How disillusioning it must be when your beloved coach leaves and your university wrecks your career with a sub-par replacement.

They were a gimme for top four in the SEC for a decade under Schaefer. 

They have two forward line players  left. And there’s still time for them to jump but you will need a scorecard to watch them.

We said all along is it nearly impossible to replace a coaching legend. 

Schaefer revived Texas all the way into the NCAAs. 

The players take some of the blame as they were given a free eligibility  pass to leave but could  not wrap their teenage minds around the lies they were fed. 

Even attendance will fall dramatically.

 Chloe Bibby, the only one to flee before this season, landed as a starter  at Maryland, a Top 15 team and B1G conference winner. She is coming back for the fifth season. 

By the way, Evina Westbrook formerly of Tennessee made the national semifinals with UConn and is coming back as well.

The Hayes sisters scored 41 of 62  in the opening NCAA loss for Middle Tennessee  against the Lady Vols. 

Both transferred out, the elder sister taking a fifth year. That will be a two-fer windfall for someone.

Clemson lost an astonishing eight players to transfer and Duke is among the programs with six. 

So it could  always be worse somewhere else.