Welcome to the latest edition of Talking Hoops With Ted Sarandis. Thanksgiving is approaching, which means it’s tournament time, and from that, we gain an early sense of many teams.
But before we get to teams coming out of the tournaments that have been played thus far, we look at the clear top story of the moment: Michael Porter Jr. likely being done for the season due to spinal surgery. The star freshman played just two minutes before suffering a back injury that will require him to have a microdisectomy, and with that comes a 3-4 month recovery time frame. That means he could conceivably be back in time for the SEC and/or NCAA Tournament, but let’s stop right there.
As we discuss, the chances of that happening in today’s risk-averse player culture is basically nil. We see players routinely not playing in games with the rationale being a risk of injury; numerous NFL prospects sat out bowl games last year in college football. If anything, this injury will probably make him more risk-averse – in theory, at least. Porter’s father is a college assistant coach, so he is more than familiar with the considerations that go into whether or not to leave school early. Still, the odds are he will be gone.
What does this mean for his NBA future? Teams are naturally wary of players with an injury history, and a back injury is nothing to take lightly. While he will be noted with Kyrie Irving in terms of how little college ball he plays as a freshman, the best comparison for his NBA Draft stock right now might be a more recent player – Harry Giles. Giles, as you will recall, had multiple ACL injuries in high school and needed knee surgery last fall, which caused him to miss Duke’s early games last year.
As we move on, we look at the recent commitment of Bol Bol, son of the late Manute Bol, to Oregon. It gives the Ducks one of the nation’s elite recruiting classes, and this marks a shift in the recruiting done by Dana Altman and his staff in Eugene. Having established the Ducks as a Pac-12 power, and having established themselves in recruiting players, it’s all coming together this year for them with this class.
We move on to talk about Belmont, a consistent winner over the years who just had a big 4-0 week that flew under many radars. The Bruins have been a program with numerous players who have successfully waited their turn to star, and the current team is very much in that mold. They beat Vanderbilt and Middle Tennessee before winning the subregional of the 2K Classic.
A pair of SEC teams lead us into a larger discussion of the conference, as we saw LSU get a big win a night early in Maui and Texas A&M look like as good a pick to win the conference as any with their performance in the Legends Classic.
Finally, we close by talking about two teams that were set to matchup in the championship of the Hall of Fame Classic, Baylor and Creighton. Both don’t seem to be missing a beat, with the Bears having a lot of length and being primed to win again this year, while the Bluejays had some key personnel losses but look to have picked up about where they left off.
We hope you enjoy this podcast and share it with your fellow college basketball fans. Happy Thanksgiving everyone!
(We apologize for a few places where the audio did not come through very clearly.)
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
