{"id":87003,"date":"2025-08-16T10:25:12","date_gmt":"2025-08-16T10:25:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/87003\/"},"modified":"2025-08-16T10:25:12","modified_gmt":"2025-08-16T10:25:12","slug":"pourover-replacing-experience-in-the-sec","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/87003\/","title":{"rendered":"Pourover: Replacing experience in the SEC"},"content":{"rendered":"

The 2024-25 basketball season in the SEC was really unprecedented. The league was, top to bottom, the best college basketball league we\u2019ve ever seen.<\/p>\n

It was also the most experienced league we\u2019ve ever seen.<\/p>\n

I wrote about the experience the league had last year <\/a>in the summer, in two parts actually<\/a>, because there was so much data to parse through. The explosion of experience throughout, not just the SEC, but College Basketball writ large was due to a multitude of factors. But the primary driver was the extra COVID season. One extra year of eligibility for anyone who played during the 2020-21 season. So if your math was mathing there, the COVID years wrapped up last year\u2026 or at least mostly. We still have a few stragglers due to injuries and the whole Diego Pavia JUCO rule<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Last season the SEC had 150 players who had played Division 1 basketball the season before. This season that number had dropped, but it hasn\u2019t fallen off a cliff, down to just 133. That number is the lowest since before COVID, the 2019 season featured 102 players who played minutes the year before. I don\u2019t think we\u2019ll ever go back to those levels of just over 100 players. That\u2019s a little over 6 players per roster (I\u2019ve included OU and Texas in all this accounting even though they didn\u2019t join the league until last year). 13 players per roster is 208 total, 15 is 240.<\/p>\n

The league is still going to be very good, but they\u2019ve undergone a pretty big sea change. Last year there was 11,000+ games and over 246,000 minutes of experience throughout every roster. This year we\u2019re looking at 8,500 games and 183,000 minutes.<\/p>\n

There are only 54 total returners, players who played minutes for one team last year and will play for that same team this year. 54! That\u2019s less than 4 players per team coming back who played on average around 1,166 minutes per player. That\u2019s close to what Sean East played in his last season at Missouri, or what Ja\u2019Kobie Gillespie played last year for Maryland.<\/p>\n

There are 80 newcomers who have played an average of 69 D1 basketball games to the tune of 1,544 minutes total, or the equivalent of a Sebastian Mack (67 and 1,595). Yes the average SEC newcomer who has seen any action is what Missouri got in their UCLA transfer and projected starter. And 78 players is the equivalent of 5 players per team.<\/p>\n

\"Mar<\/a><\/p>\n

Mar 22, 2025; Lexington, KY, USA; UCLA Bruins guard Sebastian Mack (12) drives to the basket against Tennessee Volunteers forward Felix Okpara (34) during the second half in the second round of the NCAA Tournament at Rupp Arena. Mandatory Credit: Aaron Doster-Imagn Images Aaron Doster-Imagn Images<\/p>\n

SEC Coaches are addicted to the transfer portal<\/p>\n

Last season there were only 4 teams who did not import new players with a total sum of more than 300 games played. Those teams: Florida, Auburn, South Carolina, and LSU. Obviously the Gators won the National Championship mostly due to player retention, Auburn won the SEC with the same approach.<\/p>\n

LSU and South Carolina finished 15th and 16th in the league.<\/p>\n

Skipping the transfer portal isn\u2019t an option these days, and those four teams did add players from the portal. Each team still added three players each, but the results were V-E-R-Y mixed. And the response to those results was also mixed.<\/p>\n

Auburn graduated everyone, basically and have rebuilt through the portal adding 6 new players, South Carolina is trying to rebound from an awful season and added 6 as well. LSU added 7. The defending national champions picked up just 4.<\/p>\n

Even with all those players added, Auburn only has 225 games of D1 experience coming to the roster next season with just over 5,000 minutes played. Florida is in a similar boat with 176 games and 4,510 minutes. Meanwhile LSU added 570 games and 13,702 minutes, South Carolina added 439 games and 9,162 minutes.<\/p>\n

Missouri is just about average for the league with 5 transfers who\u2019ve played 349 games and 7,362 minutes.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s a drop of 36% from last year, the rest of the league dropped just 19.3%.<\/p>\n

The SEC had 77 graduations and 66 transfers out. That\u2019s nearly 5 per team graduating, plus just over 4 per team transferring out.<\/p>\n

61 high school players signed14 international players signed88 transfers in45 seniors transferring in<\/p>\n

77 graduations and 45 incoming seniors.<\/p>\n

The super seniors are largely gone, however. There are just 11 left this season whereas last year there were 50 in the SEC alone, including three super-super seniors. Last season there were 68 players who had seen action in 90 games or more at the D1 level, this year that number has fallen 36. It certainly appears as though this is what it\u2019s going to look like moving forward. There is a lot of turnover, a lot of transfers, but the explosion in experience is back to more reasonable levels.<\/p>\n

Most games played by Team year:<\/p>\n

2019 – Arkansas: 4962022 – Mizzou: 6972023 – Mizzou: 9892024 – Texas A&M: 9752025 – Vanderbilt: 822<\/p>\n

That might seem like we\u2019re still running high, but Vandy is a bit of an outlier, let\u2019s look at the Median Levels each year:<\/p>\n

2019 – 3612022 – 5782023 – 6402024 – 7612025 – 524<\/p>\n

See, the median has returned back closer to what we saw in 2022, which is right about when the portal transfers began to pick up. Returning games and minutes have largely remained the same, it\u2019s still higher than in 2019 but nothing ridiculous. But the Newcomer Games and Minutes has increased, these are the median levels of newcomers minutes and games played:<\/p>\n

2019 – 42 \/ 9992022 – 267 \/ 5,1262023 – 382 \/ 8,4092024 – 371 \/ 8,7822025 – 316 \/ 6,984<\/p>\n

So we can see coaches are still investing heavily into experience when hitting the portal. We\u2019ve just leveled off a bit with the super seniors no longer available.<\/p>\n

Welcome to the new normal.<\/p>\n

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