St. John’s fans feel good about the talent the team has coming in. But the reality of this year’s Big East is that no team is doing the kind of complete makeover/ teardown that gives other squads an opportunity to move up.
There are a number of returning stars, from Trevon Blueitt and Jalen Brunson to up-and-comers like Shamorie Ponds, Markus Howard to players who can step their games up like Jessie Govan and Donte DiVincenzo.
The league returns a lot of potent players and minutes, despite graduations and transfers. To illustrate, let’s see some graphics of how much talent from last season’s conference play each team is returning.
Butler loses a surprising number of minutes from their Big East squad. With a new coach, what will that mean? Are there new players to step to run the team?
When teams lose a higher percentage of points than minute, there is a solid chance they lost scorers who put points on the board. Here, Georgetown has a chance to inject new life with their new backcourt talent this season with a pair of transfers - because the shots will be there.
Speaking of shots...
DePaul, a terrible rebounding team, returns a lot of the rebounding talent. The same can be said for St. John’s. This will, for both teams, likely mean that decent rebounders can take secondary roles (that they can fill) while better rebounders step up to the challenge.
If there are better rebounders to step to the challenge, or the rim, of course.
Once again, Georgetown has room for incoming talent to make an impact; as does Villanova, where newcomer Omari Spellman will likely be a monster on the glass out of both talent and necessity. Marquette could see a rebounding leap with their young newcomers as well.
Both Villanova and Marquette should see a new name become one of the league’s better rebounders out of necessity.
More on these in a follow-up post about Big East teams and predicted finishes, today.