By: Toby Martin-Kohls

The college basketball season kicked off on Monday, November 7th, and with that, a new era of Florida Gators basketball. Florida, picked to finish 8th in the SEC, by the media poll, is coming off a 20-14 season in which its head coach left the program for SEC rival Georgia. 

Kentucky is poised to win the SEC this year, placing No. 4 in the Preseason Top 25 rankings. The Wildcats return 2021’s Wooden Award winner, given to the nation’s best player, Oscar Tshiebwe. He is currently the favorite to take home the same award this year, and if he does, he would become only the second-ever player to win the award twice and in back-to-back seasons. Ralph Sampson in 1982 and 1983 for the Virginia Cavaliers is the only one to do so.

Even with the bluebloods like Kentucky favored atop the conference, Florida is still expected to do well and make the NCAA Tournament come March. The roster has been heavily overhauled following Mike White’s departure, as new coach Todd Golden takes over. Golden is coming off a head coaching gig for the San Francisco Don’s in which he took them to their first NCAA Tournament appearance since 1998. Golden is a young mind, and at 37 years old he is by far the youngest coach in the SEC.

His predecessor lasted 7 seasons in Gainesville, leading the Gators to four NCAA Tournament appearances and an Elite 8 appearance. However, fans were upset about the handling of the program after White failed to make the NCAA Tournament in 2021 and only advanced to the NIT. 

Golden has a lot of pressure on his shoulders, as Florida is still a solid program in the sport, having more wins than every SEC team, except for Kentucky, since 1990, and winning the most NCAA Tournament games this century, except for Kentucky. 

Golden has brought in one of the best transfer classes in the country. Kyle Lofton highlights the point guard position. Lofton comes to the Gators as a super senior from St. Bonaventure where he was a 4-year starter who led the Bonnies to the NCAA Tournament and earned All-Atlantic 10 honors on 2 occasions, including 1st-team honors in the 2020-21 campaign.

Golden has also brought in a former 4-star prospect from LSU, an All-Ohio Valley player in Will Richard of Belmont, and a dynamic scoring guard in Trey Bonham of Virginia Military Institute. 

The Gators are projected to be a very strong defensive team under Golden, with his new shiny transfers and a defensive-minded head coach. The Gators should be at least a top-40 defense this year. With that being said, this team’s ceiling very much depends on how well they shoot. Last year they shot just 30.3% from behind the arc which ranked 317th in the country. That year they attempted the 22nd most attempts, which is clearly an issue to address.

I think that the Gators project as a dark horse SEC team that should make the NCAA Tournament and will outperform their SEC Media Day projection. It will definitely be hard to unseat Kentucky, but in such a deep conference you never know what can happen.

By: Toby Martin-Khols

Ask any casual basketball fan, diehard NBA fan, or network analyst, who is the Greatest of All-Time (GOAT) and you will probably only hear two names surface. 

The first would be Michael Jordan, also known as MJ, who played 15 professional seasons and won 6 championships with the Chicago Bulls in the 80s and 90s. 

The second would be LeBron James, who is currently playing in his 19th professional season for the Los Angeles Lakers. He formerly played for the Miami Heat for 2 seasons and the Cleveland Cavaliers for 11 seasons.

These two players are the consensus debate on who is the GOAT in NBA history. We can use some stats to try and determine who is better, or who will end up being better. Many analysts say the numbers and stats don’t lie. Which I think is partly true, but always know that statistics can pretty much be used to prove any points, even very very bad ones. 

In the professional sports world, playoff success, or lack thereof, can make a huge difference in their respective legacies. For NFL fans, let’s use Calvin Johnson as an example. He was a HOF WR for the Detroit Lions but only played in two playoff games over a very short 9-year career. He is most likely a consensus top 10 or 15 receiver, but if he had any sort of playoff success he most certainly would have climbed spots.

The stats presented in this article can show who is the better player, but whoever is the greatest player factors in accolades as well.

The question facing everybody today is how far LeBron must go to become the majority GOAT. If he stopped his career when Jordan did and only played 15 seasons, MJ would certainly still be the pick among experts. 

The thing that is tricky about this debate is that LeBron is still playing. Not just playing, but playing at a truly elite level, and at such an older age past his prime. He still has time to further cement his legacy as the GOAT.

First, if you know little about basketball, here are some basic stat comparisons. Looking at this graphic, you would think LeBron obviously trumps MJ in almost every aspect of the game. This actually represents LeBron’s impressive longevity. These statistics don’t prove LeBron is a better shooter or defender than MJ, just that he has had sustained success. But is he still the better player?

Next, let’s look at career averages. Has your mind changed at all? Still, at a glance, LeBron seems to have more advantages than MJ.

Let’s take a look at some advanced metrics. 

Without knowing anything about these wacky abbreviated stats but knowing they are more in-depth than the basic stats, who do you think is a better player now? If we are talking about who is a better player, these metrics tell you the story, taking all the accolades, playoff successes, influence on the game, and opinions out of the conversation. I will break down what all these categories mean.

PER stands for Player Efficiency Rating. It was developed by ESPN columnist John Hollinger. John says, “The PER sums up all a player’s positive accomplishments, subtracts the negative accomplishments, and returns a per-minute rating of a player’s performance.” 

WS/48 stands for win share per 48 minutes and was invented by Justin Kubatko. He says, “A win share is worth one-third of a team win. If a team wins 60 games, there are 180 ‘Win Shares’ to distribute among the players.”

OBPM stands for Offensive Box +/- and DBPM stands for Defensive Box +/-. The plus/minus statistic is a measure of the point differential when players are in and out of a game. It is calculated by taking the difference in the score when the player enters the game and subtracting it from the score when the player exits the game.

VORP stands for Value over Replacement Player. According to ‘Basketball Reference’s’ glossary, VORP is a box score estimate of the points per 100 TEAM possessions that a player contributed above a replacement-level player, translated to an average team, and prorated to an 82-game season.

TS% stands for Total Shooting percentage, which is pretty self-explanatory. The percentage of all their made shots. 

The advanced numbers are close. LeBron is reaching a point in his career where the majority of people and experts could consider him the new GOAT. 

Now, just raw, crazy, and eye-popping numbers are one thing, but what gets you exposure and reputation is accolades. The numbers compliment the accolades, not the other way around. 

Keep in mind MJ played 4 fewer seasons than LeBron, as of 2022. LeBron leads in All-NBA selections but that can also be argued as just a factor of his longevity. 

Eventually, LeBron may very well reach a point where his sheer numbers, consistency, and longevity past his prime, will vault him over the top among experts for the NBA GOAT title. The question is: when does the longevity of LeBron’s brilliance simply outmatch the slightly greater (opinion, based on the stats provided), but much shorter brilliance (career) of MJ?

Note: All statistics in the article can be found on https://www.basketball-reference.com/

By: Toby Martin-Kohls

March Madness kicked off earlier this month with its first and second-round games, and with it, another Cinderella team was born.

No. 15 seed, Saint Peter’s, was written off as an afterthought coming into this year’s NCAA Tournament, as prior to their win, No. 15 seeds went 9-135 all-time against No. 2 seed foes.

They came into the first round as 18.5pt underdogs. That means that Vegas sports betting casinos thought Kentucky would win by 18 to 19 points.

They beat Kentucky in OT, 85-79, and busted many brackets. According to data from ESPN’s Tournament Challenge, Kentucky was the fourth most popular Final Four choice, with 13% of entries picking the Wildcats.

It was a great story, a small school beats a college basketball blueblood. They played again in the second round against a No. 7 seed, Murray State, that went 30-2 during the regular season, and did the improbable again, winning 70-60.

So, you may be asking like many, what and where is St. Peter’s University?

The private university is located in Jersey City, New Jersey, and was established in 1872 by the Society of Jesus. It is a Roman Catholic school. They are a smaller college, with only 2,600 undergraduate students and 800 graduate students. This is also what makes their run in the tournament so special.

Their basketball facilities are miniature compared to what Kentucky and other D-1 programs offer. St. Peter’s plays in the Yanitelli Recreational Life Center nicknamed the Run Baby Run arena. It holds 3,200 people, compared to Kentucky’s Rupp Arena which holds 23,500.

Because of the many disadvantages these smaller colleges have, it shows that anyone can succeed in the Big Dance. St. Peter’s can join the very exclusive list of No. 15 seeds pulling off major upsets.

As the all-time record indicates, it is a rare occurrence. Hopefully, we can witness more great games from St. Peter’s throughout the tournament.