The Pac-12 has been suffering through a long dark period. The Big Ten has been dominant (at least in the pre-conference schedule) for the last few years. Should we expect a change this year? Is the Pac-12’s slump over? Is the Big Ten’s boom about to come to an end? Let’s take a quick look at some basic roster data and see if we can uncover any trends.

Part of predicting the season is noting the number of elite high school prospects on each roster. Not only are these players more likely to play well as freshmen, but they are also more likely to breakout later in their career. Recall, for example, Michael Snaer of Florida St. Snaer was a former Top 20 recruit, and while it took him three seasons, he broke out in a big way in 2011-12. After adding up the numbers…

- The Big East has the most former RSCI Top 100 prospects on rosters heading into the season with 58.

- But the Big East has more teams, and the Big East has only 3.9 elite recruits per team. The ACC has the most former Top 100 recruits per team with 4.6 per team.

- But James McAdoo is the only former Top 10 prospect in the ACC this season. That seems like an unprecedented lack of super-elite talent for the conference. If you want super elite talent, you probably want to watch the SEC, assuming everyone is declared academically eligible. John Calipari never lets us down on the recruiting trail.

- The SEC, however, is only welcoming ten Top 100 freshmen this year as a whole. Even the Big Ten, the land of typically poor recruiting, is welcoming more Top 100 freshmen than the SEC this season. And yes, the slumping Pac-12 brings in quite a few elite recruits this year.

The next table isn’t really roster data, but it does reflect some of my preliminary projections about playing time.

- The ACC is going to be the youngest conference in the nation this year, according to my projections.

- The Big East has a startlingly low number of key seniors on rosters this year.

- As usual, the MWC and A10 have more mature rosters. They lose fewer players to the NBA and that helps the top MWC and A10 teams compete, even without a plethora of blue chip talent.

The Pac-12 is getting older in a hurry, thanks in no small part to an influx of transfers. Note that your transfer numbers may vary slightly. I’m excluding transfer walk-ons and a few JUCOs who seem unlikely to play in the next table.

The transfer table doesn’t mean the Pac-12 has suddenly become the conference of transfers. This is all a natural consequence of recent league history. The Pac-12 teams have struggled the last few years making those teams particularly attractive places for transfers to matriculate. If you want to transfer and PLAY in an elite league, you would have chosen the Pac-12 too.  On the other hand, the Big Ten has been on an upswing and few coaches have needed to dip into the JUCO ranks as a quick fix. Deverell Biggs of Nebraska is currently the only incoming JUCO player projected for the Big Ten this year.

Overall, the Pac-12 was a depleted league, but it is adding a number of impact freshmen and key transfers this year. The days of the league failing to field a Top 25 team are over. As for the Big Ten, the jury is still out. The teams at the top still have plenty of talent, but programs like Purdue could be in for a bit of a slip without an influx of can’t miss players coming in.

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The dominance of Kentucky was evident enough simply by watching five minutes of any game, with the talent and athleticism gap being massive. A team built around John Calipari’s bench players is probably a Sweet 16 team on its own. 

But the purely statistical, objective outlook also bears that out. Kentucky was the only team in college basketball to exceed an average FIC differential over 30.0, a difficult feat.

In order to determine our team rankings, we calculate the difference between a team's own FIC per game and their opponents' FIC for the entire conference season.

The FIC is a single statistical measurement that encompasses things such as scoring efficiency, rebounding, blocked shots, etc. Its purpose is to combine the box score into one statistic, both on a team level and for players.

1. Kentucky: 31.97  
2. Vanderbilt: 9.01  
3. Alabama: 6.63  
4. Florida: 6.13  
5. Tennessee: 3.75  
6. Mississippi State: -0.76  
7. Ole Miss: -1.39  
8. Georgia: -5.72  
9. LSU: -5.84  
10. Auburn: -9.87  
11. Arkansas: -12.24  
12. South Carolina: -21.67

On Monday, I wrote about the breakout offensive players this season. Mike Miller made several shrewd observations in response to my column.

1) Playing time seemed key to almost all big increases in production. College basketball is different from the NBA. In the NBA players usually must show some improvement in performance in order to see a big jump in their stats. But that’s not the case in college. For many players, the key is simply opportunity. When the players ahead on the depth chart graduate, the younger players finally get a chance to shine.

2) Where was Florida’s Kenny Boynton on my Monday list? When it comes to breakout players, the list always depends on your criteria. By my criteria, Kenny Boynton was already a star. And while his efficiency improved, it has only improved his Points Produced per Game by about 2 points. That’s impressive, but hardly special. But Kenny Boynton is in select company for another reason: Most of the players that have had big jumps in efficiency had minimal playing time the previous season. Boynton’s breakout performance is special because he played a ton of minutes last season and his efficiency improved significantly this year. In the major conferences, only a handful of players fit that criteria:

Who Produces The Most Points In The SEC? 

On Monday, I pointed out the Points Produced stat developed by Dean Oliver. The purpose of the stat is to share credit for points scored with the players who earned the assist and the offensive rebound. (It is also the numerator of the ORtg formula.)

Points Produced is not a perfect stat. It doesn’t account for tempo. It doesn’t describe efficiency. And it shouldn’t be examined in a vacuum. But it does tend to describe the players most fans think are the offensive stars. Here are the SEC freshmen with the highest Points Produced per Game.

-Anthony Hickey’s performance on Tuesday against Mississippi St. was nothing short of spectacular.

-If I was including defensive statistics, Anthony Davis would jump far ahead on this list.

But the real reason I’m focusing on this metric is to explain how much changes in aggressiveness and efficiency matter to each player’s PPG. The following table includes these columns:

PrevPPG: Points Produced per Game in last full season.

ChangeORTG: How did the change in ORtg from last year impact the player’s Points Produced Per Game, given the players current role?

ChPossUsed: How did the change in percentage of shots taken (actually possessions used) impact the player’s Points Produced Per Game?

ChPT: How did the change in the player’s playing time (and team’s tempo) impact the Points Produced Per Game?

2012PPG: Points Produced per Game in 2012

The next table shows the most prolific Points Producers in the SEC last season and the change to this season:

A few thoughts:

-Relative to his last season at UTEP, Arnett Moultrie has become much more aggressive (using more possessions) and much more efficient (better ORtg).

-Renardo Sidney is wasting fewer possessions. His aggressiveness is down, but his efficiency is up.

-Now that Kentucky has more offensive weapons Terrence Jones takes a lot fewer shots. His efficiency has improved a little because of this change, but not enough to offset his smaller role in the offense.

-Vanderbilt’s Jeffrey Taylor’s increase in production is almost completely due to an increase in his efficiency.

-Gerald Robinson of Georgia has been much more aggressive this season, and he has still seen a slight bump in efficiency. But because he is playing a few less minutes per game, his improvement is somewhat hidden in the per-game totals.

(Robinson is still not a great outside shooter, but he’s improved his FT shooting, decreased his turnovers, and become one of my favorite SEC players this year. Since this senior plays on a struggling Georgia team, I hope he has his moment in the SEC tournament.)

And finally, here are the players who have developed into prolific points producers this year:

-I continue to ask whether Patric Young’s season is a success or a disappointment. His shot volume has increased substantially from last year, and he’s even become a little more efficient, but people still expected more out of him.

-LSU’s Justin Hamilton shoots a lot more often than he did at Iowa St.  Does the big man demand the ball more, or does Trent Johnson run more sets to get him the ball in scoring position?

-Trae Golden and Jeronne Maymon have been the true beneficiaries of opportunity, as most of Tennessee’s roster departed last off-season. Their increased production is mostly a function of more playing time. Monday’s column made it seem like all you need is playing time to break out. But when you look at all the smaller changes in the star SEC scorers, I think it illustrates that even major jumps in playing time are rare.

Bottom Line: When you evaluate breakout players, don’t just look at the per-game totals. Look at why the players improved. And when they are more efficient and more aggressive, give them the extra praise they deserve.