SMU accomplished almost everything it could have hoped for in Larry Brown’s second season in Dallas. The Mustangs hit the polls for the first time in 29 years. They beat the eventual national champion UConn Huskies twice during conference play and finished ahead of Kevin Ollie’s team in the American. They suddenly became a destination for talent, both for blue-chip recruits and impact transfers. More than anything, SMU found national relevance for the first time in three decades.
SMU basketball preview: Larry Brown’s team is stacked even without Emmanuel Mudiay
The Mustangs could be one of the deepest teams in the country this year. SMU is the No. 10 team in our top 25 countdown.
Jim Cowsert-USA TODAY Sports
Ricky O'Donnell has covered basketball at all levels for more than a decade at SB Nation. He’s currently the Associate Director of Programming.
There’s only one thing SMU didn’t accomplish, and that’s make the NCAA Tournament. Teams unfairly get left on the wrong side of the bubble every year, but no one had a bigger gripe than SMU. All Brown could do was take his team to the championship game of the N.I.T. and start planning an even bigger run this season. SMU -- SMU! -- now enters the year as a legitimate contender, and so much of the credit deserves to be given to the 74-year-old head coach.
Almost every SMU preview will start with who the Mustangs don’t have instead of focusing on a deep and balanced roster. That’s what happens when a recruit as talented as 6’5 guard Emmanuel Mudiay chooses SMU over every program in the country, and then suddenly decides college basketball isn’t for him.
Mudiay is playing professionally in China now, maybe because his family needed the money, maybe because he would have had an impossible time becoming eligible in the NCAA’s broken system. While Mudiay is still a safe bet to be a top-five pick in the 2015 NBA Draft, it’s a bummer college fans won’t get to enjoy the dynamic between he and Brown. It’s a major loss for SMU, but the Mustangs will survive.
SMU should have one of the best inside-outside combos in the country with Nic Moore and Markus Kennedy returning for their junior seasons. Both were a revelation as transfers from Illinois State and Villanova, respectively, last season and this year should see each take an even bigger jump.
Moore is about as small as basketball players come at 5’9, but the point guard is a great shooter, gifted facilitator and an aggressive defender. He finished in the top 100 of both true shooting percentage and assist rate last season, according to KenPom. Moore is Brown’s best deep threat, hitting 43.6 percent of his three-pointers last season in addition to being money from the foul line.
Kennedy is a bruiser down low even after losing a substantial amount of weight last season. Listed at 6’9, 245 pounds, Kennedy has a combination of size and touch that few college big men can approach. He’s great on the glass (top-100 defensive rebounding percentage) and in the passing lanes, where he finished with the No. 47 steal rate, per KenPom. He also rarely takes shots he can’t hit -- making nearly 54 percent of his attempts from the field last year. Kennedy’s eligibility for this season has recently become an issue, and SMU wouldn’t be the same team without him.
While Moore and Kennedy are the stars, they are far from SMU’s only good players. The Mustangs could actually be one of the deepest teams in the country this season if everything goes according to plan. There’s a wealth of talented guards here, some nice options on the wing and even a quality backup center.
Brown is a living legend at this point. Having a roster this deep and talented in his third season should terrify the rest of college basketball. For all of the disappointment of not making the tournament last season, SMU is set up to make that a forgotten memory in the near future.
Projected starting lineup
PG Nic Moore, junior
SG Keith Frazier, sophomore
SF Justin Martin, senior
PF Markus Kennedy, junior
C Yannic Moeira, senior
Key reserves: G Sterling Brown (sophomore), G Ryan Manuel (senior), F Ben Moore (sophomore), C Cannen Cunningham (senior)
How the Mustangs can go far this season: Depth and development
What do the Mustangs have augmenting Moore and Kennedy? Shooting, wing defenders, size and depth. In other words, this is a really complete team.
Let's start with Keith Frazier, a 2013 McDonald's All-American who could be ready to breakout as a sophomore. He's got a little Nick Young in his game. He loves to shoot threes and boasts very good athleticism, but can occasionally be his own worst enemy in terms of shot selection. If Brown and his guiding ethos of The Right Way can coach it out of him, he's the best NBA prospect on the roster.
Yannic Moeira is another intriguing piece at center. The 6’11, 220-pound, 23-year-old arrived from Angola as a very raw prospect, but he put in work at the FIBA World Cup for his home country. Moreira had a 38-point game against Australia (granted, the Aussies seem to have lost this game on purpose for seeding reasons) and scored 20 against Slovenia. He has the athleticism to be an NBA prospect; he just needs to show his feel for the game has grown over the offseason.
Justin Martin was one of two big transfers for the Mustangs over the offseason, but the other (Texas Tech’s Jordan Tolbert) won’t be eligible until next season. He and Sterling Brown are both capable wing defenders and good athletes. Martin averaged 11.7 points per game last season at Xavier on 45 percent shooting and showed major improvement in shooting from deep (37.3 percent on four attempts per game).
Cannen Cunningham and Ben Moore should round out the rotation. Cunningham is a major asset as a reserve big man who could start for most programs in the country. He averaged over nine points per game in Brown’s first season, but saw a reduced role last year. Still, he’s big enough (6’10, 225 pounds) and skilled enough to be a luxury off the bench. Moore is talented as well, shooting over 61 percent from the field as a freshman last season. At 6’8, he presents plenty of matchup problems for opposing teams.
How the Mustangs could see their season end early: Eligibility issues
Could you imagine losing Mudiay and Kennedy in the course of a few months? Larry Brown is way too old for that nonsense at this point. The Mustangs could probably still be a tournament team even without Kennedy, but their chances of being one of the better teams in the country would likely go out of the window if he's ruled ineligible.
The other problem here might be offensive regression. We know Larry Brown teams will defend -- by placing No. 17 in KenPom’s defensive efficiency metrics last season, the Mustangs proved as much. For the offense to give the team proper balance, Martin needs to maintain his accuracy, Frazier has to reel in some poor attempts and the bench needs to contribute on both sides of the ball.
As long as Kennedy is around, this team looks really good on paper. Add in a hall-of-fame coach in Brown who is looking for one more chance at glory, and there’s no reason to put a cap on SMU’s season. The rise of this program is one of the more remarkable things to happen in college basketball recently, and it owes it all to one of the best coaches the sport has ever seen.
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