Who has the toughest SEC schedule? (Florida) | Easiest SEC schedule? (Tennessee) | Jimmy V is set!

the SEC revealed the conference schedule on Tuesday and there are some teams with very difficult roads ahead of them but reigning regular season Champion tennessy not so [Music] much you are locked on college basketball part of the locked on podcast Network your team every day hey there what's up welcome into the lock on college basketball podcast and you're joining joining me at the place to get your college hoops content every single day it's part of the lock on podcast Network thank you so much for joining us to make this your first listen or First Watch of the day and we want to send a special shout out to all the every dayers out there and all the members of the lockon college basketball Discord welcome on in so glad you're here this episode's brought to you by ultimate GM the ultimate college football head coach is a brand new mobile game that is completely free has no ads and is 100% playable offline use the promo code locked on CFB all caps inside the game store to receive a free boost to your program begin your coaching Legacy today all right coming up on the show today we're taking a look at the SEC schedules that came out on Tuesday I'm going to give you the teams that I think the the three teams that I think have the hardest schedule and the three teams I think that have the easiest schedule the Jimmy V classic has been officially announced and revealed boy I am excited for both of these matchups we'll look at those we've got some interesting National Player of the Year odds one of them notably with Cooper flag missing and also Duke is getting a visitor to Cameron that is all too familiar with that court all right let's start with this SEC slate everything came out on Tuesday uh you know the yesterday on the show Andy and leaf came together discussed some big picture topics Cal returned to Kentucky all sorts of stuff like that um and so today I'm going to drill down a little more and what I want to do is look at all the schedules I've done that already and I want to give you what I think are the three hardest and three easiest uh that make up this 10we schedule and obviously look in this day and age in the portal era it's so insanely hard to truly know but there are some things that seem more difficult than others and easier than others so here's what we do and don't know we do know the day almost that every game will happen I'll explain that but here's what we don't have yet game times or the TV schedule and also while we have the Saturday games we don't have the specificity of the majority of Tuesday Wednesday games whether they will be played on Tuesday or Wednesday keep in mind those are the only three days the SEC plays Saturday and then Tuesday or Wednesday you have a midweek game another reminder while the other major conferences are all up to 20 game schedules the SEC remains at 18 teams there's 16 total teams now Texas and Oklahoma you play six home only opponents six Road only opponents and three Home and Away opponents that all adds up to 18 um so because of that you know like think about the Big 12 the ACC where you've got big Monday a lot of times you get quick turnarounds for these teams from Saturday to Monday you don't have to worry about that in the SEC congratulations all right uh I teased off the top I think Tennessee has a decently easy schedule on paper I want to start by talking about the hardest schedules and to me the the team that has it the hardest is the Florida Gators unfortunately for our guy Brandon Olsson the great host of locked on Gators so Florida listen to this so nine Road games they have to play at Alabama Arkansas Auburn Kentucky and Tennessee and the kicker is of those five teams that they have to play only on the road they only get one of them at home and that's Tennessee so that's tough right like a lot of times it's like yeah we have to play them on the road but at least we can get them at home no only Tennessee Alabama Arkansas Auburn Kentucky are Road only games that is tough for Florida also on the other end of it it's like all right that's tough but maybe they they hooked us up with some other easier part not really for Florida they only get to play Vanderbilt once LSU once Oklahoma once and missou once I you know who know again you never know what'll happen right now I project those to be your bottom four SEC teams and unfortunately for Florida they only get each of them one time so that's tough now the the one nice redeeming quality for Florida is they get Georgia and South Carolina twice and I think they'll both be in the bottom half of the standings but still man that is a rough schedule for Florida both in terms of like uh who they have to play and where they play them and then who they you know only getting to play the the weaker teams seemingly weaker teams once second team I think has a pretty difficult schedule we start with Florida and then the next one I want to go to is Alabama coming off that final four run for Alabama they have to play both Auburn and Kentucky twice that ain't going to be much fun and their other twice home and away team is Mississippi State who I think should be kind of right in the middle of the pack this year here's the other thing for Bama Road only game so Auburn and Kentucky twice home Anway Road only they got to go to Arkansas don't get a return game to Texas to Texas A&M and two Tennessee that is a daunting Road slate for the Crimson Tide and so that you know that is always a big deal um so those are four very tough road only games not to mention again Auburn and Kentucky both home and away so I think Alabama has a difficult schedule and then the other school I'll give you that I think has one of the three toughest schedules is vanderbelt and a big part of this is because like if you're Alabama for example you know who you don't have to play Alabama Vandy we think I think will be at the bottom of the Heap and so they got to play every everybody so it's going to be a tough schedule their home andway opponents are Kentucky and Tennessee yikes that's that's no fun um that they'll have to do that the nice thing is their other Home in a way team is maou who I don't think will be very good this year but um Vandy is only at Bama Florida and Texas A&M they don't get them back at home so man um the the good news for Vandy is they do get Arkansas and Auburn home only but I mean it's just if you're Vanderbilt you just got to play a lot of really good teams and you're not a really good team so kind of by Nature your schedule's going to look daunting all right so let's those are my three teams I think they have the hardest SEC schedules Florida Alabama Vandy let me know your thoughts why do you disagree or differ on this all right easiest as you look at this thing I said uh and and it's obviously relative right because all the SEC teams are pretty good um Tennessee I think has a decently easy schedule in fact I went and did some rough math I took toric's projections for the SEC Power Rankings and with the math that I used for that along with torvix rankings Tennessee actually the mikm Excel spreadsheet that I made for it spit out that Tennessee has the easiest schedule um but beyond that anecdotally as I look at Tennessee um they do have Kentucky twice the BS do but they also get Vandy twice which is nice and Florida twice that that's going to be tougher I think Florida's gonna have a good year so um but it's not like they've got Kentucky and Alabama twice that is helpful for the vs um and the nice thing is Tennessee only has Alabama at home that's a big win and they also only have Arkansas at home so you got some helpful things in the schedule there for Rick Barnes Club um and so that's nice my next kind of easier schedule is Texas A&M which you know it's funny man the the SEC is getting so big 12ify now with all these schools that were once in the Big 12 um for Texas A&M you look at their their three teams that they play twice they get LSU twice that's nice they get Oklahoma twice that's very nice I project both of those teams to be in the bottom four of the SEC and so for Texas A&M Who projects to be one of the contenders for the SEC Crown that's nice and then their their other two-time team is Texas who I think will be good and probably be in the upper third of the SEC but I don't think they're going to be you know like Alabama what I expect out of Alabama this year um and then beyond that for Texas A&M Alabama home only Arkansas Home only Auburn home only Tennessee home only so A&M has a a very manageable uh slate of the teams they play twice and those home only games man is is really really not bad at all and so I think Texas S&M is in a good shape there and then my third team uh that I think has a little bit of an easier slate is Auburn now obviously Auburn is going to have Alabama twice and that's very difficult I think Alabama is the best team in the SEC but outside of that Auburn unfortunately doesn't get any like just of the the worst SEC teams twice but they get Georgia twice and all Miss twice I think they are you know probably in the three quarters range of SEC right like I don't think they're going to float to the bottom but I do think they're probably in that 8 to 11 range maybe 12 and so that's that's fine um but also Auburn Arkansas only have to play them at home Florida only have to play them at home Tennessee only have to play them at home they do have to go play Kentucky and the texases on the road along with Alabama that we already mentioned but listen to the rest of this road slate for Auburn they get Georgia on the road LSU on the road Miss on the road SE uh South Carolina on the road and Vandy on the road that's something I'm always looking at is um you know obviously you'd like to play those teams both but if you're only playing the easier teams once I would rather that be on the road because it's a more manageable Road environment typically and so I think Auburn uh kind of lucks out there with who they only have at home and who they only have on the road and so that that should be a good harbinger of things to come for Bruce Pearl's team also you know that that's it for the the hard and easy so my my easy schedules easier schedules Tennessee Texas A&M Auburn the more difficult ones Florida Bama and Vandy uh one of the funny things is as I looked at Oklahoma's schedule as you look at the three teams that they play twice it's the big twest thing I've ever seen Oklahoma plays missou twice Texas twice and Texas A&M twice so it's like all right what's up Big 12 how you doing come on in all right now we just talked about Tennessee Tennessee is going to take a trip up to Madison Square Garden in December to take part in this year's Jimmy V classic and it is a fun field we're going to talk about that in just a second right after I tell you about ibata the summer is almost over but there's still lots of folks waiting to take that dream end of summer vacation but they might be 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code locked on College once again that's IBO TTA in the Google Play or App Store and use code locked on College on Wednesday we got the official announcement about all the details surrounding this year's Jimmy V Classic this is coming up on Tuesday December 10th so obviously we got several months away from this it's kind of in the you know Mish point of the non-conference Slate for most teams um but here are the two matchups I'm very excited about these the earlier game Miami Florida version against Tennessee 6:30 pm Eastern Time both games on ESPN oh by the way and then the night cap really intrigued by this one as well Michigan against Arkansas that'll come at approximately 900 PM Eastern obviously it depends on the the ending of the first game for that this game uh the these games excuse me will be at Madison Square Garden the world's most famous arena and look last year the teams that were in this event Illinois FAU Yukon un I mean it was a great great great slate and neither game was particularly close but I love the four teams in it what's kind of funny about that is remember I said FAU was in it that means with FAU in it last year Michigan in it this year that means that Dusty May is ing in this event for the second straight year that's pretty crazy to me all right let's start with the first game Miami and Tennessee the the first thing that jumps out to me about this is it's two coaching Legends coach Jim Lena at Miami and then Coach Rick Barnes at Tennessee you know both at the kind of the Twilight of their career we expect you know we don't have anything firm and foundational but they're certainly not at the beginning of their career but this is just two guys who are are doing things well and right obviously as you look at the Miami side of it they did not have the year they wanted to have last year coming off of you know back-to-back Elite eights one of which went on to the final four in a game in which quite frankly they probably should have won you know um and so what I'm curious about is will we get the Miami we've been accustomed to previous to last year or will we see the Miami team we saw last year it's really interesting with both Miami and they've both lost several key pieces think about it with Tennessee obviously dton connect is the biggest um name there but also Jonas Adu to Arkansas Josiah Jordan James Santiago vesy those guys are all gone H for one reason or another either through transfer portal or just done with college but Miami too Wugga popper off to Villanova nor Chad omir now at Baylor kesan George benley Joseph gone but as you would imagine both of these teams have also retooled and reloaded as for Tennessee you know a lot of Tennessee fans are like man Jonas Adu I I liked him but he was soft well they've now brought in Felix oara from Ohio State to replace Adu and that softness will not be an issue with oara also bringing in Chaz lanir from North Florida darling Stone dubar from HRA some scoring options some scoring punch to hopefully try to help uh you know just bringing in some dudes to help replace place that scoring that connect Left Behind as for Miami they bring in stud freshman Jalil Bea Lyn kid comes over from Virginia Tech Brandon Johnson from East Carolina I think will be good and AJ ston McCrae from sford we we know that kind of run that they went on last year so yes both teams lose pieces but both teams bring some back but it's also interesting because both teams have their point guard back Nigel pack uh he of Life wall at nil Fame is back for Miami and zakai zegler back for Tennessee a further year removed from that injury which to me typically is the year where you're actually going to be back to your Prime form so both these teams are going to be H have their ring leader back and that's a big deal I think critically for Miami though is how Matthew Cleveland plays he was we'll say it this way he was not Jordan Miller replacement level when he came over last year from Florida State Jordan Miller who had been out the year before was so good for Miami and Cleveland just never got there but you know one of the things we've talked a lot about this offseason is how second transfers in their second year of of school if they get there um just kind of take off I'm curious to see if Cleveland does that this year all right let's go to the second game the night cap oh by the way in that game give me Tennessee to win but the night cap Michigan versus Arkansas I think this one's full of even more really intriguing storylines um first off obviously these are two teams that are completely overhauled Michigan losing Joan Howard now Dusty May in Arkansas Eric musl man's out the door here comes John Calipari and so that makes this a really intriguing coaching matchup between Dusty May and Coach Cal and and part of that is yeah I know Coach Cal wound up in fville at Arkansas but remember there was a point where there there was at least some level of rumor of would coach CTIC a call from Michigan if Jan's out the door so that that's part of the Intrigue here and of course we get Dusty May versus his former star guard John L Davis who should be a stud for Arkansas this year and that means that John L Davis is gonna play against his former teammate in this game Vlad golden who went with Dusty May up to Michigan um now I know that Arkansas is not playing Tennessee obviously but Tennessee is going to be in the building Arkansas is going to be in the building that means Jonas ad is going to be in the same building with the vs and let's not forget as uh I believe Andy and leaf talked about yesterday Arkansas's first SEC game this year is at Tennessee so ad will be going back to Knoxville as well he's just gonna be around Tennessee more than he bargained for um here's the other thing with this game I want to see both of these teams just go massive in the front Court I want Jonas Adu and zvonimir avich on the floor at the same time for Arkansas heck throw Trevon Brazil in there at the three no they won't do that but I would love to see some combination of two of those guys in there at the same time and same for Michigan I still am of the mind that Danny wolf and Vlad golden can play together and be the the front court for Michigan so that's actually not that crazy to me but I want to see at least some minutes of this game where Michigan has both Vlad golden and and Danny wolfin and Arkansas has both Jonas Adin vanir visich in come on Coach Cal come on Coach may give me those matchups all right uh so that's Jimmy V classic again coming up on Tuesday December 10th oh and I didn't give you a winner for that one give me Arkansas in that game meaning the sweeps these two games down in Durham North Carolina there is one of the very best freshman uh many expect maybe even to contend for the uh Player of the Year National not just freshman of the year but one of the interesting things is that I just noticed on Wednesday that there's a site that has odds for Cooper flag and another that doesn't and so I just wanted to take a little early uh look at National Player of the Year odds and then we got some other information about Duke as well while we're talking Cooper flag all that coming up in just a second right after I take a moment to give you a heads up on a brand new mobile game that I think you locked on college basketball fans are going to love as much as I do the ultimate college football head coach in this amazing simulation you get to step into the shoes of a head coach and lead your college football program to Glory can you imagine actually being the head coach of your favorite team from recruiting players and hiring coaching staff to overseeing training camps handling scholarships you control every crucial detail of your program it's all in your hands you're going to be able to handle that pressure and I really love that you're responsible for calling the offensive plays in this game your strategy will not only determine the success of your season but also will shape the future and Legacy of your program ultimate college football head coach is completely free it has no ads and is 100% playable offline so you can play on the go any time and of course we have a special offer for all you locked on college basketball fans use promo code locked on CFB all caps inside the game store to receive a free boost to your program make sure to take advantage of that perk to download the game just visit ultimate hyphen cfb.isd on podcast Network we are sponsored by FanDuel and so I'm not going to mention other betting sites by name because FanDuel pays the bills and those other ones don't but I noticed on Wednesday that one of the other ones had they might have put it out on Wednesday but at least recently put out their wooden award betting odds and I want to give you their top 10 number one Cooper flag plus 400 number two Hunter Dickinson Kansas plus 500 number three RJ Davis of North Carolina plus eight uh excuse me plus 600 number four Mark Sears of Alabama plus 800 and then I look that is your top four after that there is a massive drop off at this site's odds because after Mark here it goes to AJ store of Kansas plus 1600 so we go from plus 800 to plus 1600 LJ CER of Houston plus 2000 John L Davis who we just talked about plus 2800 seventh odds eighth best odds Janai broom from Auburn plus 3300 and then tied for ninth is caleff Battle at Gonzaga and VJ edcom of both at plus 3300 now here's why this is intriguing to me when you go to FanDuel there are no odds for Cooper flag and that to me is yes I am a Cheesy dad odd number one the best odds Hunter Dickenson Kansas plus 550 second best odds tied are Mark Sears of Alabama and RJ Davis at plus 600 of North Carolina and then same thing from there it just drops off a cliff Caleb loves from Arizona and Janai broom from Auburn are tied for fourth at plus 1600 marquette's cam Jones sixth at plus 2200 and then you get your first freshman but it's not Cooper flag tied for seventh is VJ edcom who's going to be a phenomenal freshman at Baylor Ryan caul brener from kraton Hunter Salis who came back to Wake Forest and LJ Cryer who we talked about at the other side they're all at plus 3,000 so again there's a big demarcation line after Dickinson Sears and RJ Davis but what's Curious to me is that our friends at FanDuel don't have Cooper flag on this list but it's not like they're not including freshman because VJ edcom from Baylor is on this list so I'm I I I would like to like run it up the flag pole and say hey why aren't we getting Cooper flag odds you got to think there would be a lot of movement on it and and maybe that's the thing is fanduel's like yeah we're not really sure how we want to handicap him yet until we see it in action I don't I don't know what it is and I've not been told anything about why his name's not on there but it just strikes me as very interesting so uh the other thing is you've got some big differences between these two sites between FanDuel and the other one I mentioned for example caleff battle was tied for Ninth at the other one plus 3,300 odds at FanDuel at our site he has plus 177,000 odds that's crazy high or at FanDuel cam Jones has the sixth best odds to win the wooden award at plus 2200 at this other site he's plus 8,000 so much much longer odds there and there's some others but those were the two most striking differences so you know I mean it's such a crapshoot this time of year because you're thinking about rooll do they have better players around them so they're not going to score as much you know voter fatigue all of these things play a factor in it so it's a very inexact science but it is telling to me that there's a clear drop off at both of these sites after Hunter Dickinson RJ Davis and Mark Sears and at the other site Cooper flag is also in that top group but I mean it's a massive Cliff so if you believe in one of these guys it's a little bit further down the list or maybe one that has vastly different odds at one side or the other seems like it could be a really neat opportunity as always there's going to be guys that jump onto this list that are not even on our radar right now was like oh this guy's going to be the player of the year if I had asked you don't connect this time last year there's no way you would have said him unless you're like a DieHard Northern Colorado or Tennessee fan who just saw it coming right like I expected him to be good but that that was crazy so there's that as well now we were talking about Cooper flag with this thing and that's a great segue to talking about a fun announcement that we got on Wednesday Arizona state is going to travel to Duke to play in a charity exhibition on October 27th with proceeds going to Duke Children's Hospital I love this because this is two head coaches that are both former Duke players obviously John Shire leading the Blue Devils and Bobby Hurley not Danny is the head coach at Arizona State this game will be played at Cameron indor stadium and look I love that Bobby Hurley's coming home for this thing uh really neat graphic that dukem men's basketball account put out um just with with both um coach herley and Coach shy on there currently but then a picture of them uh you know at in their time playing at Duke and just just really neat imagery and I I love these kind of things um because a it's getting a couple High major programs together for a public exhibition um it's also doing it for a good cause and it's also like this one's cool because there's the clear and obvious tie-in of Coach Bobby Hurley coming back to a place where he means a lot to a lot of people Bobby Hurley is a phenomenal or was a phenomenal point guard and so great stuff now you know what maybe you forget Bobby Hurley here's what I actually want to know out of this thing I want to know which variety of devil is actually more uh intimidating the the the Blue Devil variety or the Sun Devil variety so I I'd love you to pitch to me which one of those you think is is the more hardcore the more intimidating the blue or the sun of the Devil family so that that'll be fun to watch and also I want more of these events right like another example we just recently learned about is Purdue is going to kraton good on Matt painer for taking Purdue on the road for this the day be uh in or a couple days before this will be on uh October 26th 8:00 p.m. Eastern I guess actually just the day before this one will benefit the United Way of the Midlands Disaster Relief Fund from those tornadoes that affected the Omaha area earlier this year and remember this is not the first time Purdue done this they traveled last year to Arkansas to play at Bud Walton Arena it kind of got rocked in that game but it's an exhibition it doesn't matter turned out Arkansas wasn't that great turned out Purdue was really great and so like Matt Painter I love that he's doing this and just while we're talking about these charity exhibitions NCAA let these happen right like we've seen other examples of this where the NCA said no no no no no you can't do that and so man as long as it's in good faith which they're going to be let these happen NCAA you you gotta think the NCAA wants to engender some level of Goodwill in this world letting these exhibition games happen would be a glorious way to do that anyway there you go so very excited Arizona State at Duke we're also going to get Purdue at kraton in some public exhibitions ahead of the Season just about a week ahead actually because we start on November 4th that's it for today's show thanks so much for tuning in with me if you haven't subscribed on video and audio make sure you do that so that you don't make a miss a second of locked on college basketball if you haven't joined the locked on college basketball Discord uh family we'd loveed to have you in there the link for it in the show notes it's absolutely free to join come talk college basketball with us every single day of the week want to remind you we just talked about uh Purdue apologies to the lawyer family let's go wild cats we've talked about several of them on the show today we'll be back tomorrow Andy Patton and myself but until then peace [Music] [Music]