Returning production — whether that’s points, minutes or starts — is bantered about heavily during the summer months, both in basketball and football circles. Fair or not, it has a way of shaping the preseason outlook. With player movement eclipsing all-time highs in college basketball — over 2,500 players entered the transfer portal in the spring — keeping your lynchpins is more paramount than ever in the chase to build sustainable winners.
Purdue, returning nearly 70% of its minutes from a 24-win club, has so clearly won the Retention Wars. The Boilermakers are the only NCAA Tournament team that convinced its three best players (Braden Smith, Trey Kaufman-Renn and Fletcher Loyer) to run it back for another crack at a title run. UConn, Marquette, Stanford, Notre Dame, Iowa State and SMU join the Fightin’ Matt Painters to form the seven high-majors teams slated to return 50% or more of their minutes from last year. For reference, 32 high-major clubs returned north of 50% of their minutes ahead of the 2019-20 campaign.
With player-movement booming, who you keep and the position they play might matter more than ever because of all the other rosters in flux.
That’s always been transparent on the gridiron. In football, not all returning starters are created equal. Positions like quarterback (duh), edge rusher, left tackle and cornerback are more valuable than others. While retaining a slot receiver or an inside linebacker might count equally as keeping a quarterback or an excellent pass-rusher in that handy “returning starters” graphic, the on-field impact can have staggering differences.
A similar trend may be starting to manifest in basketball.
Twenty-one teams that returned some semblance of continuity at lead guard and big man finished in the top-30 on kenpom.com this past season, including the reigning national champion Florida Gators. This trend did not just start…
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