When Florida was scouting the portal last spring, it knew that its perimeter defense was not good enough. It needed an alpha guard stopper, so it went out and landed a defensive menace in Alijah Martin, who helped change the tenor for the eventual national champions. Texas Tech doesn’t erupt into an Elite Eight team and one of the Big 12’s best clubs without understanding that it needed to hit big at point guard and big man in roster-building. All the complementary pieces made way more sense when they were settling in next to Elijah Hawkins and JT Toppin.
Self-scouting has become essential. Weaknesses can become strengths with the right transfer portal addition or smart player development. The contrary is possible, too. Now more than ever, strengths can become weaknesses in a heartbeat, just due to the avalanche of roster changes.
Let’s dive into five positional groups (one from each of the five biggest conferences in college basketball) that will look vastly different in 2025-26.
Trending up: USC’s rim defense
Big Ten foes shot a horrifying 70% at the rim against USC last season. That rated in the third percentile nationally, per CBB Analytics. It was a major stumbling block for a Trojan club that finished 5-17 against top-100 teams last season.
Eric Musselman did something about it in free agency. USC has bolstered its interior defense significantly with a wave of newcomers. Musselman has a little bit of everything at his disposal. Virginia transfer Jacob Cofie is a 6-foot-10, 230-pound big man who is mobile, athletic and a stout on-ball defender. Cofie has a chance to be one of the Big Ten’s best defenders next year. Amarion…
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