SEC

Today's Game Predictions: Conference Finals

Shawn Siegel — Sun, 16 Mar 2008 09:08:42 -0700

A companion to our daily Three Stars of the Day, we present the top three Games of the Night.

#5 Kansas (30-3) vs #8 Texas (28-5)

3:00 PM ESPN

Although Texas has a higher RPI, 4 more Top 50 wins, and a stronger SOS.. Kansas is still favored by 6 in the Big 12 Championship game. This is partly due to the game being held in Kansas City, and partly due to the false perception that Kansas is a great team. I actually think is should be a simple pick'em.. so I'm going to pick Kansas to win, but suggest that Texas is a much better bet.

Prediction: Kansas

Clemson (24-8) vs #1 UNC (31-2)

1:00 PM ESPN

Perhaps decades of underachievement are suddenly behind Clemson? They beat Duke in the semis and now face nemesis UNC who barely beat the Tigers twice in OT. Ty Lawson didn't play in the last game in Chapel Hill, and though Roy Williams can claim he's only 80%, it's still a major difference. The Tar Heels are 6 point favorites.. which seems like an appropriate amount.

Prediction: UNC

Georgia (16-16) vs Arkansas (22-10)

3:30 PM ESPN2

It's hard to say whose a bigger surprise.. Georgia in the SEC or Illinois in the Big Ten? Either way, it would be an amazing wrinkle on Selection Sunday if one of these pedestrian squads snuck into the NCAA Tournament. Arkansas is a heavy favorite, which isn't surprising consider Georgia has a sub 100 RPI and played 80 minutes of high quality basketball yesterday. Still, it was the Bulldogs who won 82-69 the last time these teams met. Georiga's already knocked off three Top 60 teams on their way to the title game.. but I'm not sure they have any magic left.

Prediction: Arkansas

Previous Game of the Night (Predictions, 98-58)

March 14th - St. Joseph's vs Temple (1-2)

March 13th - Ohio State vs Michigan State (2-1)

March 12th - Arizona State at USC (2-1)

March 12th - Syracuse vs Villanova (2-1)

March 11th - IUPUI at Oral Roberts (3-0)

March 10th - Gonzaga at San Diego (1-2)

March 9th - Florida at Kentucky (1-2)

March 8th - UNC at Duke (2-1)

March 5th - Tennessee at Florida (2-1)

March 4th - UNLV at New Mexico (3-0)

March 3rd - Texas Tech at Kansas (3-0)

March 2nd - Clemson at Maryland (1-2)

Decision reached on the completion of the SEC Tournament

Raphielle Johnson — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 02:15:46 -0700

Courtesy of ESPN.com's Andy Katz, here's the latest on how the SEC plans to complete their conference tournament. Saturday, March 15, 2008 Storm forces SEC to relocate remaining tourney games -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The SEC will take the unprecedented move and have a team play twice in one day in order to conclude the storm-delayed conference tournament in Atlanta before the NCAA tournament selection announcement Sunday at 6 p.m. Early Saturday morning, SEC director of communications, DeWayne Peevy, told ESPN.com by phone from Atlanta that Georgia and Kentucky would play at noon Saturday in a makeup of the postponed quarterfinal on the campus of Georgia Tech at the Alexander Memorial Coliseum, instead of the storm-damaged Georgia Dome. The first semifinal pitting Tennessee and Arkansas would take place at 6 p.m. while the second semifinal between the winner of Kentucky-Georgia and Mississippi State will tip at approximately 8:30 p.m. The final is scheduled for 3 p.m. on CBS Sunday. All games will be at Georgia Tech. Peevy said the league consulted with committee chair Tom O'Connor, the athletic director of George Mason, on the decision. SEC commissioner Mike Slive is on the committee as well and was part of the decision process from Indianapolis. Peevy said since the league reaffirmed that the automatic qualifier from the SEC comes from the conference tournament then the games have to be played prior to the announcement of the selections on Sunday. Peevy said O'Connor told the SEC that if it wants to preserve its automatic qualifier among the 31 AQs that are awarded for the field of 65 then the tournament must be completed. Peevy said the league also will limit attendance in the 9100-seat arena to only the players' families, cheerleaders, bands and other credentialed individuals. He said further announcements were pending about refunding tickets. He said the league looked at all possible scenarios, including co-champs by playing one game Saturday and the semifinals Sunday, but were told that if they wanted the AQ then the tourney had to be completed. Andy Katz is a senior college basketball writer for ESPN.com.

Poll: What Will be the Most Exciting BCS Conference Tournament?

Shawn Siegel — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 08:33:48 -0800

Review - Across the Line: Profiles in Basketball Courage

Jeff Fox — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 08:51:14 -0800

Across the Line

Profiles in Basketball Courage: Tales of the First Black Players in the ACC and SEC

Barry Jacobs

The Lyons Press

$24.95 ($29.95 in Canada)

With February being Black History Month, now is the perfect time to check out Barry Jacobs’ Across the Line. Jacobs’ tome is a fitting tribute to the brave black basketball players who first suited up for ACC and SEC teams in the mid-1960s to early 1970s. The fact that none of these players will be known my most college basketball fans (with the probable exception of UNC’s Charles Scott) is a true crime.

Across the Line is an educational, yet very entertaining read. Each school’s first black player(s) is given his own chapter, allowing Jacobs to go into quite descriptive detail into the player’s background, the history of the school and the political and social climate in the southern states at this point in history. The hostile environment that these players were thrust into is truly shocking and sad and makes their lives all the more heroic. You truly shake your head in disbelief when reading about the racist mindsets of people at this point in time, many of them people in power positions of law enforcement, government and university leadership.

The world we live in today is far from perfect, as there are plenty of bigoted small minded people still around today (look no further than Tim Hardaway’s comments on homosexuals, a golf announcer joking that Tiger Woods should get lynched, or Don Imus). However, after you read this book and then consider that Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton both have fighting chances to be the next president of the United States, you see we are in a much better place today. Across the Line should be a required read for all college basketball players enjoying the freedoms that the books’ players helped make possible.

3.5 out of 5 stars

Welser Wonders: Will Purdue's Run End?

Joel Welser — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 08:14:37 -0800

What makes college sports so great is the fans. And who enjoys dressing up like an idiot more than college students? Or was that just me during my college days? My hat goes off to the little fan club of Stanley Pringle of Penn State. The guys wear full body size boxes of Pringles. Not only does it make me want to eat Pringles, but it’s just plain fun. Maybe I just don’t look in the crowd enough to notice or I’m too quick to flip to a different game when they show the crowd shots, but why don’t more people do this type of thing? There are tons of great names out there, although maybe none which lend themselves to such brilliance as the Pringles, but if Pringle can do it, so can the two Mayo’s in the NCAA. However, that has little to do with what “Welser Wonders…”

…when Eddie Sutton will get win number 801?

I would say ‘if’ Eddie Sutton is going to get win number 801, but ‘if’ doesn’t start with a ‘w’ so it doesn’t quite work with this arrangement. It was largely believed that once Coach Sutton got number 800, his temporary team of Dons would relax a bit and start reeling off a few victories. But that didn’t happen.

There are only five games left in the regular season for San Francisco, but the good news is four of them are at the friendly confines of War Memorial Gym and three of those are against teams that are 2-7 in conference right now. The Dons should be able to get a victory against Portland, Loyola Marymount or Pepperdine to get Coach Sutton up to at least 801. Really the team could be considered somewhat lucky to get a couple road wins at Portland and Pepperdine earlier in the season. Otherwise right now we would be wondering if Coach Sutton was even going to get the two wins he needed.

…what the deal is with the SEC?

Kentucky’s non-conference portion of the schedule went so poorly that even a 6-3 record in conference play has them well outside of the bubble. Getting absolutely slaughtered by Vanderbilt on Tuesday doesn’t help either. Mississippi, after winning their first 13 games, is 3-5 in conference play and in danger of missing out on dancing if things continue to go how they have been recently. Mississippi State is in a similar position as Kentucky. The Bulldogs started out really slow, but have since won 11 of their last 13.

Mississippi State should be in right now, but they could lose that with a poor showing in February and early March. Tennessee and Vanderbilt are pretty much locks and Arkansas and Florida have a pretty good shot. In all likelihood we are looking at five teams and it will be a fierce battle down the stretch. There are a ton of important games left in the SEC, but none may end up being as big as the hardwood version of the Egg Bowl on February 20^th. Mississippi State won the first leg at home by 20 and Mississippi needs to defend the home floor if they want to stay in the race for an NCAA Tournament bid.

…who the winless teams are in conference play?

Memphis gets their fair share of publicity for being undefeated. Duke, Drake, Cornell, Davidson and Oral Roberts are added to the list when you talk about undefeated teams in conference play. But what about the other end of the spectrum?

Independent New Jersey Institute of Technology, better known (sort of) as NJIT, is currently 0-25. The closest the Highlanders have gotten to a win is a couple nine point defeats. They only have four games left and that best shot to avoid a winless season is hosting Chicago State on Saturday. North Florida, The Citadel, Northwestern, Rice, Colorado State and Oregon State are also winless in conference play.

Oregon State fired their coach already this year and Colorado State is in rebuilding mode with a new head man. The only other major program on that list is Northwestern. Coach Bill Carmody is a great offensive mind, but it might be time to try something else in Evanston after eight years. Northwestern has never made an NCAA Tournament and certainly Bill Carmody cannot be totally blamed for that failure. The high academic standard is an old excuse. The basketball team only needs to look across the street to the football squad to see that it can be done. Nobody expects consistent top 25 seasons out of Northwestern, but this team should be able to go dancing at some point. But it probably won’t be with Coach Carmody leading the way.

…when it will end for Purdue?

The Boilermakers were supposed to be a decent team, but now they are looking at a Big Ten title. And don’t give me the Big Ten is down junk. This is a team that just beat Wisconsin in Madison. That doesn’t happen everyday. Even teams like Iowa and Penn State have had decent moments. It is very impressive to be on top of the Big Ten with an 11-1 record.

Purdue is a young team and they just keep getting better and better. Freshmen Robbie Hummel and E’Twaun Moore have already become superstars in the Big Ten and will be taking the rest of the nation by storm soon enough. Purdue might be a little slim in the paint, but the size of their guards puts plenty of mismatches in their favor. Most of that is in the form of 6-8 Hummel. The guy can make opposing power forwards look incompetent on defense if that is how the match-ups work out.

The big game left is against rival and fellow one-loss team Indiana. The winner of that game will likely be the Big Ten champions and earn a nice seed in March.

SEC: All-January

Jeff Fox — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 06:53:40 -0800

The SEC Freshman of the Year race looks like it will be a three player battle. Two of the three (A.J. Ogilvy didn’t make the cut) make a return appearance on the monthly All-SEC list.

Guard – Devan Downey – South Carolina – SO
19.4ppg, 5.3apg, 3.3spg
Best game – Jan 2nd – Radford – 23 points, seven steals, five assists, three rebounds

The little man certainly has a nose for the ball – he averaged four steals a game for January. Add to that his 22 points and five assists a game and you have one of the best Januarys by a player in the SEC.

Guard – Marcus Thornton – LSU – JR
19.5ppg, 5.9rpg, 1.4spg
Best game – Jan 30th – Auburn – 38 points, seven boards, 8-15 3pts

Unfortunately Marcus Thornton’s play wasn’t good enough to save Coach John Brady his job, but it was good enough for the All-January SEC list. Thornton finished the month off with five-straight games with 20 or more points.

Guard/Forward – Nick Calathes – Florida – FR
15.4ppg, 6.2apg, 5.0rpg
Best game – Jan 19th – Kentucky – 24 points, eight rebounds, eight assists

The rookie Calathes seems to be getting better as the season goes on. In January he averaged 18 points, five boards, seven assists and only two turnovers per game. He has to be considered the front runner for SEC Freshman of the Year.

Forward – Patrick Patterson – Kentucky – FR
16.9ppg, 7.9rpg, 1.4bpg
Best game – Jan 12th – Vanderbilt – 23 points, 12 boards, two blocks

Another impressive freshman is the Wildcats’ Patterson. He put up 16 points, eight boards and two blocks per game in January as Kentucky makes a late push for the NCAA tournament.

Forward – Richard Hendrix - Alabama – JR
19.0ppg, 10.3rpg, 2.2bpg
Best game – Jan 8th – Florida – 24 points, 16 boards, four assists, three blocks, two steals

This has been a disastrous season for the Crimson Tide, yet very successful for Richard Hendrix on a personal note. He notched five more double-doubles in January, including the monstrous game versus Florida listed above.

Only the Beginning? Kentucky Starting to Put it Together

Jason Brubaker — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 09:11:42 -0800

Ancient Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu once said “A journey of 1,000 miles must begin with a single step.” Well, it may have taken awhile for Coach Billy Gillispie’s Cats to take that first step, but now they’re well on their way.

Saturday’s win over Alabama marked the fifth in a row for the Big Blue, a streak that began with a home win over then-No. 5 Tennessee. During the streak, which has propelled Kentucky to second in the SEC East, opponents have been held to just under 39 percent shooting from the field, and under 28 percent from the three-point line. In the previous two games, both losses, Florida and Mississippi State shot close to 46 percent from the field, and 43 percent from beyond the arc.

Clearly, the Cats have finally begun to buy into the defense-at-all-cost mentality that Gillispie preaches. Their games may not be pretty, but a win is a win, and any coach would rather win ugly than lose with style. The Cats have been demonstrating an on-court toughness that wasn’t evident in early season losses to Indiana and North Carolina.

“Where we are now with our competitive spirit, the difference is night and day from the beginning of the season,” said Gillispie prior to the Alabama game. “All I know is we put our hard hat on at the beginning of every day and go to work.”

These Cats don’t get rattled like the Cats of November and December. When the Tide came out firing in the first half, UK stayed patient, not abandoning the game plan. Instead of forcing the action, trying to speed up the pace, gambling for steals, getting careless with the ball; they…just stayed calm and kept playing. Next thing you know, an eight-point first half deficit turned into a one-point halftime lead, and the Cats never trailed again.

They dug in defensively against an Alabama team that had 27 points at the half, yet only mustered nine points in the first twelve minutes of the second half. Of the 25 second-half points the Tide managed, 10 came in the final two minutes, once the outcome was no longer in doubt.

Now, with eight games remaining, UK still has a shot at another 20-win season, something that seemed far-fetched just over a month ago. A team that lost by 16 points to Gardner-Webb at home now can talk about the potential of an NCAA bid and keep a straight face while doing so. Road games at Vandy and Tennessee still loom, but the task no longer seems as daunting, not with the hard-nosed attitude the Cats have been displaying.

Even more importantly, the doubts about Gillispie and his coaching style have quieted in recent weeks, as fans are finally seeing what he envisioned all along. These Cats, short on highlight-reel athletes, aren’t going to be regulars on Sportscenter’s Top 10. But they will get the most out of their talent, and they will defend like their life depends on it for the entire 40 minutes.

In an era when more and more teams are pushing the pace, running and gunning like there’s no tomorrow, hard-nosed, grind-it-out basketball almost seems to have gone the way of the set shot. But at the end of the day, whether you score 90 or 50, only one thing matters, and that’s winning.

Gillispie’s teams at Texas A&M weren’t known for their rim-rattling dunks or behind-the-back passes. They were known for getting in your face and making your life miserable on the court. Every shot contested, every basket earned, and every point hard-fought. That’s what these Cats are striving towards, what they’ve been shooting for the entire season. It took a little while, but it appears they’re finally on the right track to getting there.

It’s going to be a fun journey.

Daily Dribble: Power Conference Power Rating

Shawn Siegel — Sat, 05 Jan 2008 09:29:03 -0800

Some talk that Oregon State is the worst BCS team ever.. we'll see below in my monthly 73-team BCS Power Ranking. This follows u

1. UNC 14-0 (ACC)(1)

2. Kansas 12-0 (Big 12)(2)

3. UCLA 12-1 (Pac-10)(5)

4. Washington State 12-0 (Pac-10)(7)

5. Michigan State 12-1 (Big Ten)(8)

6. Duke 10-1 (ACC)(4)

7. Georgetown 10-1 (Big East)(6)

8. Pittsburgh 11-1 (Big East)(14)

9. Marquette 10-1 (Big East)(10)

10. Tennessee 11-1 (SEC)(12)

11. Texas 11-2 (Big 12)(3)

12. Indiana 8-1 (Big Ten)(9)

13. Texas A&M 12-1 (Big 12)(11)

14. Vanderbilt 14-0 (SEC)(17)

15. Mississippi 13-0 (SEC)(39)

16. Clemson 11-1 (ACC)(15)

17. Miami 12-1 (ACC)(27)

18. Arizona 9-3 (Pac-10)(20)

19. Baylor 10-1 (Big 12)(26)

20. Wisconsin 11-2 (Big Ten)(31)

21. Notre Dame 11-2 (Big East)(18)

22. Oklahoma 10-3 (Big 12)(43)

23. Stanford 11-2 (Pac-10)(25)

24. Syracuse 11-3 (Big East)(30)

25. Connecticut 10-2 (Big East)(23)

26. West Virginia 9-3 (Big East)(29)

27. Villanova 10-2 (Big East)(16)

28. USC 9-4 (Pac-10)(24)

29. California 11-2 (Pac-10)(32)

30. Ohio State 10-3 (Big Ten)(34)

31. Arkansas 10-3 (SEC)(21)

32. Virginia 10-3 (ACC)(19)

33. Providence 9-4 (Big East)(42)

34. Boston College 10-2 (ACC)(35)

35. Purdue 9-4 (Big Ten)(38)

36. Louisville 9-4 (Big East)(22)

37. Arizona State 11-2 (Pac-10)(60)

38. Oregon 9-4 (Pac-10)(13)

39. Kansas State 8-4 (Big 12)(28)

40. Florida State 11-4 (ACC)(40)

41. NC State 9-3 (ACC)(44)

42. Florida 13-2 (SEC)(37)

43. Nebraska 11-2 (Big 12)(51)

44. South Carolina 8-5 (SEC)(45)

45. Seton Hall 9-4 (Big East)(50)

46. Illinois 8-6 (Big Ten)(36)

47. Missouri 9-5 (Big 12)(33)

48. Alabama 11-4 (SEC)(52)

49. Washington 9-4 (Pac-10)(49)

50. Oklahoma State 8-5 (Big 12)(41)

51. South Florida 10-4 (Big East)(63)

52. Virginia Tech 8-6 (ACC)(57)

53. Wake Forest 10-3 (ACC)(66)

54. Penn State 9-4 (Big Ten)(59)

55. Mississippi State 8-5 (SEC)(53)

56. Texas Tech 7-5 (Big 12)(46)

57. Minnesota 10-2 (Big Ten)(56)

58. Auburn 9-2 (SEC)(61)

59. Georgia Tech 6-6 (ACC)(54)

60. Georgia 7-3 (SEC)(55)

61. LSU 6-6 (SEC)(58)

62. DePaul 5-7 (Big East)(67)

63. Maryland 8-6 (ACC)(48)

64. Iowa State 9-5 (Big 12)(70)

65. Kentucky 6-6 (SEC)(45)

66. Cincinnati 6-7 (Big East)(71)

67. St. John's 6-6 (Big East)(65)

68. Iowa 7-7 (Big Ten)(68)

69. Colorado 7-5 (Big 12)(62)

70. Michigan 4-9 (Big Ten)(64)

71. Rutgers 8-6 (Big East)(69)

72. Northwestern 4-5 (Big Ten)(73)

73. Oregon State 6-6 (Pac-10)(72)

* Previous ranking in parentheses. Biggest movers:

Oregon = -25, Mississippi = +24, Arizona State = +23, Oklahoma = + 21, Kentucky = -20

* Records only include games against D1 opponents

Also check out this month's High-Major & Mid-Major rankings

SEC Player & Freshman of the Week

Press Release — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 22:52:07 -0800

SEC PLAYER OF THE WEEK

Dwayne Curtis, Ole Miss
C * 6-8 * 262 * Sr. * Chicago, Ill.

Curtis posted season highs of 22 points and 11 rebounds in helping Ole
Miss remain perfect at 8-0 on the year with a hard-fought 76-71 win over
Winthrop in a neutral-site game in Jackson, Miss.

He has collected four double-doubles in the last six games.

The senior center finished three points shy of his career high and
made good on 10-of-12 from the floor to improve his season field-goal
percentage to .712, which ranks second in the SEC.

Leads the team with 14.8 points per game, while Ole Miss as a team is
tied for second in the nation with North Carolina at 89.9 points per
game.

Curtis' Season Stats
PPG RPG APG BPG SPG
14.8 8.4 0.9 0.0 1.5

SEC FRESHMAN OF THE WEEK

Brian Williams, Tennessee
C * 6-10 * 267 * Fr. * Bronx, N.Y.

Williams recorded his first career double-double with career-highs of
16 points and 14 rebounds in Tennessee's 88-82 win over Western
Kentucky.

Seven of his 14 rebounds were at the offensive end and his 14 rebounds
were the most by a Vol since Vincent Yarbrough had 15 during the 2000-01
season.

Leads Tennessee with 5.7 rebounds per game. Entered the Western
Kentucky game averaging 2.8 points and 4.3 rebounds and hadn't played in
UT's previous two games.

Williams' Season Stats
PPG RPG APG BPG SPG
4.7 5.7 0.4 0.6 0.3

SEC: All-Opening Month

Jeff Fox — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 07:51:41 -0800

While freshmen have ruled all the other BCS conferences, transfer players in the early going are ruling the SEC. Two crack this All-November list.

Guard – Marcus Thornton – LSU - JR

19.3ppg, 6.0rpg, 1.5spg

Best game – Nov 30^th – Southern – 22 points, 7 boards, 4 steals

A scoring star in JUCO last season, Thornton has made the transition to D1 seamlessly. In the Tigers narrow defeat to nationally ranked Villanova he put up a double-double of 15 points and 13 boards.

Guard/Forward – Shan Foster – Vanderbilt - SR

20.4ppg, 5.0rpg, 32/62 3pts

Best game – Dec 5^th – Wake Forest – 26 points, 7 boards

Whoever saw Vandy as a top-25 team at the beginning of this season, please raise your hand. Foster and rookie Andrew Ogilvy have proven to be a lethal 1-2 punch for the Commodores, with Foster providing lights out three-point shooting.

Forward – Tyler Smith – Tennessee – SO

13.0ppg, 5.1rpg, 3.6apg, 2.4spg

Best game – Nov 30^th – La Lafayette – 22 points, 8 assists, 7 boards

Transfer Smith has been an all-around stud for the Volunteers this season, leading the team in assists & steals, coming in second in rebounding and third in scoring.

Forward – Richard Hendrix – Alabama - JR

21.1ppg, 12.3rpg, 2.6bpg

Best game – Nov 9^th – Troy – 22 points, 23 boards

Now in his third season in college, Hendrix looks like he may finally realize his immense potential. He started the season off on the right foot, lodging double-doubles in the team’s first five games.

Forward – Patrick Patterson – Kentucky - FR

16.3ppg, 8.8rpg, 1.8spg

Best game – Nov 21^st – Liberty – 23 points, 10 boards

Billy Gillispie’s first big coup as a Wildcat was signing Patterson, and the big man hasn’t let him down. Against North Carolina last game he put up a very solid 19 points and nine boards.

SEC