SEC Basketball at the Half
by Year2 on Feb 8, 2010 2:17 PM EST
in SEC Basketball
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PrintThe title of this post is not some sort of terrible new halftime show like what we saw last night in the Super Bowl ("I tell you Jim, if the Colts can get back to doing what they were doing when they were doing well, they'll be right back in it!" Right, because the Colts aren't trying to play well anymore). Rather, thanks to a weekend where all 12 teams had a game on Saturday, everyone has played at least eight of their 16 conference games.
To me, the biggest news is not Kentucky being atop the SEC East. That was fully expected, and though being 22-1 is indeed a big deal, it's not really a shock. The biggest deal to me is the sight of Arkansas alone atop the West division.
A week ago, I said the Hogs looked like a classic spoiler. Now, they are somewhat unbelievably the leaders in the division after a wild and woolly win over Auburn. Just a season ago, the program was a wreck after going 2-14 in conference. John Pelphrey looked like he might have been in over his head. Heck, this season didn't start so great either. Pelphrey kept things together though, and underwhelming seasons by division favorites Ole Miss and Mississippi State have opened the door for the Pigs. I have doubts about whether they'll be getting a first round bye in the league tournament, but then, I had doubts as to whether they'd be in the top half of the division before SEC play began too.
But anyway, back to those 22-1 guys. They had no trouble in whomping hapless LSU two days ago, looking every bit like the frontrunner they are. Taking care of business with authority is what great teams do.
With that in mind, I can safely say that Vanderbilt is not a great team.
Not only did Vandy fail to take care of business against East Division doormat Georgia, but it was an epic second half collapse that did the Commodores in. It was a win that inspired hope for the future in Athens, and rightfully so. However, it was just crushing for Vanderbilt to spit the bit against one of three SEC teams under .500 on the year and have supposed star C A.J. Ogilvy play weakly in the process.
It wasn't a bad weekend though for the teams that now find themselves in second place in the divisions. Tennessee dropped a train on South Carolina, effectively ending whatever faint hopes the Gamecocks may have had left at getting an at-large bid to the Big Dance. Devan Downey got his 26, but the rest of his team outscored him by just a single point, while Wayne Chism's career day helped the Vols to a laugher.
Meanwhile in Oxford, Ole Miss staged a comeback for the ages in taking down Alabama. The Rebels found themselves down 20 at the half, but they stormed back and ended up winning by seven. It was quite a comeback for a team that appeared to be on its way to a third straight loss after having dropped two in a row to Arkansas and Kentucky. For the Crimson Tide, it was just another in an increasingly long line of blown leads.
On the conference's Bubble Watch, Florida managed to eke out a win over Mississippi State. The win moved the Gators up a couple spots on the latest version of SB Nation's Bracketology, while the second consecutive loss bumped the Bulldogs off to being fifth in line for the last spot in. It was C Vernon Macklin's first big SEC game for the Gators, a necessary occurance since UF's top three scorers made just seven field goals combined.
According to SB Nation's Bracketology, the conference has five teams in the field of 65: Kentucky (a 1 seed), Tennessee (4), Vanderbilt (6), Ole Miss (8), and Florida (10). Mississippi State is out for now but is in striking distance of getting back in. Anyone else will probably have to catch fire and win the conference tournament to go dancing.
While you can't really count anyone out for sure after we all saw Georgia win the Tornado Tournament in '08, I would give the best chances of winning the SEC tourney to break into the NCAAs to Arkansas from the West and South Carolina from the East. The Hogs are hitting their stride at the right time, but it appears there's even more improvement to go. The Gamecocks have one of those one man wrecking crews in Downey that almost all March legends are made of, and as long as he gets some kind of help from his teammates, Carolina could upset some teams that are coasting from having secured tournament bids already.
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I dont see how the Gators keep pulling W’s. They have such a young team, and so many issues on offense and the big men on defense arnt that great yet every SEC game somone steps up and has a huge game to make up for the lack of either A. weak defense or B. bad shooting.
"When you argue correctly, you're never wrong."-Nick Naylor
Vandy
Aside from Beal and Tinsley, the remainder of the team shot 6 for 33 against Georgia (the entire 40 minutes). Prior to the tip, Vandy was top 10 in the country in effective field goal percentage and 2 point field goal percentage. John Jenkins, as a freshman, was shooting about 50% from 3 on the season (he went 0 for 9 for the game) — all against a top 15 schedule.
Suffice it to say, I HIGHLY doubt you’ll see Vandy shoot that poorly again this season. That said, I’d love for opposing teams to bank their gameplan on those shooting struggles resurfacing.
True
But I consider “great team” to be a term that applies to just a couple of squads per year. A great team wouldn’t lose to someone as bad as Georgia under any circumstances, much less by double digits.
Team Speed Kills
SBNation's SEC Blog
If Vandy isnt a great team.
Why are they spanking UT so far in the 1st half.
"When you argue correctly, you're never wrong."-Nick Naylor
Because UT isn't a great team, either.
In fact, aside from Kentucky, the rest of SEC isn’t “great”, just average.
I don’t know if I believe that or not, but I’ve said it.
Florida will probably end up second in the East, and while they’ve beaten all the West teams they’ve faced, they’ve been squeakers.
Florida 2nd in the East?
That’s laughable. Vandy took Florida’s best shooting performance of the season and still throttled them in Nashville. Assuming Florida shoots to there average, Vandy sweeps them too.
Again, Vandy’s loss to Georgia was their second worst shooting performance of the season. It was a statistical aberration. If they had shot even mildly below their average, they walk out of Athens with a W.
I can understand why you would think that the SEC is only average, considering that Arkansas plays in the west (which actually is average), but the SEC East might be the strongest division of any conference in the country.
by KingJamesIV on Feb 10, 2010 11:20 AM EST up reply actions
Yeah...
And Georgia shooting 53% had nothing to with it. Get real. Vanderbilt hasn’t exactly dominated the SEC West teams it’s faced, either. They got the W, but it’s pretty obvious that there’s Kentucky, and then there’s everybody else. For future reference, your “strongest division” comment is a little silly. The only conferences that do divisions in basketball are the SEC, Mid-America, SoCon, Southland, and the Sunbelt.
Look, the fact is, Florida’s loss to SC tonight made my prediction moot, unless Florida wins a game I expected them to lose. I also think that Vandy will lose 3 or 4 more games. Don’t agree? Great, you’re entitled to your opinion, too. Let’s see how it ends up on the court.
For what it’s worth, I’d be wary of your game with LSU. I think the Tigers are due a win, and I’d hate for another one of those “statistical aberrations” to pop up.
I don't think the "strongest division" comment is silly
In fact, it made me curious so I crunched out the numbers.
The SEC East has an average Pomeroy rating of 0.873. That doesn’t make it the strongest “division” in MCBB though — the ACC, B12, and barely the Big East are ahead. (I’m assuming Pomeroy’s conference rankings can be interpreted as an average ranking for a conference’s teams.)
Still, it does drive home the point that we have one division that’s like the Big East and one that’s like the Pac-10.
Sure...
But the other conferences don’t do divisions, so you’re comparing half the SEC to entire conferences. That’s kind of like saying I make more money than everyone else because my salary is slightly above average. The SEC East is better than the West, and I hope I haven’t tried to imply otherwise. But, the simple fact that the better half of the SEC doesn’t have a better average than entire conferences should be proof enough that your claim that the SEC East is like the Big East is, at best, disingenuous. Four teams in the Top 10 vs. 2 in the Top 15? Get real, dude.
A vast majority of East vs. West games this season have been won by the East, solifying your (or rather, my, I guess) claim that the East is better than the West. But, the margin of victory has been pretty small in most of them, so you’ll forgive me if not quite ready to say that the East is way better than the West. Excluding Kentucky, of course.
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