Elite Eight Shows the SEC the Door

On Saturday, Kentucky lost its attempt to make the Final Four in John Calipari's first year as West Virginia beat the 'Cats 73-66.

Kentucky held early leads in this game's low scoring first half, but the Mountaineers took the lead for good with about four minutes to go before intermission. The lead got as large as 15 before UK battled back late to make it closer. Poor shooting did the Wildcats in as everyone outside of John Wall and DeMarcus Cousins went 10-38 from the floor. The whole team was a pitiful 4-32 from downtown.

Wall lead the way with 19 points and Cousins had 15. In what was likely his final collegiate game, Patrick Patterson scored eight and pulled down 13 rebounds. It remains to be seen what UK will look like next year since all three of those guys (and possibly more) will be gone. It won't fall off the map, but it won't be much different if at all from this year in terms of youth and inexperience.

Yesterday, Tennessee came agonizingly close to its first Final Four with its loss to Michigan State 70-69.

Unlike the Kentucky-WVU game, this one was close throughout. Tennessee's largest lead was five, and Michigan State's largest lead was seven. In the end, it was a Raymar Morgan free throw with 1.8 seconds to go that sent the Spartans to their sixth Final Four in the last 12 seasons.

Wayne Chism, who has been Tennessee's MVP of the tournament, once again led the team with 13 points. J.P. Prince had 12 and didn't miss a shot from the field or free throw line, while Brian Williams had 11 points and nine boards. Durrell Summers was the guy UT couldn't stop as he had 21 points to make up for the absence of the injured Kalin Lucas.

Getting to the Elite Eight for the first time was a big step forward for Tennessee as a program. There is no shame in falling to Michigan State there either, as UT is the fifth SEC team to lose to the Spartans at that round or later since 1999.