It's been an up-and-down year as Mike Anderson has begun his tenure at Arkansas. The Hogs took on an understandable (UConn), a not so great (Oklahoma), and a bad loss (Houston) in the non-conference, but they started the conference season in style by taking down Mississippi State. A tough loss to Ole Miss followed, but the Razorbacks built some positive momentum to get back in the bubble discussion with wins against Michigan and Vandy.

After last night, it's fair to say that the Hogs' bubble has burst.

Arkansas fell to LSU last Saturday and just had their doors blown off 81-59 by a rebuilding Georgia team that's barely outside the conference basement. It was the first time the Bulldogs even made it to 70 points in nine games of conference play, and they had been held below 60 points five times by SEC teams. Mardracus Wade was the only Razorback starter to make it into double digit points with 15.

Arkansas has been very good at home; even its only home loss came in its one game in Little Rock rather than in Fayetteville. However, the Hogs have yet to win a game outside Bud Walton Arena. They have three more chances to finally get a road win, and two of them (at Tennessee and at Auburn) are certainly winnable for this team. Given the results last night though, I wouldn't pencil in any W's just yet.

The Razorbacks should be safely in the NIT barring any kind of collapse, which is certainly a step forwards in Anderson's first year. That they were even in the bubble discussion for a while after missing the postseason entirely last season is definitely a positive development. However, the past two games sent a clear message to the selection committee: don't worry about us anymore.

If there was any lingering doubt out there as to who the best team in the SEC is, Kentucky put it to bed with its emphatic 78-58 win over Florida last night in Rupp Arena.

The Wildcats' offense was stellar, shooting 52.7% from the field and 60% from three. Their defense was just as good on the other end, stifling the Gators' offense to the tune of 34.9% shooting from the field and 22.2% from downtown. Kentucky's play was crisp and made everything easy for itself and difficult for the visitors.

Florida, meanwhile, displayed many of the worst bad habits from any given Billy Donovan team. Guards were out of control, shooters jacked up bad threes, and the defense lost assignments at the worst possible times. It was a particularly bad night for senior Erving Walker. He shot 0-7 on the night, failed to make it to the free throw line, and had two turnovers versus just one assist.

Kentucky's Anthony Davis, meanwhile, had another brilliant night. His 16 points were two shy of the game high, and he controlled the paint on defense with four blocks and a number of other changed shots. Doron Lamb had the 18 points for the Wildcats (tied with UF's Kenny Boynton for the game-high) and was a particularly lethal four-of-five from beyond the arc.

It's important not to read too, too much into the game's outcome. The Wildcats have yet to lose in Rupp under John Calipari, and they can make games spiral out of control for their opponents there in ways that don't happen elsewhere. Plus, this team is going to hammer anyone and everyone when it makes 60% of its three pointers (season percentage: 37.9%). Florida has a troubling habit of playing poorly on the road that it will have to correct down the stretch, but it's not the bad team that UK made it look like last night.

That said, it's completely fair to ask whether this team will lose again the rest of the way. It still has road games at Vanderbilt, Mississippi State, and Florida plus another home matchup with Vandy, so it's not like the schedule is a complete cakewalk. Still though, when this team is on, it's unbeatable. Its only loss to Indiana is looking more like a glitch in the Matrix than anything.

Last year's Kentucky team made it to the Final Four on sweat, grit, and a bit of overachievement as a 4-seed. This year, it's probably going to be a tournament favorite as a 1-seed (if not the No. 1 overall seed). If last year's run to Houston was a bit of a bonus, falling short of a run to New Orleans this year would be a disappointment.

If the SEC had a Mount Rushmore of coaches, I imagine there would be a lot of argument over who belongs on it. One person who there would be no argument over inclusion is Tennessee's Pat Summitt.

When looking at her career, it's more difficult to find some kind of championship or title she hasn't won. Let's start with the basics: at 1,078 wins and counting, she's the all-time winningest head coach on any level in any NCAA sanctioned sport. That she won all those games with only 201 losses (.843 winning percentage) is even more remarkable. She has won the national title eight times, SEC title 16 times, and SEC tournament 15 times. She's been SEC Coach of the Year eight times and national Coach of the Year seven times. She even coached the USA women's basketball team to gold medals in both the Olympics and Pan Am games.

In 2011, we learned that her greatest challenge is the one to come: she was diagnosed with early onset dementia, Alzheimer's type.

Her reaction to it was pure Summitt. She declared that, "There's not going to be any pity party and I'll make sure of that," to the Knoxville News Sentinel. She also stated that she's got no plans to retire any time soon and has led the Lady Vols to a 7-2 start and No. 6 ranking nationally. She began experiencing symptoms over the past year, but the firm diagnosis made her feel confident in being able to deal with it.

And if anyone can successfully deal with it, Summitt can. She's as fierce a fighter as anyone across the landscape of sports, and she's been working with the medical experts at the Mayo Clinic. The sad fact remains though that this awful degenerative disease will slowly rob one of the best ambassadors of women's basketball, and indeed all of college sports, of her basic mental faculties.

In the meantime, she's showing the world that such a diagnosis doesn't end your life. It doesn't mean you stop working or stop living. It means you make some adjustments and keep on going. Regardless of what life throws at Summitt, she continues to be someone we all could learn a few lessons from.

The past couple of years have seen the SEC become quite unbalanced. It's kind of jarring to see one half of the conference dominate the other so much. The East certainly was the better of the divisions, no questions asked.

No, not in football obviously. In basketball.

In the 2010-11 season, the SEC had three teams win 10 or more conference games and five win at least 20 games by the end of the regular season. Only one of each of those—Alabama—was from the West division. Florida and Kentucky were the others who won 10+ league games, while those two plus Vandy and Georgia also won 20. Three of the teams in the final four of the conference tournament were from the East as well.

When March Madness rolled around, the SEC put five teams in the Big Dance: Florida, Kentucky, Vanderbilt, Tennessee, and Georgia. Notice a theme? While the other three fell in the first round, Florida made it to the Elite Eight and Kentucky made it all the way to the Final Four. It was the second consecutive season that the SEC East had put two teams in the Elite Eight. An SEC West team hasn't made it that far since LSU went on a Final Four run in 2006.

We're not done. Let's go to the postseason awards.

The player of the year was Florida's Chandler Parsons. Coach of the year was Florida's Billy Donovan. Defensive player of the year was South Carolina's Sam Muldrow (Gamecocks finally make an appearance!). Rookie of the year was Kentucky's Terrence Jones. The sixth man award went to Tennessee's Brian Williams. Only Mississippi State's Riley Benock represented the West with his scholar athlete of the year award. Only five of the 17 first and second team All-SEC selections came from the West, and only two of the eight players on the All-Rookie team came from the West.

The trend seems to be abating some in this new season, though the SEC doesn't do divisions anymore. Kentucky and Florida are the standard bearers still, but Alabama is building on its success from last year and Mississippi State has come on strong despite not getting a single vote in the preseason AP Poll. Plus Georgia has fallen off quite a bit from last year, Vanderbilt is acquiring puzzling losses, and Tennessee is having issues starting the post-Bruce Pearl era.

The divisional era of SEC basketball may be over, but the East closed it out in dominant fashion.

Now, it's official. The NCAA is hitting Bruce Pearl with a three-year show-cause in the Tennessee case -- meaning any school that wants to hire Pearl will have to prove to the organization that it should be allowed to -- and basically letting Lane Kiffin and the football program off the hook. The Volunteers will also get two years' probation. Nothing unexpected, and nothing really all that terribly controversial.

Also, three former assistant coaches -- Tony Jones, Steve Forbes and Jason Shay -- were cited for a failure to cooperate with the investigation. Each of the former assistant coaches received a one-year show-cause order, which also prohibits recruiting activity.

In addition to the 20 penalties self-imposed by the university and the Southeastern Conference and agreed to by the infractions committee, Tennessee must also serve two years of probation.

The upshot of that is that Pearl and the sanctioned assistants are essentially unemployable for the length of their show-causes. (They're also not able to recruit during that period, which is perhaps even a bigger barrier to getting hired than the NCAA.) Pearl can probably catch on in the NBA ranks somewhere, while the other three will either try to do that or just cool their heels for a while.

As for what brought all this on? Yep, not the crime but the cover-up.

The most serious allegations in this case involved the former men's basketball coaching staff and their conduct in the commission of violations, the provision of false and misleading information about them, and the inducement of others to do the same.

And Lane Kiffin skates, but not before the committee on infractions took a couple of shots at the former football head coach. Though the committee also probably didn't want to hammer Tennessee football for the actions of a former coach. Or they could have just decided that having Kiffin as head coach was punishment enough.

In the sport of football, it was alleged that major violations occurred in the conduct of the program, including recruiting activities undertaken by student interns. The committee concluded that the evidence was insufficient to support findings of major violations. However, the committee was troubled by the number and nature of the secondary infractions by the football coaching staff during its one-year tenure at the institution. From January 2009 through October 2009 the staff committed 12 violations, all connected to recruiting. Some of the violations received nationwide publicity and brought the football program into public controversy. This is not a record of which to be proud.

But, guys, it was all part of the plan.

The full report is here.

Sometimes, the only thing you can really do is resort to cliche, say life isn't always fair and move on. If dementia were the kind of thing you would wish on anyone, it would not be Pat Summitt. She is an icon, almost undoubtedly the best college basketball coach and maybe the best college coach of any kind.

But again, life's not always fair, or it can at least seem at times to be profoundly unfair. And so we get the news that Pat Summitt has been diagnosed with early-onset dementia, meaning that one of the greatest minds in college sports will gradually begin to erode.

Rest assured that Summitt won't complain, at least not publicly. She'll continue to coach the Lady Vols basketball, likely very well, given that Summitt could still probably coach circles around most of her opponents on her worst day. And she doesn't really want you to feel sorry for her -- in fact, she'll probably get angry if you do. "There’s not going to be any pity party and I’ll make sure of that," she told the Knoxville News-Sentinel.

So don't feel sorry for her, but take an opportunity over the next year or so to watch a legend in action. The only thing about this that seems remotely fair is that we will have a chance to say goodbye.

We've already heard about some of Mike Slive's planned proposals for the SEC meetings, and here comes another one. He's going to present the concept of ditching the league's basketball divisions and expanding the conference season from 16 to 18 games.

The idea is not without merit. The main impetus appears to be the mess than the divisions can make of SEC Tournament seeding. This season presented a great example. Vanderbilt was ranked No. 18 with a 23-11 (9-7) record, but it had to play in the first round thanks to being third in the East division. Meanwhile Mississippi State finished second in the West, so it got a first round bye despite its 17-14 (9-7) record. Vandy even won the head-to-head matchup. There's no reason other than the divisional rules as to why the Commodores should have been playing while the Bulldogs didn't.

On top of that, Alabama missed the NCAA Tournament despite going 12-4 in conference play. Now, the Crimson Tide had some heinous non-conference losses that definitely contributed to the NIT bid. However, the Elephants also played in the much weaker division and had fewer chances to get big wins in the league.

The conference has discussed these measures without adopting them before, so there's no guarantee we'll have no divisions next year. At the least, we know it's going up for discussion again.

This is it, the Final Four. Can Kentucky slow down Kemba Walker? Can UConn overcome the big, be-jorted menace Josh Harrellson down low? Which media darling will advance between Butler and VCU?