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BASKETBALL CHAMPIONS
Kentucky 67, Kansas 59
Even for a non-basketball fan like me, it was pretty easy to see early on the way this game was going. Year2 will likely be along later with more basket-ball talk about why Kentucky won, so I'll just offer an observation for now.
Right now -- at this moment -- the SEC hold championships in what are arguably the three biggest men's sports in the NCAA: football, basketball and baseball. And the odds are pretty good that at least one team from the SEC will be in Omaha when the current baseball season winds down, giving the SEC a chance at putting together that triple crown in a single year.
To those fans of other conferences that are quickly going to jump on the SEC for trying to claim national championships as some kind of indication that the conference is the best in all those sports: We know that is not necessarily true. And we recognize that the only team that those trophies say anything about are the ones who won them.
But it's still pretty impressive for any conference to have its teams holding three separate championships at the same time. And there's nothing wrong with our taking a little pride in that.
The Lexingon festivities
It appears that couch-burning is not going to be part of the official celebrations.
A Sea Of Blue
We're sure there will be a lot of celebrating going on over at our superb Kentucky blog, so just head on over to check out their take on the win.
It's Kentucky's world; the rest of us are just living in it
The Wildcats are also ranked atop the nation in at least one baseball poll. I prefer Baseball America to Collegiate Baseball, but ...
The No. 1 ranking is the first ever for the Kentucky baseball program in any national poll.
Yeah, you count that one no matter who awards it to you.
OTHER NEWS
Mississippi State hires Rick Ray
Considering the way the search was going as recently as last week, the fact that they hired someone who was actively involved in the game of basketball is encouraging. Even Mississippi State fans won't argue that this is a home-run hire -- more on that in just a moment -- but it also doesn't look to be a bad hire.
In fact, they give it a 'B'
At least that's how our Mississippi State blog For Whom The Cowbell Tolls grades it.
I'm not really expecting Rick Ray to surpass the winning percentage of Rick Stansbury, but if he's able to win the same amount of games with a group of guys who give it all they have -- I can be proud of my Bulldogs. I wasn't proud of them this year, or last year.
He's, um, won them over?
The SEC should have a nine-game schedule
It's great that permanent interdivision rivals won't be going away -- really -- though all indications are that we're losing at least one (Arkansas-South Carolina) to set up an Arkansas-Missouri clash and a South Carolina-Texas A&M rivalry that all my fellow Gamecock fans seem to want for reasons that aren't entirely clear to me. But something else stuck out to me in this story -- the fact that the nine-game schedule is not quite dead yet.
"It was on the table and is still technically on the table. There have been no votes to say this won't happen," Templeton said. "There are some institutions that have some interest (in nine SEC games). I don't have a feel that it's strong enough to place in there. But I've been in enough A.D.'s meetings where that pendelum changes from one to the other."
The SEC needs to go ahead and bite the bullet on the nine-game schedule. Think about an 11-1 Auburn team (just a random example, guys) that is 7-1 against BCS teams and has wins against three lower-level FBS and an FCS school and an 11-1 Southern Cal that is 9-1 against BCS teams (remember, they also play Notre Dame every year) and has wins against two lower-level FBS teams to go with it. Which resume is going to look stronger to the people who vote for either the current set-up or a four-team playoff?
Yes, I know. The SEC conference schedule might still be more challenging than a Pac-10 conference scheduled and etc. etc. etc. But that won't always be the national perception -- just ask 2004 Auburn -- and it's not going to be long before the SEC is the only league left playing an eight-game schedule. We didn't get where we are by staying stuck in the past.
Now I'm even more confused
Da'Rick Rogers now says he was never really thinking about transferring -- despite that whole the only team Rogers would consider is Georgia State thing.
"No transfer for me, no consideration. Maybe I need to do a little better job with my tweets, letting everybody know what’s really actually going on so next time it won’t be misinterpreted."
But this wouldn't even make the Top 10 weird things that have happened to Tennessee football in the last five years, so let's just move on.
The quarterback situation is coming into focus in Gainesville
Sort of.
"Right now, honestly, looking at going through the spring, I don't know that we will name a starter after spring," Muschamp said. "We're going to go into fall camp. That, to me, is becoming more and more evident every day."
Of course, with the state of the SEC East right now, not having a quarterback chosen by the end of spring practice is actually pretty low on the list of things any team has to be concerned about. It's not really all that high on the list of things Florida has to be concerned about.