10 things I’m absolutely overreacting to after another week of SEC Basketball
Published:
Late February, which means one thing.
March is almost upon us.
We are just 3+ weeks away from Selection Sunday, where yes, the best conference in college basketball should break the record for NCAA Tournament berths when at least 12 SEC programs are invited to dance.
As the calendar creeps towards the month of Pitino, here are 10 fresh, artisanally crafted reactions to another glorious week in the conference of boisterous student sections, big coaching personalities, and even bigger stars.
1. Missouri is made for March
Dennis Gates really might do this, y’all.
He really might get off the mat after a 0-18 SEC record and take a team to the Sweet 16- or beyond- the following March.
Missouri defeated No. 4 Alabama 110-98 on Wednesday night in a game that wasn’t even as close as the final score. The Tigers led wire-to-wire and by as many as 20 in the first half before coasting down the stretch to their third-yes, third—win over an AP Top 5 team this season.
If I voted today, Mark Mitchell would be on my All-SEC ballot. In Missouri’s win over Alabama. Mitchell was magnificent, scoring a career-high 31 points on a stupendously efficient 11-15 from the field. This bucket, on a silky pass from SEC Sixth Man of the Year contender Caleb Grill, was art.
Mitchell bet on Gates when he transferred back home to Missouri from Duke last spring.
“I came here for Coach Gates, more than anything,” Mitchell told SDS at SEC Media Days. “The opportunity to play closer to home was big, but if you are going to leave a place like Duke, you better believe in what someone is building. That’s how I felt about what’s happening at Mizzou.”
What’s happening at Missouri is that the Tigers have been the best offensive team in America over their last 10 games, per Bart Torvik, and they guard well enough—thanks to outstanding on-ball, switchable defenders in Mitchell and Grill and immense depth in the frontcourt—to beat you if you slow them down. In other words, the Tigers can beat you in a bunch of different ways, making them far less susceptible to the whims of an NCAA Tournament draw, where styles make fights.
Gates warrants not only SEC Coach of the Year consideration, but a spot in the national coach of the year conversation. His team just keeps getting better.
2. Is Alabama’s ceiling the Final Four or the national title?
Are the Crimson Tide national title contenders?
Obviously, Alabama has one of the most potent offenses in the country with its ability to attack the basket, offensive rebound, and get hot from deep. The Crimson Tide are turnover prone (14 in the Missouri loss, 183rd in the country in turnover percentage) though and they still struggle to guard, ranking just 46th nationally in defensive efficiency, per KenPom. Bart Torvik, which measures efficiency against top 50 caliber opponents separately, paints an even darker picture of Alabama’s defensive difficulties. The Tide rank just 91st defensively against top 50 opponents.
If you’re an Alabama fan, you are saying “Well, they made the Final Four without guarding well a year ago, and this defense is better.”
You’d be right to think that.
You’d also likely want to know, however, that the last 10 national champions have all ranked in the top 25 in both offensive and defensive efficiency, per KenPom. Only 3 of the last 25 national champions were outside the top 30 in defensive efficiency—and none ranked worse than 43rd entering the NCAA Tournament.
There’s a difference between winning 4 in a row and 6 in a row. Alabama managing to do the latter would be a historical outlier—and it’s time to start being realistic about what the past suggests this Alabama team is up against this March.
3. Team of the Week: Mississippi State Bulldogs
Mississippi State entered the week having lost 3 of its last 4 games. The Bulldogs were safely in the Field of 68, but their seed line kept falling. After missing opportunities for huge résumé wins at home against Kentucky, Alabama, Missouri, and Florida, State fans were searching for proof that this was a team that could play deep into March.
The Bulldogs delivered this week, winning 2 Quad 1A games.
First, they completed the season sweep of rival Ole Miss, thumping the Rebels 81-71 behind 17 points from RJ Melendez and a stat sheet stuffer from Riley Kugel (11 points, 4 steals, 3 rebounds, 3 assists). Then, on Tuesday, the Bulldogs finally got over the Hump in the Hump, dominating Texas A&M 70-54 for their first win over a top 10 team this season and a signature résumé victory.
Josh Hubbard was spectacular in the win, scoring 25 points and dishing out 4 assists while turning the ball over once against the 17.8 PPG (84th in the country) on 40.1% shooting (35.8% from 3). But what impresses me most is how under control he plays despite being an undersized, dominant ball handler. Hubbard’s turnover rate of 7.5% is one of the lowest in the country, an incredibly impressive number considering he’s the player shooting on 28.7% of possessions when on the floor, 10th highest in the SEC.
After 2 appearances and first weekend exits in years 1 and 2, Chris Jans has a team that can play on the second weekend.
4. The SEC should have 2 First Team All-Americans next month
Their names are Johni Broome and Walter Clayton Jr.
5. The SEC Bubble is a Mess, but Vanderbilt and Texas are approaching safety
It’s hard to win basketball games.
It’s even harder to win in what is shaping up to be the best conference in the KenPom era, at least in terms of Net Rating, where the SEC continues to slightly outpace the 1997 ACC and 2011 Big East (11 NCAA Tournament bids!) for the mythical supreme exalted greatest conference of regular season hooping award.
The elite teams in the league have proven tough to fell, though, and there’s enough “really good” teams (spots 4-9) in the conference that bubble teams have found big time résumé wins tough to earn. For brevity’s sake, let’s assume at least 9 SEC teams are locks. That leaves this SEC bubble: Arkansas, Georgia, Oklahoma, Texas, and Vanderbilt.
Of those 5 bubblicious squads, SDS feels best about Vanderbilt and Texas. Why?
Résumé metrics, plain and simple.
Vanderbilt is 42nd in the NET, which is actually behind Georgia, but the Commodores have 6-8 against Quads 1 and 2 and they have 2 precious wins in Quad 1A, having defeated top 15 NET teams Kentucky and Tennessee in Memorial Gym. Vanderbilt also beat Texas head-to-head, but the Horns are safe- for now with 3 wins in Quad 1A, having felled Missouri, Kentucky, and Texas A&M in SEC play.
Neither Texas nor Vanderbilt have taken a bad loss, either, which is something that the committee will value on Selection Sunday. In fact, Vanderbilt has just 1 loss outside of Quad 1, which came to a terrific Drake team in the championship game of the Charleston Classic, all the way back in Feast Week.
6. While Georgia, Oklahoma, and Arkansas fight for their lives
Let’s start with Arkansas, because among these 3 teams, the Hogs are trending “up.” The Field of 68 has Arkansas in the “Last Four In” group and of the 5 SEC bubble teams, they have arguably the best win, having defeated Kentucky at Rupp Arena. Arkansas has also won 4 of its previous 8 after starting 0-5 in the SEC, and after Wednesday night’s 67-60 loss to Auburn, their remaining strength of schedule is the easiest in the SEC. In other words, John Calipari’s team should begin to pile up the wins you need to go dancing.
The bad news? The Hogs are just 4-10 at present in the first 2 quadrants, and it’s possible that Saturday’s game in Bud Walton vs. Missouri will be their last game in the top quadrant until the SEC Tournament. Still, I would lean “in” at this time.
Georgia is a tougher case to crack.
Mike White’s team was terrific in the non-conference, and it has an elite win over St. John’s, who is the likely Big East champion, and a top 16 overall seed come Selection Sunday. Georgia also has a win over Kentucky, though that seems like forever ago given Georgia’s won just 3 times since that cold night in January. The Dawgs will likely lose a 9th time in 11 tries on Saturday when they travel to The Jungle to play Auburn, a loss that would leave them just 4-10 in SEC play. The Dawgs have no bad losses. Not a single one. But at some point, you still have to win basketball games to go dancing. A home date with rival Florida on February 28—when the Gators may still be without big man Alex Condon, who dominated Asa Newell in the first meeting—might be Georgia’s Alamo if they hope to have a chance to make a run to the Alamodome this March.
Finally, there’s Oklahoma. It’s Déjà vu all over again for the Sooners, who are facing the prospect of a second consecutive campaign where they enter conference play ranked in the top 15 and leave Selection Sunday one of the first teams out. If the Sooners could grab a couple of wins at home next week against Mississippi State and Kentucky, the non-conference résumé is strong enough to propel Oklahoma into the field. The Battle 4 Atlantis wins over Arizona and Louisville, along with a Jumpman Invitational win over B1G leader Michigan in December, have aged like a fine wine. That gives Porter Moser’s team a chance, but as he said Tuesday night after Oklahoma was annihilated at Florida, he understands the narrative.
“It’s the narrative, right? We have to get our confidence back, and that’s hard when you everyone is talking about the narrative. We have opportunities ahead of us. That’s the good thing about being in this kind of league. There’s always opportunity. We just have to find ourselves again.”
They better do it soon. It’s almost March.
7. Hero Baller of the Week: Cam Carter, LSU
LSU’s high-profile transfer returned home to Louisiana by way of Kansas State likely dreaming of weeks like the one he just put together. First, Carter scored 7 points in the final 21 seconds, including a 4-point play, to help the Tigers overcome a 5-point deficit in the final minute and win at Oklahoma.
Carter followed that up with 17 points, 4 rebounds, and 2 steals in a comfortable home win over South Carolina. The Tigers won back-to-back SEC home games for the first time in the process, with Carter shooting a dazzling 17-31 and 8-17 from deep in the 2 victories. Carter is also a skilled defender who is consistently asked to guard the other team’s best player, which makes him one of the SEC’s most indispensable—and underrated—ballers.
8. Where I Like to Eat on a Basketball Weekend in… Nashville, Tennessee.
I was going to save Nashville for SEC Tournament week but the allure of Ole Miss-Vanderbilt on Saturday at Memorial Gym made me reconsider and offer up tasty offerings in one of the south’s better culinary destinations. Nashville has a little bit of whatever you’re craving, from the famous hot chicken at Red’s or 400 Degrees to the upscale eats at Michael Mina’s Bourbon Steakhouse. For me, though, Sean Brock has been in the pantheon of southern food cuisine greats for at least a decade, making exactly what you’d expect southern food to be and then defying every expectation about how good it will taste. Brock’s East Nashville joint Audrey, named for Brock’s grandmother, who instilled his love of southern food, has a magnificent walk-in lunch menu (try the pimento cheese and fried bologna melt and shoot me a thank you email afterwards) and a delightful dinner menu with new takes on old standards, from Brock’s Hickory Grilled Short Rib in a savory sorghum glaze to a cornmeal fried catfish smothered in a pickled green tomato sauce that’s about the best catfish dish I’ve ever tasted. The banana pudding is a nice closer, and you are just 15 minutes from Memorial Gym at Audrey, so there’s no reason to not have dessert.
9. The SEC’s Record-Breaking 12 NCAA Tournament Teams Will Be:
Auburn, Florida, Tennessee, Alabama, Missouri, Texas A&M, Kentucky, Mississippi State, Ole Miss, Vanderbilt, Texas, and Arkansas.
10. SEC Awards Snapshot, February 21 Edition
Best 6:
Johni Broome (Auburn)
Walter Clayton Jr. (Florida)
Zakai Ziegler (Tennessee)
Mark Sears (Alabama)
Wade Taylor IV (Texas A&M)
Mark Mitchell (Missouri)
Player of the Year: Broome
Defensive Player of the Year: Alijah Martin (Florida)
Freshman of the Year: Tre Johnson (Texas)
Coach of the Year: Dennis Gates (Missouri)
Neil Blackmon covers SEC football and basketball for SaturdayDownSouth.com. An attorney, he is also a member of the Football and Basketball Writers Associations of America. He also coaches basketball.
