SEC Hoops Report
By Brian Edwards
For the third straight season, it looks like we’re going to have a down year in the SEC. In fact, the only team that seems ‘up’ in comparison to the last few years is Georgia.
In Mark Fox’s second season in Athens, UGA is out to a 3-0 start even though its best player Trey Thompkins has yet to play due to a sprained ankle. The Dawgs are also 2-0 against the spread after winning 61-59 at Saint Louis on Nov. 20 in a pick ‘em affair.
Jeremy Price hit the game-winning bucket with one tick remaining, as UGA rallied from an 10-point deficit at halftime. Price finished with 16 points and seven rebounds. He was on the receiving end of a dazzling behind-the-head pass from Gerald Robinson before scoring the game winner.
Travis Leslie had a team-high 19 points and six boards. Robinson, a transfer from Tennessee State who is a combo guard that can score and distribute, had 10 points, eight assists and a pair of steals.
Thompkins, who is my pick to win SEC Player of the Year honors, should be ready to return when the Dawgs play Notre Dame on Nov. 25 at the Old Spice Classic in Orlando.
Let’s go from the conference’s best so far to the worst. That would be Auburn, which has a new head coach in Tony Barbee and a gorgeous, brand-spanking-new facility called the Auburn Arena.
But the new gym is off to an inauspicious start. The Tigers have already lost at home three times to UNC-Asheville, Samford (by double digits!) and Campbell. Ouch!
Those aren’t the only embarrassing losses for the league to date. LSU lost at home to Nicholls State by a 62-53 count on Nov. 16.
While Auburn and LSU are expected to hover around the SEC West cellar this season, Ole Miss and Mississippi St. are expected to vie for the division crown. However, the Bulldogs are without a pair of starters for the first nine games.
Junior point guard Dee Bost, who had previously started every game since stepping on campus in Starkville, was suspended by the NCAA for his failure to pull out of the NBA Draft before the deadline. Renardo Sidney, who was forced to sit out last year due to a lingering investigation by the NCAA from his days as an AAU player in high school out in California, will finally don an MSU uniform on Dec. 18 at Va. Tech.
Rick Stansbury did an excellent job of scheduling with the Bulldogs’ first nine games all coming against low-major schools like Troy, Alabama St. and North Carolina A&T. The non-conference slate gets a little boost when Bost and Sidney get back in the lineup, as they face Va. Tech, Washington St. and Saint Mary’s.
MSU has won its first two games over Tennessee St. and Appalachian St., but it has failed to cover the number in both contests. On the bright side, sharp-shooting Ravern Johnson is averaging 25.5 points per game.
Ole Miss took its first loss at home to Dayton on Nov. 20. The Rebels led by 13 at intermission and by 12 with eight minutes remaining, but the Flyers rallied to force overtime and eventually captured a 78-71 win as 6 ½-point road underdogs in Oxford.
Andy Kennedy’s team has had a lot of turnover. Terrico White bolted early for the NBA Draft, Murphy Holloway transferred to LSU and Eniel Polynice left for Seton Hall. But Ole Miss still has Chris Warren, Trevor Gaskins, Terrance Henry, Reginald Buckner and Zach Graham, and it has added Indiana transfer Nick Williams and juco recruits Steadman Short and Donald Williams.
Before losing to Dayton, the Rebels dominated Murray St. 77-61 as five-point home favorites. Graham had a game-high 22 points against the Racers, while Williams chipped in with 21 points and six rebounds. Remember, Murray St. beat Vandy in the NCAA Tournament last year and brought back all but two players from that team.
I’m not sure what to expect from Arkansas this season. The Razorbacks opened the year with a 75-52 win over Grambling in a non-lined matchup. Rotnei Clark, who is the SEC’s best pure shooter, had a game-high 20 points. Clark drained 5-of-10 from 3-point range and hit all five of his free-throw attempts.
John Pelphrey’s status in Fayetteville is on shaky ground. There have been off-the-court issues and last year’s results on the floor weren’t very good, either. Courtney Fortson was suspended for the first 14 games of last season and then left school early after averaging 17.9 points and 5.7 assists per game.
The good news is the return of Clark and sophomore power forward Marshawn Powell, who was one of the few bright spots in a 14-18 campaign. Powell was a beast in the lane as a freshman, averaging 14.9 points and 6.7 rebounds per game.
In the SEC East, Kentucky and Tennessee don’t appear to have the makings of Elite Eight squads like they were last season. Bruce Pearl has gone from the being the toast of Knoxville to fortunate that he still has a job and looking at an eight-game suspension when SEC play starts.
Up in Illinois, they must be giggling about the irony in Pearl’s punishment. Remember, when Pearl was an assistant at Iowa in the late 1980s, he ‘wore a wire’ essentially and recorded conversations with Deon Thomas. Pearl and the Iowa staff eventually turned the tapes over to the NCAA and Illinois was eventually levied with sanctions.
Now Pearl has been caught breaking the rules and lying to investigators to cover up the violations. Josh Selby, a one-time UT commitment who ended up signing with Kansas, was invited to a barbeque at Pearl’s home even though he was only a junior (an NCAA violation). Another recruit, who also spurned the Vols like Selby, was at the dinner too.
Both recruits and their parents told investigators that Pearl informed them that it was a violation and asked them to keep quiet about it. When asked about the dinner initially, Pearl lied even when he was shown a picture of the recruits at his house.
He came clean a few days later, but a great deal of damage was already done. Pearl’s contract was voided, he’s been banned from recruiting off campus for a year and the program’s momentum has taken a major hit.
Four UT starters are gone from last year’s squad that lost a heartbreaker to Michigan St. in the Midwest Region finals. Scotty Hopson is the lone starter that’s back in 2010-2011. The junior slasher has averaged 14.3 PPG in leading the Vols to a 3-0 start, although they are 1-2 ATS.
UT won’t return to the court until Nov. 30 when it hosts Middle Tennessee.
Florida is 3-1 straight up but an abysmal 0-3 ATS. The Gators jumped out to a 34-17 lead at halftime against Morehead St. on Nov. 21, but they barely held on for a 61-55 win as 14 ½-point home favorites.
Billy Donovan’s team had a three-point lead over Ohio St. at intermission of their showdown in Gainesville for ESPN’s Tip-Off Marathon. But it was all Buckeyes in the second half, as they dominated UF en route to a 93-75 triumph.
Kentucky lost five of its top six players and John Calipari’s second team took a crushing blow when international import Enes Kanter was ruled ineligible. Nevertheless, Calipari has the rest of a stellar recruiting class that includes Brandon Knight, who most believe will be the next Derrick Rose, Tyreke Evans or John Wall in terms of point-guard recruits that go pro after their freshman season with Calipari.
Knight had 21 points in a 79-48 win at Portland in which UK closed as a 5 ½-point road favorite. The Wildcats will be competing in the Maui Invitational during the Thanksgiving holidays.
Vanderbilt is certainly in the conversation as far as the team to beat in the conference. The Commodores just finished competing in the Puerto Rico Tip-Off where they faced top-tier teams like West Va. and North Carolina.
The Commodores lost a 74-71 decision to WVU, but they posted a backdoor cover as five-point underdogs after trailing by 11 at halftime. Kevin Stallings’ team beat Nebraska by a 59-49 count in the first round of the tourney.
Vandy knocked off UNC 72-65 as a four-point underdog in the finals of the event on Nov. 21. John Jenkins scored a team-high 16 points for the 'Dores, who also got 15 points apiece from Jeffery Taylor and Festus Ezeli.
South Carolina is off to a 2-1 start with its lone defeat coming at Michigan St. The Gamecocks lost by an 82-73 score but comfortably covered the spread as 17-point underdogs. They have a pair of wins over Elon College and Radford.
vegasinsider.com.