SEC coaching

Rick Ray is out, Ben Howland is in at Mississippi State.

Anthony Grant is out, Gregg Marshall is in at Alabama?  Not as likely as some think, but the Tide are going to make a run.

If it happened though, the SEC would have John Calipari, Bruce Pearl, Howland, and Marshall.  Those are some high-profile college basketball coaches in a conference many consider to be a hoops-afterthought.

How you feel about all of this likely depends on how you feel about Coach Fox.  If you have confidence that Fox is on the right track, it should excite you.  A better SEC is good for Georgia.  If, however, you still aren't sold on Fox, I suspect you find yourself a little queasy right about now...

[ESPN]

The stretch run

I am of the belief that 4 more wins will punch Georgia's ticket to the tournament.  That means a .500 finish to conference play.

Using Daniel Shirley's latest power poll as a guide, Georgia's remaining schedule looks like this:

@ #2 Texas A&M

vs. #12 Auburn

vs. #13 South Carolina

@ #10 Alabama

@ #5 Ole Miss

vs. #14 Missouri

vs. #1 Kentucky

@ #12 Auburn

The equation changes for the worse if Georgia drops one of the home games against Auburn, South Carolina, or Auburn, and for the better if they knock off Kentucky, but you have to like the Bulldogs' chances as of right now.  Win a tough game on the road tomorrow night, and things will look downright rosy...

[Ledger-Enquirer]

Call it a comeback?

Even the staunchest SEC homer would have to admit the last few years have not been good on the hardwood.  It's been Kentucky, Florida, and...well...not much else.  That seems to be changing:

“If you take into consideration our records, the wins that we have, it’s the No. 1 strength of schedule as a conference across the board, it’s No. 3 RPI . . . our league’s good,” South Carolina’s Frank Martin said. “I can care less what the popular opinion is.”

That Florida - highly regarded in the preseason - has struggled so far has masked the fact that, top to bottom, the SEC has quite a few quality basketball teams.  The general public may not have taken note yet, but the pundits are starting to:

ESPN analyst Joe Lunardi had five SEC teams in his bracket, including Georgia at No. 10. Jerry Palm of CBSsports.com also has Georgia at No. 10, and has four SEC teams in. Palm leaves out South Carolina, but Lunardi has the Gamecocks in.

For a team like Georgia, trying to play its way to an at-large berth, the news couldn't be better.  A weak conference means the margin for error is razor thin.  Last year, even 12 conference wins couldn't get Georgia to the dance (of course, 6 non-conference losses had something to do with that).  This year, 10 might do the trick thanks to overall league strength.

The flip side, of course, is that league wins will be harder to come by this season because of the resurgence.

The hope for the Bulldogs is that their veteran team gives them an advantage heading into conference play:

“This time last year, obviously we were still trying to find ourselves,” senior forward Marcus Thornton said. “This year, we kind of an idea of who we are, but feel like we can keep getting better.”

If Marcus is right, a second round game in Charlotte or Jacksonville becomes more real every day.

SEC strength, part 2

Another look at the national perception of SEC hoops.  It starts with a reminder that Bruce Pearl may have been a bit overconfident in his return to coaching:

Exactly seven weeks ago today, new Auburn basketball coach Bruce Pearl said of the Southeastern Conference's NCAA tournament prospects this coming March, "This year I guarantee five, and I think there could be as many as six, NCAA teams."

Roughly a month into the season, it again appears as if the conference might be closer to last year's three invitees than Pearl's hoped-for six.

The early RPI numbers back that up:

Even the RPI numbers hint of an SEC again in flux. Though eight schools are among RealTime RPI's first 69, any team past 40 is living on the edge, and half of those eight are doing just that -- Ole Miss (69), Mississippi State (63), South Carolina (61) and A&M (56) all outside the comfort zone currently enjoyed by UK (2), LSU (20), Arkansas (21) and Alabama (35).

As we approach conference play, the SEC really, really needs some quality out-of-conference wins to boost their collective RPI.  Our own Georgia Bulldogs could help with that by beating Seton Hall - currently sitting at 19 in the daily RPI rankings.

The article, by the way, never mentions Georgia, which means they are still somehow flying under the radar despite finishing tied for second in the conference last year.  The only way to change that is by doing it all over again.

h/t Chattanooga Times Free Press

The SEC is...average?

True story:  I was traveling to Detroit for work, and the hotel I booked sent out an email to welcome me.  In the note, the manager said their motto was, "Detroit:  it's not as bad as you thought!"

I went to check on the SEC's conference ranking tonight, and I expected to find bad news.  The conference has seemed less-than-stellar thusfar.  The answer, though, is that the SEC is not as bad as I thought.

Here are the conference RPI rankings from realtimerpi.com:

Rank		Conference	Avg. RPI	Avg. SOS	SOS Rank	Teams
	1	Big 12	0.6221	0.5597	2	10
	2	Big Ten	0.6031	0.5522	3	14
	3	Big East	0.5852	0.5228	7	10
	4	Atlantic Coast	0.5808	0.5471	5	15
	5	Southeastern	0.5753	0.5615	1	14
	6	Atlantic 10	0.5491	0.5398	6	14
	7	Pacific-12	0.5482	0.4876	19	12
	8	West Coast	0.5454	0.5149	12	10
	9	Missouri Valley	0.5442	0.5495	4	10
	10	American Athletic	0.5274	0.5060	14	11

Last year the SEC finished 7th, so that's a tick up.  You'll notice the strength of schedule is helping quite a bit.

The caveat, of course, is that it's very, very early, and there could still be some wild swings (Green Bay is currently 4th in team RPI).  However, it's an encouraging start, because a strong SEC is good for Georgia, who is going to need three or four quality wins to get into the tournament.

A couple can certainly come out of conference (Colorado and Seton Hall would be a great start), but Georgia will need some SEC teams with high RPI's on the schedule, and they'll have to beat those teams.  So plug your nose and root for Kentucky, Florida, Arkansas, and LSU.  Then hope we can get at least three wins out of that group when conference play rolls around.

Attrition in Nashville

Vanderbilt gets just a little bit weaker.

Kedren Johnson and Dai-Jon Parker (coveted greatly by Georgia fans coming out of high school) aren't major pieces, by any means, but Vandy also isn't a team overflowing with quality depth.

Georgia plays Vanderbilt twice this season.  For whatever reason, Mark Fox has struggled to beat Kevin Stallings' coached teams.  2015 would be a great time to get over that hump.

h/t ESPN

Schedule released

The SEC schedule is (almost) official:

Tue. Jan. 6 Arkansas
Sat. Jan. 10 at LSU
Wed. Jan. 14 at Vanderbilt
Sat. Jan. 17 Florida
Wed. Jan. 21 Ole Miss
Sat. Jan. 24 at Mississippi State
Wed. Jan. 28 Vanderbilt
Sat. Jan. 31 at South Carolina
Wed. Feb. 4 at Kentucky
Sat. Feb. 7 Tennessee
Wed. Feb. 11 at Texas A&M
Sat. Feb. 14 Auburn
Wed. Feb. 18 South Carolina
Sat. Feb. 21 at Alabama
Wed. Feb. 25 at Ole Miss
Sat. Feb. 28 Missouri
Tue March 3 Kentucky
Sat. March 7 at Auburn

The Dawgs play Vanderbilt, South Carolina, Ole Miss, Kentucky, and Auburn twice each.  Not a bad draw at all.  Also, both Florida and Kentucky make trips to Stegeman, so attendance should get a nice shot in the arm.

A 3-0 start in conference would certainly be sweet before the showdown with Florida.

Every road game aside from Kentucky looks very winnable.  In light of the fact that Georgia won every conference home game last season (aside from the head-scratcher against Vanderbilt that still has me shuddering), all of those should be winnable as well, including Kentucky.

It's certainly a schedule that can get a team to the tournament, so scratch that from the list of potential excuses.

h/t Marc Weiszer

A new day

I have mixed feelings about Bruce Pearl.  On the one hand, he's a cheater, a liar, and a snitch.  On the other hand, he's a good basketball coach and an entertainer.

My feelings about John Calipari can wait for another day.

I do not, however, have mixed feelings about their desire to raise the profile of SEC basketball.

Those of you who can remember about a decade ago will know that the SEC is capable of fielding some pretty good basketball teams.  Kentucky, Florida, Tennessee, and Georgia all trotted out quite a bit of talent in the early 2000's.  Throw in Mississippi State, LSU, and even Auburn occasionally and you had a conference that was competitive at a national level.

Fast-forward to today and the SEC is a talented-but-top-heavy conference with big dreams:

"This is as focused as I've seen this league and these coaches and the programs and the ADs in how do we move this ball forward," Kentucky coach John Calipari said. "We had three teams in the Elite Eight, two teams in the Final Four, a team in the national championship game and still ... come on now. Our goal is let's get half of our teams in within the next three years and two of us playing for a national championship."

What Calipari understands is that a good SEC is good for everyone in the conference.  There is a very real chance that Kentucky will go 16-0 in conference next year.  Wouldn't it be better if they did that in a conference that wasn't a national punchline?

Enter non-conference scheduling:

Better nonconference schedules could help. The league hired former NCAA tournament guru Greg Shaheen as a scheduling consultant last year.

Shaheen made his second consecutive trip to the annual SEC meetings this week, giving detailed presentations to coaches and athletic directors. It's essentially scheduling analytics, which show coaches that who they play in November and December affects everyone they play -- fellow SEC teams -- in January and February.

I have to wonder what those presentations looked like.  Did he show Mark Fox an Appalachian State logo with a big frowny face next to it?

This isn't rocket science:

"If every program just took the bottom-feeder off its schedule -- just one bottom-feeder -- then we go from seventh in RPI to second," Pearl said. "What's best for the league is what's best for the upper half of the league. Let's look at the best playing against the best because that's what fans want, that's what television wants and that ultimately is going to get us more teams in the tournament."

The aforementioned Appalachian State finished with an RPI of 336 last year.  Scheduling can be difficult, I know, but Georgia should not be playing teams with an RPI of 336 (and in case you're curious, last year it was Jacksonville, at 331).

Mark Fox has definitely gotten this message.  The non-conference schedule this coming season is tough, but not brutal.  It is good enough to set up a tournament run, and ultimately, having teams in the dance is the best way to raise the conference profile.

h/t ESPN

SEC files

File this one under "it could be worse" if you're a Georgia basketball fan:

A former Missouri player is seeking a protection order against Zach Price, who remains suspended from the team after being arrested twice for allegedly assaulting his roommate and a woman.

The Columbia Daily Tribune reported Wednesday that Earnest Ross filed the petition in Boone County Circuit Court on April 2. Price was arrested twice the next day after reportedly first ramming his car into another vehicle and then in a later encounter with the pair. Police say he hit his male roommate in the face then pushed the woman to the ground.

The restraining order request identifies Ross as the roommate and his girlfriend as the other victim.

Hey, we got problems.  But we don't got Missouri problems.

h/t ESPN

Overmatched

When I said Georgia had no room for error, that's what I meant.  It may not even be a stretch to say Georgia had the better team today.  Kentucky, however, had the better players.

Georgia has one or two players that can take over a game.  We saw Nemi get hot at Missouri.  We saw Kenny Gaines run off 8 straight against Ole Miss in Athens.  Both of those guys should be back and better next year, but neither of them had it today.

Kentucky has 5 or 6 players that can take over a game, and today it was Aaron Harrison.  Tomorrow it might be his brother...it might be Randle...it might be Poythress...

There is a lot to like about Georgia right now.  The fight and the want-to are there.  Some real talent is returning next year.  Now it's on Fox (assuming he stays) to take this thing to the next level.  We'll talk a lot in the coming weeks about what that means, but for now, I hope our players are proud of what they've accomplished.

The NIT bracket comes out tomorrow night after the NCAA bracket is announced.  Let's hope there's a Georgia home game so we can Rock the Steg one more time this season.

Attendance Woes

Basketball attendance is down in the SEC.

The most surprising thing about that list?  South Carolina's attendance is up 17%.  If you've watched much Gamecock basketball this year, you know that's a hard number to explain.

Georgia is up 4%.  Make of that what you will.  I doubt it has McGarity doing cartwheels around Butts-Mehre though.

There is one bit of good news:

Potential NIT home games could still impact the SEC average.

I guess that's the consolation prize for filling up the NIT...

h/t Jon Solomon