Southeastern Conference basketball stood tall over the weekend, both during the Big 12/SEC Challenge slate and with big news off the court.
Kentucky sent fair warning to the industry by going to Allen Fieldhouse and beating No. 12 Kansas 80-62. The Wildcats are back!
“We’ve won a lot of games against ranked teams – in all kinds of different ways,” Kentucky coach John Calipari told reporters. “I’ve been doing this for a long time and I’ve been in a lot of these games on the road where it’s Game Day. I said to the team, ‘All the pressure is on the other team. If you play during 40 minutes, watch what happens.
So, yeah, Coach Cal is feeling great again.
No. 1 Auburn crushed Oklahoma 86-68, to no one’s surprise, and enigmatic Alabama stunned No. 4 Baylor 87-78 to significantly improve their NCAA Tournament seeding potential.
“By beating last year’s national championship, another Final Four team, we’re now 3-0 against Final Four teams,” Alabama coach Nate Oats said. “It’s funny. Losing to teams like Georgia, Missouri, some of the others that maybe we should have played better against, even Memphis, like that, it’s not fun. So let’s play hard. C It’s much more fun to play hard and get wins.
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While Tennessee lost a heartbreak to Texas and the big-money LSU team fell flat against TCU, Arkansas (over West Virginia), Florida (over State of Oklahoma) and Ole Miss (over Kansas State) each had wins that spoke to the depth of SEC basketball. .
And then there was the Bruce Pearl news flash: With pundits linking Pearl to the high-profile Louisville opener, Auburn secured him with an eight-year, $50.2 million deal.
That money, plus the freedom to do whatever it takes to build talent, should see Pearl finish his career at Auburn.
It’s one more reminder of what the top tier of the SEC looks like. Auburn isn’t just a football school — as Pearl gleefully noted as it climbed to No. 1 in the polls — and it just reaffirmed that with this significant investment.
Here’s what people were writing about the Big 12/SEC Challenge:
Gary Parris, CBSSports.com: “TyTy Washington was far from great. He took nine shots, missed eight and finished with just two points. A triumphant comeback, it wasn’t. But he played! Which means the Kentucky was able to start and finish with their lethal backcourt healthy and available.And what’s becoming increasingly clear as this season progresses is that the Wildcats are capable of beating anyone – and maybe anybody wrong – when their lethal backcourt is healthy and available. What a performance. Final score: Kentucky 80, Kansas 62. The Wildcats led by no less than 24 points on the road and never let Kansas come closer than 14 points in the second half. They exposed the Jayhawks’ just OK defense while shooting 50.8 percent from the field. The blowout win improved the UK to 17-4 on aggregate – including a 14-2 record when Washington and Sahvir Wheeler are healthy enough to start and finish.
Jon Hale, Louisville Mail Journal: “ESPN parenthesisologist Joe Lunardi ranked Kentucky as the No. 3 seed early in the afternoon, but the biggest hole in the Wildcats’ resume was the lack of wins at the top level. Kentucky missed the chance to win statements at LSU and Auburn when injuries to Sahvis Wheeler and TyTy Washington left the Wildcats shorthanded in both games, but a full-strength Kentucky team certainly looks like the one of the four best in the country in Laurent. Kentucky is now 3-3 in Quadrant 1 games (NET top 25 at home, top 50 at neutral sites and top 75 on the road) with six more Quadrant 1 games on the regular season schedule. The NCAA Tournament Selection Committee can’t give Kentucky credit for the wins it didn’t get, but the team’s record at full strength is hard to fault. There are still plenty of opportunities for Kentucky to take this decision out of the hands of the committee. Take care of business in the remaining road games and marquee home contests against LSU and Alabama, and Kentucky will have a resume that compares to almost any.
Nick Kelly, News from Tuscaloosa: “Few challenges can motivate a team like a deadline. Alabama’s basketball season shot clock had yet to reach the final seconds. An uprising of despair had not been necessary, for the moment. But the longer the Crimson Tide continued to put on lackluster performances in January, the louder the ticking of the clock seemed to get. “We’re running out of time,” Alabama coach Nate Oats said Friday. “I think the awareness is there. We just need to see it now. Take it as seen. After losing to the worst team in the SEC earlier in the week, Alabama basketball has managed to upset one of the best teams in the country.
Matt Norlander, CBSSports.com: “There are no by predicting what Alabama will do, and when it’s time for the NCAA Tournament, you’ll have peace the sooner you accept that this team will do their best to destroy your support. Alabama (14-7) is the most temperamental team in the country. Alabama (5-1 against ranked opponents) is also one of the best teams in the country. Oh! Also: Alabama (losers to Georgia, Missouri and Memphis) is, nicely, one of the worst performing teams in the nation. These guys contain multitudes, man. “I told our guys before the game, ‘We have to get back to having fun,’ Alabama coach Nate Oats said Saturday night, later adding, ‘When things go wrong, keep going. player. If ever a credo suits this team, it’s this one. Alabama had a good time on Saturday, as did most non-Baylor fans who watched the Tide take on the fourth-place Bears. The underdog Crimson Tide provided arguably the most spirited win of the weekend with their 87-78 dispatch of Baylor. The victory comes days from a disconcerting loss on the road to modest Georgia. Oats’ team now has six wins in Quadrant 1. The only team with more: the one Bama beat on Saturday. Baylor has seven. Alabama also suffers two heavy losses in Quad 3. No team has a resume with extremes like that. To add to the confusion, this school won the SEC regular season and postseason titles a year ago, earned a No. 2 seed in the NCAA Tournament, and brought home a good chunk of the roster that helped make 2020-21 one of the best years in program history.
Andy Witry, NCAA.com: “No. 19 LSU entered Saturday with the most effective defense in the nation, according to kenpom.com. The Tigers, who force a turnover on about a quarter of their opponents’ possessions and held their opponents to 27% of 3-point shots, gave up their fourth game in five games Saturday, as unranked TCU beat LSU 77-68 at Fort Worth in the most points a team has scored against LSU this season, beating the previous high water mark of 70 points, which Auburn and Alabama both reached in wins over LSU.The Horned Frogs shot just 27% from three — consistent with LSU’s season average – and they committed 13 turnovers, but TCU shot nearly 60% from 2-point range as Chuck O’Bannon and Mike Miles each scored a game-high 19 points. TCU also maxed out their second-chance opportunities with 13 offensive rebounds on 28 missed shots. It was arguably the biggest win of the season for TCU, a week after the Horned Frogs beat the Iowa State Cyclones on the road. TCU is now 14-4, while LSU fell to 16-5 after starting 12-0.
MYSTERIES OF THE UNIVERSE
Questions to ponder while wondering why the Kansas City Chiefs offense folded in the second half against Cincinnati:
- With the Rams set to host the Super Bowl in Inglewood, are bitter NFL fans in the STL holding out hope for an earthquake?
- Will the Missouri Tigers spend a lot of time practicing this week to get the basketball from back court to front court in under 10 seconds?
- Will Jordan Binnington spend his 10-day break in goalkeeping camp?
“It was huge, especially after the loss to Georgia. I mean, the coaching staff, going into the game against Georgia, said, ‘It’s kind of a must win here at Georgia,’ after watching the next three and then we lost it so we really needed to get one here it was big I spoke to the ESPN guys at our shootout and they said after every metric they could figure out, that three-game streak is the toughest three-game streak for anyone in the country all year.
Oats, beating Baylor with games against Auburn and Kentucky next.