Blue Dynasty
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I Root For: Kentucky
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RE: We need an SEC basketball thread
(02-08-2015 10:43 AM)JRsec Wrote: (02-08-2015 01:24 AM)Blue Dynasty Wrote: I bet you couldn't guess which of the 14 teams I am a fan of based on the thread title :)
Texas A&M has impressed me, and I believe are currently in sole possession of 2nd place in the league, winners of 7 of 8. They and Ole Miss both have taken off after their close losses to UK, and are playing like tournament teams. Both Kennedys are doing outstanding work.
South Carolina looked great for a while, then hit a wall, Tennessee looked ahead of schedule under Tyndall but not sure what his deal will make for UT's future.
Didn't think Florida was a top-10 team before the season, but expected them to at least be Top 25 and am disappointed in how they've looked - yeah, they lost four key players from last year, but they still have the second most talented roster in the league overall, in my opinion, though the Bayou Bengals and Hawgs certainly have talented rosters too.
Two of the teams expected to be among the 3 or 4 worst in the league are making strides, and that's because they have hands-down two of the best coaches in the league, Vanderbilt and Auburn. Neither will be close to an automatic win for anyone the rest of the season, imo.
I still think Arkansas is probably the second best team in league, with apologies to TAMU who currently have the slot in the standings, and look forward to seeing them continue their re-emergence to the Nolan days.
Georgia and LSU both have the ability/matchup style to pick UK off in the games they play, I thought on paper they would be the two toughest games for UK headed into conference, and still believe that, despite LSU dropping a couple they shouldn't have in conference play thus far - of course we all do that from time to time, and it makes us hear all the "no one in the SEC is really any good" stuff we hear, though they pick each other as much as just about any other conference. Both should be tourney teams, and deservedly so.
I don't know about Alabama, I feel like they should be better than they are, and I honestly was surprised Anthony Grant made it to this year. Still have a high ceiling for the future there.
Missouri and Mississippi State - hang in there guys - both teams have shown improvement from the start of the season. Missouri in particular has the ability to improve in a hurry in the next couple years.
Does anyone else here watch basketball? Or am I on a lonely Big Blue island?!
I agree with your assessments. What I would add is that the ACC is over rated outside of Virginia, and the Big 10 has a wide middle with little at the top. I'm not so sure that Kentucky would be any worse off playing a Big 10 or ACC schedule this year with the exception of Virginia and even then I like the Wildcats chances just on talent alone.
Parity has come to college basketball in the same doses that it has hit college football. While that makes for an interesting regular season, it doesn't leave us with much of a feeling about tournament which I believe will be the most difficult to seed in recent memory. The top 8 might be reasonably decided but beyond that the rest of the 57 will be tough to justify one way or the other.
As for the blue bloods of hoops Kansas is not stellar, nor is U.N.C., Syracuse, Pittsburgh, Connecticut, Michigan State, Ohio State, Michigan, Indiana, U.C.L.A., Arizona, Louisville, Gonzaga, Butler, V.C.U., or many of the other tourney darlings of recent years. IMO it is the Cat's year to take it unless they give it away. They just need to avoid a U.N.L.V. style let down in the tourney.
There are some saying the SEC might land as many as 6 this year. We'll see. But at least the talk about our schools isn't as negative as it has been in the recent past. Last year's tournament should have given us more cred in my opinion. We had half of the final four and almost had 3/4's of it. But like in football the biggest reason I believe we have parity is because most of the freshman I've seen have no fundamental skills. Too many of our high schools build a season around 1 stud and four guys who aren't terrible. So the stars that arrive at our campuses aren't familiar at all with the ballet that can be basketball. They aren't trained to move the ball around, spot an open man when they are doubled, run a pick, or for that matter handle the physical level of play which is much more intense at the college level. I think that is why it took a year for the Harrison twins to assert themselves as fully as they have this year. Oh well, we'll see.
Agree wholeheartedly with your thoughts, JR, re: parity in general, lost fundamentals, and the lopsided logic every single year on the SEC compared to rest. Definitely agree that the ACC is overrated as a whole, I mean the league is obviously good to have five teams ranked, but they act like it's like running through the meat grinder the SEC is in football - it's not. The ranked teams are good, though agreed individually all are probably overrated other than UVa and Duke, who when playing right, is as good as anybody. There are two or three more are capable of getting you on a good night for them (Miami, NC State, maybe Syracuse), the rest of the league is pretty terrible imo. Miami is a good example of a double-standard, they go into Cameron Indoor and beat up on Duke, and talk about how maybe Miami should be ranked, and the ACC is a grinder - swept under the rug is when EKU beat Miami by 28 earlier in the year. It happens - doesn't mean Miami is completely terrible, but does show a lack of consistency when similar things happen in other leaagues. Big Ten has one great team (Wisc) one team with a good ranking though how good remains to be seen (UMd), and a bunch of middling teams, as you said. Not that there's anything wrong with that. But it is what it is.
It's just funny to me the abuse the SEC takes most years, when in the highly thought of Big 12, Texas Tech, who is perhaps the worst P5 team in any league this year, beats Iowa State, it's because "anybody can beat anybody in this league, they're all good". Auburn beats LSU, both teams get thrown under the bus and backed over, can't be because AU has one of the best Xs and Os coaches in America and one of the best scorers in America, and had a good night in the Bayou.
I'm a UK fan, ergo, I am a basketball nut. I watch it as much as I can, on all the low-rated networks on my system, up to the major nationally televised games, I take in as much as I can. I'd like to think I am pretty knowledgeable on the game and in comparing our teams to the rest that's out there. The SEC has as many tournament-capable teams as any league. We deserved more than just UK, UF and UT last year, and hopefully we get twice that amount this year as you mentioned. UK, Arky, LSU, TAMU, Ole Miss, UGa, all look like March teams to me, and UT and SC had tournament resumes before hitting the skids a bit recently. And that's not counting the team that was expected to not only make it, but be a 2 or 3 seed going into the season, Florida. I am really hoping for 6, would be great for our league.
(This post was last modified: 02-08-2015 03:30 PM by Blue Dynasty.)
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