SEC Daily W: Florida, Mississippi State the Teams to Watch

Each weekday, The Daily W looks at the Who, What, Where, When, or Whys of SEC basketball. Today's question:

Who would have thought that, in late January, we'd have a weekend where the two most important games featured the Mississippi schools, Vanderbilt, and Florida?

And yet, that's what we got this past weekend. State's 88-68 win over Ole Miss and the Gators blowout of Vandy iced it: we've been following the wrong teams from the Magnolia State and Eastern division all along.

It was supposed to be a rebuilding year for Florida, but if the Gators can hold off Arkansas this weekend, next week's game against Tennessee will go a long way toward deciding the SEC Eastern division. The Gators have put themselves in this position by getting phenomenal play from freshman starters Jai Lucas and Nick Calathes, but also got a career-high 19 from Walter Hodge against the Commodores (as a junior in a lineup made from freshmen and sophomores, Hodge qualifies as an "old man").

The Gators looked good but untested in non-conference play, losing the only two games they played against teams with a pulse (Florida State and Ohio State). But they're being tested now that the SEC season has cranked up, and answering the bell in stunning fashion. Other than an increasingly inexplicable loss to Ole Miss, the Gators look lights-out in conference play, with a league-best 81.5 points/game, and tremendous production from freshmen Calathes (41 assists to only 15 turnovers in SEC games) and Lucas (11 of 18 from behind the arc in SEC play). This team is not rebuilding, they're redefining what expectations should be when a school wins consecutive championships.

On the other side of the conference, Ryan Ferguson already tabbed Mississippi State as the best in the West, and he's probably right.
Ole Miss' undefeated start was pretty, but consider: State and Ole Miss shared two common opponents before January (Clemson and South Alabama). The Rebels won those games by a combined six points while MSU lost both by a total of ten -- the Bulldogs weren't that far off the pace their neighbors to the north were setting. Sure, State suffered some ugly early-season losses, but they apparently learned to deal with adversity and are coming together as a team.

Now the Bulldogs are not only getting scoring from starters as Ferguson pointed out, but they've also found a bench (freshman Riley Benock hit four 3s against the Rebels) and are getting defense from everybody. According to Pomeroy, State is first in both effective field goal defense and block percentage, meaning that if you get a shot off against them you're either going to miss it or have it planted back in your grill.

Interestingly , MSU and Florida have similar upcoming schedules State goes to Arkansas and hosts Tennessee this week, while the Gators visit both in the next 10 days, so we'll see if either or both teams can keep their roll going in some tough games.