SEC Commissioner Mike Slive might have been hoping that when college football season ends, he would not have to be issuing weekly warnings to his high profile coaches to watch their mouths. But it looks more like he will be chiding coaches some time into April.
The addition of John Calipari at Kentucky means the SEC coaching family gatherings promise to be more entertaining. Calipari has never been one to build warm relationships with other coaches in his conference (right, John Chaney?). His soured relationship with Rick Pitino should make his meetings with Florida's Billy Donovan more interesting.
The warm and special relationship that was built during his time at Memphis, with Tennessee's Bruce Pearl will undoubtedly produce the most entertainment. .
As Chas Rich pointed out earlier, The Tampa Trap was indeed a record-setting string of games. But the least surprising of the four contests that saw lower (much lower) seeded teams advancing was Siena's win over Vanderbilt. Now, it's easy to say in hindsight, but if you had a bracket that included Vandy advancing in the tournament, you must not have been looking at the Commodores' body of work this season.
Vanderbilt was unbeatable at home -- litteraly. The Commies ran through their home schedule unscathed, including their much-heralded win over then number-one Tennessee. But away from Memorial Gym was another story for the 'Dores as they were a pedestrian 7-7 (now 7-8) away from the TheatreDome they call a home court; apparently they feel handicapped when the benches aren't somewhere in the side orchestra section.
Had Vanderbilt beaten Siena, the Saints would have been the highest-ranked team Vandy beat away from home, according to RPI. Naturally there are ways other than RPI to judge a team, but the Commodores hadn't beaten anyone of note RPI-wise away from home all year.
If the tournament was held at Memorial Gym, Vandy would cruise to the championship. But for whatever reason, they just couldn't do anything away form their own floor. Looking back is easy, but it's clear: if you didn't have Vanderbilt losing, you hadn't been paying attention.
Round 1 in Tampa was brutal for the higher seed teams. Epic, record-setting even. Two 4-13 games and two 5-12 games. In all four, the double digit seeds won. That has never happened before in the NCAA Tournament.
On Sunday, Tampa will have two 12-13 matchups. UConn, Drake, Vandy and Clemson all tumble to San Diego, Western Kentucky, Siena and Villanova. In fact, there hasn't been a 12-13 game in the second round since 2001 -- Indiana State-Gonzaga. Now there are two at one site.
It just screams statistical anomaly, but everyone is still waiting for that 1-16 upset.
You'll be overloaded with expert opinions on filling out your brackets over the next three days. Pick and choose at your own peril, everyone's got their opinions and things they look for, but at the end of the day few people have a foolproof system for winning you the praise of your friends and officemates.
Still, everyone's looking for an edge and, in that spirit, I point you toward Vegas Watch. They've uncovered a pretty significant trend when it comes to home/road splits and what they tell you about a team's chances at success in the tournament. If you're really into the math behind the findings, you should click there or Teamrankings.com, but I'll summarize the findings.
They took the top six seeds from 1999-2006 and found the ones with the biggest split between their home and road power ratings. The results aren't good for teams who did their best work at home. They won 0.5 fewer games than expected while road warriors won 0.24 more games than projected. They also found that five teams since '99 were seeded 1-6 and finished in the top 20 at home and below 50 on the road. None of those teams made it past the second round.
Four of the top six ranked teams in the nation have one thing in common: Interstate 40.
You can get to the universities of North Carolina (Chapel Hill), Duke (Durham), Tennessee (Knoxville) and Memphis using the interstate. Three of those schools have been #1 for most of the year ... with Duke hitting as high as #2.
Oh, and these schools have wore a path on I-40. Tennessee (well, they flew) and Memphis faced off in a #1 vs #2 battle that the Vols won. Duke and UNC played earlier this month (a #2 vs #3 game), with their next meeting coming on March 8th.
Don't forget about Vanderbilt (Nashville) who is 24-4, ranked #14 and just knocked off #1 Tennessee. Wake Forest (Winston-Salem) and New Mexico (Albuquerque) are bubble teams hunting for an at-large bid.
You also have UNC Asheville, who at 20-8 is the biggest threat to unseat Winthrop in the Big South Conference. They also have some talking point of a 7-9 center, Kenny George. UNC Wilmington (third in the Colonial) and Arkansas-Little Rock (second in the Sun Belt West division) could make the NCAA tournament if they get some good fortune in their conference tournaments.
December 16 at the Sommet Center in Nashville South Florida-Vanderbilt Marquette-Tennessee
December 18 at U.S. Bank Arena in Cincinnati Mississippi St.-Cincinnati Ole Miss-Louisville
Since this "Invitational" is effectively operated and controlled by ESPN, the exciting press actually made the ESPN network crawls as news this evening. This series is a half-hearted effort from both conferences to have their own conference challenge like the ACC-Big 10 and now the Pac-10-Big 12 have. Except, with very limited involvement.
The first year was not exactly a ringing success with half-empty arenas at the semi-neutral sites. This time they might actually sell-out with a good Marquette-Tennessee game and the teams playing in Cincinnati
They blew the chance to make at least one really interesting match-up among the teams -- and guaranteeing coverage. Ole Miss facing Cinci instead of Louisville would have been much more interesting. The Rebels are coached by Andy Kennedy who served as an assistant at Cinci and was the interim coach for the year after Bob Huggins was fired from Cinci. That would have been a meaningful game.
"Gonna free fall out into nothin'... gonna leave this world for a while... " -Tom Petty
I seem to remember having this discussion about Vanderbilt in the preseason. It went something like this:
"They're so overrated it hurts. They'll be lucky to go .500 in conference. You can't win in the SEC with defense like that."
At the time Vanderbilt was ranked in the Top 15 and was sporting a nifty, perfect 16-0 record and a 1-0 start to conference play.
Since then, they've played five games and lost four of them. The Commodores lost @ Kentucky, @ Tennessee, @ Florida and as of last night, @ Ole Miss. Their lone win came over LSU.
Losing four road games to two ranked opponents (the Vols and Ole Miss are both Top 25 teams) and a team on the rise (Florida, which is now ranked #19 in the AP Poll) in a "murderer's row" scheduling stretch shouldn't be enough to cause the Vandy faithful to go running for the panic button. But losing three of those four games in blowout fashion should. The 'Dores were hammered 80-60 by Tennessee, 86-64 by Florida and 74-58 by Ole Miss for a combined losing differential of 58 points in three games.
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?
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.
No offense, Vandy fans, but the Commodores weren't nearly as good as their record indicated before they were beaten like a drum by Tennessee last week.
And don't forget that a 7-8 Kentucky squad beat 'em the week prior.
So forgive me if I take Vandy's 92-76 drubbing of John Brady's Tigers as just another validation of LSU's suckitude rather than a sign that Vanderbilt's slide has ended.
The Commodores were able to win by 16 points despite Shan Foster's 1-11 performance from behind the 3-point arc.
As for LSU, kunior guard Marcus Thornton was a stud for the Tigers, scoring 27 points.
And... that's about it. LSU is really bad. That will be all.
Caution: Tonight's Tennessee-Vanderbilt game is an "orange-blazer special" for Bruce Pearl. Have appropriate eye protection available at all times.
Tennessee has a unique opportunity before them when they take on Vanderbilt in Knoxville tonight -- they have a chance to out-rebound two opponents in a row. Might not sound like much, but the Vols haven't out-rebounded two straight opponents since playing NC A&T and UL-Lafayette to close out November. In fact, before last Saturday's win over South Carolina, UT hadn't won a rebounding battle against anyone since beating up on ULL. So if Tennessee can in fact win the rebound battle against Vanderbilt (UT averages about two less rebounds a game), that will be a nice little feather in their cap.
The good news for Tennessee, though, is that despite getting their glass kicked on a regular basis, they've still managed to win all but one game this year -- largely because what they lose on the boards they make up for in defense (UT is second nationally in seals/game). The Commies only have one loss, too. But according to Pomeroy's rankings, VU still isn't on the level of some of the teams Tennessee has already beaten this year, a point not lost on The BruceBall Blog:
The Vols have played 5 teams that are ranked higher in pythag than Vandy (63) is, and Western Kentucky (72) and South Carolina (76) aren't far behind. Vanderbilt hasn't beaten anyone worth mentioning, either. The best teams they've played are Kentucky (62), South Alabama (68), and South Carolina, and they're 2-1 against them, beating South Alabama (in double OT) and South Carolina at home by a combined 11 points and losing at Kentucky (in double OT).
For Vanderbilt, the more important rebound will be in their collective head rather than on the boards. Vandy needed to beat Kentucky last weekend for two reasons: 1) they're a better team and 2) it makes a splash nationally to go into Rupp and walk out with a win. But they didn't.
NCAA Basketball 
SEC Commissioner Mike Slive might have been hoping that when college football season ends, he would not have to be issuing weekly warnings to his high profile coaches to watch their mouths. But it looks more like he will be chiding coaches some time into April.
As Chas Rich pointed out earlier, 
Round 1 in Tampa was brutal for the higher seed teams. Epic, record-setting even. Two 4-13 games and two 5-12 games. In all four, the double digit seeds won. That has never happened before in the NCAA Tournament.
You'll be overloaded with expert opinions on filling out your brackets over the next three days. Pick and choose at your own peril, everyone's got their opinions and things they look for, but at the end of the day few people have a foolproof system for winning you the praise of your friends and officemates. 
Four of the top six 
The Big East, SEC and ESPN have already decided on the 8 teams that will participate in the 
"Gonna free fall out into nothin'... gonna leave this world for a while... " -Tom Petty
Each weekday, 
No offense, Vandy fans, but the Commodores weren't nearly as good as their record indicated before they were beaten like a drum by Tennessee last week.
Caution: Tonight's Tennessee-Vanderbilt game is an "orange-blazer special" for 
