1. The SEC doesn’t take holidays off as the league announced its SEC Men’s Players of the Week. Mississippi State’s Arnett Moultrie was named the Player of the Week after averaging 19 points, 8.5 rebounds, and 2.5 blocks last week. Moultrie had a monster game against Alabama with 25 points and 13 rebounds. He is tied for an SEC best with nine double-doubles. The Freshman of the Week was Kentucky’s Anthony Davis. Davis is closing in on the single season blocks record at UK as he added eight blocks this week. The 6’11” center averaged 16 points, seven rebounds, four blocks, 2.5 steals, and two assists per game. He has scored in double figures in seven straight games.
2. Florida’s Patric Young is scheduled for both an MRI and an X-ray this week for his injured ankle. The injury limited him to four points and three rebounds (the article states Young grabbed four rebounds, but he only had three) on just two attempted shots and only 13 minutes of action. Gators coach Billy Donovan doesn’t consider the injury to be serious though. “My main concern with him is conditioning because he has been limited in practice,” Donovan said. While Young was limited to a season low 13 minutes of action, he somehow managed to pick up four fouls.
3. Former Ole Miss guard Dundrecous Nelson, who was dismissed from the team following drug charges, is transferring to Jackson State. Nelson was averaging 11.6 points per game in 14 games for the Rebels, but was turning the ball over 2.3 times per contest. He was replaced in the starting lineup as Andy Kennedy looked for a steady point guard to lead his team. Kennedy still hasn’t found the answer though as Ole Miss averages 16.8 turnovers per game, which is worst in the SEC.
4. Don’t look now, but Vanderbilt may have quietly turned a corner into the second best team in the conference. The Commodores are on a seven-game winning streak, and they are improving on previous areas of concern. Typically, teams that are extremely reliant on the three-point shot have difficulty finding other ways to score when long range shots aren’t falling. On the season the Commodores average 36.8% of their points from the three-point shot. In its win over Georgia on Saturday, Vanderbilt limited its points from beyond the arc to only 19.5%. While that might not be a positive, the fact that the Commodores were aggressive in finding extra points at the free throw line is a good sign. Vandy’s free throw rate (calculated by FTA/FGA) was by far a season high of 107.3. For comparison, its next best free throw rate this season was 61.1 against North Carolina State.
5. Kentucky is looking like a Final Four team, despite not playing well on the road. The Cats continue to find a way to win though. And John Calipari‘s team gets it done on the defensive end. A Kentucky opponent hasn’t shot over 50% from the field since Connecticut did it in the first match-up between the two foes last year on November 24, 2010  in the Maui Invitational Tournament. In fact, the highest shooting percentage an opponent has achieved this season has been 43.1% by Indiana, which of course resulted in a loss for the Wildcats. Going on the road in the SEC caused a slight setback this week for the Cats as both Auburn and Tennessee shot over 40% in what resulted in closer than expected wins for the Wildcats.

Brian Joyce (333 Posts)

Brian Joyce is an advanced metrics enthusiast, college hoops junkie, and writer for the SEC basketball microsite for Rush the Court.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 17th, 2012 at 6:30 am by Brian Joyce and is filed under microsites, sec. Tagged: andy kennedy, anthony davis, arnett moultrie, billy donovan, dundrecous nelson, john calipari, kentucky, patric young, vanderbilt. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.