SEC Morning Five: 03.12.12
Posted by EMoyer on March 12th, 2012
- Vanderbilt ended a 61-year SEC Tournament Championship drought by toppling #1 Kentucky, 71-64, on Sunday. As a reward for their effort, the Commodores earned a #5 seed in the NCAA Tournament, but the committee did them few other favors. For starters, they will open their tournament on Thursday and secondly, they must travel to Albuquerque, N.M. Vanderbilt head coach Kevin Stallings voiced some displeasure with his team’s fate, saying “I thought with the win today, maybe we had a chance to crack the top 16 (and be a 4 seed). But we didn’t and that’s OK. It’s kind of difficult. I was really wanting, more than anything else, I was really hoping for a close site and a Friday game. And we got a far-away site and a Thursday game. So I guess that is what it is and we have to go get ready to do it.”
- As some experts began to say that Kentucky needed to experience a loss before NCAA Tournament, the Commodores obliged by handing the Wildcats their first loss in more than three months. John Clay wrote if the loss will follow the adage or if it held greater meaning. “Did a young Kentucky team, without a deep bench, succumb to the fatigue of playing three games in three days? Did the law of averages catch up with the Cats?”
- After falling to Kentucky in the SEC Tournament semifinals, Florida head coach Billy Donovan questioned the free throw disparity between his Gators and the favored Wildcats. “We got to the free-throw line two times in by far the most physical game we have played this year,” Donovan said. “How we only got there two times is beyond me. I thought it got to a point in the second half where it was kind of like just everybody was taking each other down because no one wanted to give up anything easy…When you see from our bench in the second half, Patric Young getting pushed in the back constantly, constantly, constantly, and there’s no whistle. I mean, to me it’s really hard to overcome 20 free throws to two.”
- Mississippi State’s late-season fade culminated in the the Bulldogs missing out on the NCAA Tournament for the third straight year. On Sunday, Greg Shaheen, interim executive vice president for NCAA championships, acknowledged that the Bulldogs were among the final teams under consideration, “They were in discussions as recently as [Sunday] morning,” he said during a teleconference. “The committee woke up [Sunday] morning with an interest in kind of making sure that the last selections were exactly where they wanted to be, and Mississippi State was still in that discussion…Mississippi State was there for the taking when the final field was set. Certainly their résumé put them right there.”
- Ole Miss head coach Andy Kennedy offered up some thoughts on the Rebels earning a #2 seed in the NIT and on the suspension of Jelan Kendrick, who did not play at all during the SEC Tournament. On the NIT, he told Hugh Kellenberger, “My hope is that once we get through the disappointment of not getting it done against Vandy in the semifnials, they’ll be excited to play basketball and the competitive spirit and nature will kick in and they will want to keep playing,” Regarding Kendrick, Kennedy said, “We’ll revisit the situation this week.”
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on Monday, March 12th, 2012 at 6:30 am by EMoyer and is filed under microsites, sec. Tagged: andy kennedy, billy donovan, Jalen Kendrick, kevin stallings, patric young. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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