With just over three weeks to go in SEC play, things are starting to take shape. This is SEC Stock Watch, our weekly look at which teams, players, and coaches are moving in the right direction, which are holding steady, and which are trending down.
Trending Up
- Karl-Anthony Towns. Towns came to Kentucky as the most highly-acclaimed member of its latest heralded recruiting class, and while his numbers have been solid all year, he is now asserting himself as a dominant force in the post. Towns is averaging 14.5 points and 8.8 rebounds per game over his last four outings, an increase of more than five points and two rebounds per game over his season averages. As if the Wildcats weren’t already scary enough, the rest of college basketball must deal with this emerging beast.
- Georgia as an NCAA Lock. The Bulldogs got a huge win in College Station on Wednesday night, which should secure their ticket to the Big Dance. They will be favored in all but two of their remaining SEC games — home against Kentucky and at Ole Miss — and are the best bet to take down the Wildcats in SEC play. With a strong RPI ranking of #20, it would take a major meltdown for Mark Fox’s team to not make the NCAA Tournament.
- Arkansas’ Road Chops. Don’t look now, but the Razorbacks have now won three SEC road games — more than all of last season — and are taking care of business against teams they should beat. They still must go to Ole Miss on Saturday and to Kentucky in two weeks, but Mike Anderson seems to have turned a corner in his fourth year in Fayetteville.
- Tennessee Against the Spread on the Road. The Volunteers have somehow managed to go 4-2 so far in SEC play on the road, and their two losses (against Arkansas and Georgia, arguably the second- and third-best teams in the SEC) were by a total of seven points. Donnie Tyndall’s squad is 6-0 against the spread away from Thompson-Boling Arena, so it’s too bad that things haven’t gone so smoothly at home where the Vols are 2-3 with LSU and Kentucky coming to town in the next week.
- Stefan Moody. Ole Miss’ leading scorer came up huge on Thursday night when he nailed the game-winning three with just over two seconds remaining to give the surging Rebels a season sweep of the defending SEC champions. The Florida Atlantic transfer has been huge for Ole Miss, which has now won six in a row and stands at 8-3 in SEC play.
Flat
- Texas A&M. The Aggies blew a golden opportunity to take a huge step toward an NCAA bid when they dropped a home game against Georgia on Wednesday. As big of a win as it was for the Bulldogs, it put A&M in the precarious position of having to win five of its last seven games to feel good about a bid to the Big Dance.
- South Carolina’s Future. The past several years have been bleak in Columbia, but as SEC play began, Frank Martin appeared to have the Gamecocks headed in the right direction. South Carolina had just beaten Iowa State and owned a couple more good non-conference wins against Oklahoma State and Clemson. And while the Gamecocks have won two of their last three outings, they are still only 3-8 in SEC play. Martin’s team has some young talent and a solid recruiting class heading to Columbia, but its continuing lack of success must have Gamecocks fans wondering if things will ever turn around.
Trending Down
- Florida’s Postseason Chances. No, we’re not talking about NCAA Tournament chances here; we’re talking about the Gators’ chances of playing in any postseason tournament. With Thursday night’s heartbreaking home loss to Ole Miss, the Gators have dropped to 12-12 on the season with trips to Texas A&M (Saturday), LSU and Kentucky still on the docket. Assuming they lose all three of those, they will need to hold serve at home and win at Missouri in order to guarantee themselves a winning record.
- Auburn. Bruce Pearl’s first season on The Plains hasn’t been a lot of fun. The Tigers now stand at 3-8 in SEC play and still must travel to Georgia (Saturday), Texas A&M and Kentucky. That media prediction that they would finish eighth in the SEC is looking even sillier than it did when it was made in the preseason.
- Johnny Jones’ Coaching. The LSU coach received a two-year extension prior to the season despite having done very little to substantiate it in his two years in Baton Rouge. He has a couple of NBA-level players on his roster, but instead of getting the ball to one of them down the stretch in Tuesday’s loss to Kentucky, he instead drew up a play that resulted in an off-balance three-point attempt for Keith Hornsby as time expired. That decision, along with a few other notable gaffes, did nothing to dissuade his naysayers.
- Vanderbilt in Close Games. The Commodores are now 1-7 in games decided by five points or fewer after Wednesday’s heartbreaking overtime loss to Tennessee. Kevin Stallings’ young team is competitive but its inexperience showed up when it couldn’t make free throws down the stretch to put the game away. These struggles often correspond with young teams but Stallings has to be frustrated with his team’s inability to close out games.