Saturday gave us a break from league play for the Big 12/SEC Challenge. Here are three takeaways from a fun day of college basketball in which the SEC faced off with arguably the best conference in the country.

1. Open Look: Hey Big 12, let’s do it again? Let’s be honest, sometimes it’s not easy being an SEC basketball fan. How many times can you be expected to generate excitement for a “showcase” game between two unranked teams? This event between the two power conferences was something fresh and each time slot seemed to have an exciting game. ESPN was not shy about marketing it all week long and the push seemed to work (based on an admittedly unscientific peek at social media). Heck, Arkansas’ Dusty Hannahs even found himself trending on Twitter during the afternoon. The attendance and atmosphere in SEC venues was good; even Auburn was near capacity for an uninspiring Oklahoma State team. Here’s hoping the two leagues get together and keep this format — playing the challenge in the middle of conference play — for years to come.
2. Over the Close Out: This was a good day for the SEC. A quick look at the overall record (3-7 is definitively not good) might suggest otherwise, but it’s hard to walk away from Saturday’s action and not be happy about the SEC’s performance. The league was a Tyler Ulis mishandle and Tim Quarterman drive away from washing out the challenge at 5-5 and plucking off wins against the Big 12’s two heavyweights. Kentucky and LSU are developing in their own ways, so to play well against great competition shows that things for both teams are heading in the right direction. Meanwhile, Florida (#22) and Texas A&M (#7) backed up their lofty KenPom ratings by taking care of business at home. Losses in either of those games would have opened the door for questions like “how good are they?” We also need to consider that the SEC didn’t necessarily bring its biggest guns to the fight. Swapping in South Carolina and Alabama for Auburn and Tennessee might have resulted in two more wins (we’ll ignore that Missouri and Mississippi State were also left sitting at the table).
3. Contested Heave: Florida is a scary team when it “puts it all together.” Kudos on your first signature win in Gainesville, Mike White. We saw the best of Florida against a very good West Virginia team on Saturday: a harassing defense forcing mistakes; an athletic roster putting up highlight dunk after highlight dunk; and a deep roster delivering hefty bench contributions. John Egbunu was limited due to foul trouble, yet little-used Schuyler Rimmer (six rebounds) and Kevarrius Hayes (four points, two rebounds) picked up the slack. Maybe most importantly, the Gators shot the ball better than they had from deep all year long (12-of-20 on three-point attempts), even without Justin Leon. “We’ve had games where we’ve played with tremendous energy, and we’ve been off the charts defensively and couldn’t throw it in the ocean. Tonight was one of those nights we put it all together,” White told the Gainesville Sun after the game. It’s not time to crown the Gators this year’s SEC champs based on one game, especially since their offense was putrid a week ago in a loss to Vanderbilt. But the convincing win over the Mountaineers gives a glimpse into Florida’s ceiling if it continues to develop. They’ll need some help from Texas A&M in order to legitimately push for the conference crown, but at 5-3 and with two shots at Kentucky and one each against LSU and South Carolina, the Gators are still in striking distance of the regular season title chase.

Greg Mitchell (@gregpmitchell) (231 Posts)

This entry was posted on Monday, February 1st, 2016 at 9:31 am by Greg Mitchell and is filed under feature, microsites, sec. Tagged: auburn, florida, kentucky, lsu, mike white, texas a&m, Tim Quarterman, Tyler Ulis. 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.