1. Wednesday brought great news for the Florida Gators as forward Erik Murphy will not require surgery on his injured knee. “The meniscus tear was from when he hurt it his sophomore year in high school,” coach Billy Donovan said. “It looks like this was just a bone bruise. We’re hoping to have him back in a week to 10 days.” Murphy has averaged 10 points per game for the Gators this season, and has been pivotal in pick-and-pop situations with Florida’s quick guards because of his excellent three-point shooting. He is shooting 57.1% from beyond the arc this year in 14 attempts. It appears that Murphy could play against Arizona next week on December 7.
2. The University of Alabama student newspaper points out that the Crimson Tide have won 24 straight home games in Coleman Coliseum dating back to February 27, 2010. That winning streak is in jeopardy tonight when Alabama plays Georgetown as part of the Big East/SEC Challenge. The Alabama players credit the fans with providing a home court advantage in Tuscaloosa. “Our fans have been great these last couple of games and last year coming in and giving us excitement and energy, cheering for us in and out every game,” junior forward Tony Mitchell said. The Tide and Hoyas will be one of the most exciting games of the week Win or lose, Alabama’s smothering 2-3 zone will serve as the Hoyas’ best tune-up for Syracuse’s famed 2-3 zone once Big East play begins.
3. A long scoring drought in the second half against Colorado was the nail in the coffin for the Georgia Bulldogs. The Dogs finally made their first basket of the second half with 12:34 remaining on the clock. Georgia had similar droughts of eight minutes in a loss against California and five minutes in a loss to Xavier. Two issues that could be causing the scoreless spurts for the Dogs are the reliance on outside shooting for the offense to be successful and the expectation for freshman Kentavious Caldwell-Pope to do a majority of the scoring. Georgia needs to find another element to its offense if they are to avoid lengthy stretches without points going forward.
4. The Daily Mississippian tells the story of Ole Miss guard Maurice Aniefiok. Aniefiok grew up in Nigeria never having played basketball. He played his senior year of high school at Huntington Prep in West Virginia while developing his offensive skills. Ole Miss head coach Andy Kennedy has been happy with Aniefiok’s adjustment to the college game thus far. “I think first and foremost, him understanding that is a huge step,” Kennedy said of the adjustment. “His attitude is great. Day in and day out, like all of our freshmen, he wants to learn, wants to get better and gives us the necessary effort. That is one area we have not had to coach with this group: effort.” Aniefiok has had difficulty shooting thus far going 26.7% from the field and 20% from three-point range. However, Aniefiok’s limited exposure to basketball means he should be a player to keep an eye on over the next few years as he begins to develop his offensive game. Kennedy likes the 6’5″ guard’s play so much that he is playing him over 14 minutes per game so far this season.
5. A source tells Kentucky Sports Radio that Kentucky is considering a plan that would eliminate the Kentucky-North Carolina series for the immediate future. You may remember from earlier this week that John Calipari asked Big Blue Nation which rivalry the passionate fan base would like to drop from the schedule if UK felt it needed to create space for two additional SEC games (with the addition of Missouri and Texas A&M). The contract with the Tar Heels ends after the game on Saturday, and the Cats apparently would like to take a year off from the series and revisit renewing the series at a later point. A quick glance at the comments section of the article on KSR reveals that Kentucky fans are not exactly thrilled with the potential move. Saturday’s match-up between Kentucky and North Carolina doesn’t need any more hype as Lexington will be rocking regardless.

1. There are many extremely talented freshmen in the nation this season, several of which are in the SEC. Mike Miller of Beyond the Arc says that Florida guard Bradley Beal might just be the best of them all. Miller cites Beal’s consistency, his shooting efficiency (58.8 eFG%), and his significance in the Gator offense despite the glut of talented guards in the Florida backcourt. Beal is averaging 17.0 points, 6.5 rebounds, 2 assists, 1.2 steals, and 1 block per game. He was named SEC Freshman of the Week for this past week for his performances against Jacksonville and Wright State. The Freshman of the Week award has become a difficult honor to win within the SEC. A different freshman has won the award in each of the three weeks of the season thus far with Kentucky’s Anthony Davis and Mississippi State’s Rodney Hood as the other two winners. Davis might be Beal’s biggest competition for the title of the top freshman in the country. While Davis is still developing a consistent offensive game, he has been an absolute beast on defense. He is averaging 12.7 points, 8.2 rebounds, 1.2 steals and is fourth in the country in blocked shots with 4.3 blocks per game.
2. Vanderbilt suffered a heartbreaking loss to Xavier on Monday night, but the Commodores had to be satisfied with at least a couple aspects of their game. CBS Sports RapidReports points out one positive from the loss was the continued improvement from the charity stripe. The Commodores rank 216th in the nation in free throw percentage (68.5%) yet they shot 75% from the free throw line on Monday making nine of 12 attempts. Jeffery Taylor was 5-6 for 83% despite averaging 60.5% from the line thus far this year. Although 75% is an improvement Vanderbilt has to get to the line more often than the 12 shots they attempted on Monday. For comparisons sake, Xavier went to the line 27 times. Vanderbilt must attack the rim off the dribble rather than settle for jump shots in order to improve this number, and this has not been an aspect of Vanderbilt’s game that they have displayed thus far this season.
3. The guys at Anchor of Gold are not exactly sure why Vanderbilt lost, but they offer up a couple of suggestions. The stat I found most interesting is that Xavier walked away with a 51% offensive rebounding percentage against the Commodores’ depleted frontline. The Musketeers grabbed 25 offensive rebounds explaining how they were able to shoot just 37.2% from two-point field goal range and come away with the win on the road. Festus Ezeli‘s return has to significantly affect this deficiency. Ezeli won’t erase all of Vanderbilt’s struggles, but he will be a difference maker on both ends of the court. I’m not hopping off the Vanderbilt bandwagon just yet as I think it is important to see how this team plays with the big man in the middle before casting judgement on the quality of this team. Vanderbilt has another huge test on Friday as they face Louisville in the KFC Yum Center.
4. CoachCal.com editor Eric Lindsey gave us a full report from John Calipari‘s Tuesday practice with the Wildcats as they prepare for St. John’s on Thursday and UNC on Saturday. Similar to two recent posts about UK on the SEC microsite, Calipari spent some time focusing on their low post game. Cal has worked with big man Anthony Davis to stay lower to the ground to avoid getting pushed around by stronger defenders. By bending his knees, Davis can create a lower center of gravity. Calipari also worked on having low post players seal off their defender and make quick, one bounce moves to the basket. By establishing a low post presence, Kentucky opens up a number of options within their offense, which was covered in our most recent Breaking Down the Play post. Expect to see the Cats go down low early and often this week.
5. Rupp Arena will be on display on Saturday afternoon via CBS for the Wildcat’s showdown with North Carolina. The Lexington Herald Leader reports that the University of Kentucky could renovate Rupp rather than build a new arena as previously discussed and better meet the needs of the school. Kentucky is looking to upgrade spaces for the media room, interview room, and training room; add premium seating for the University president and others; and add a new center-hung scoreboard that displays the score, player stats, instant replays, and close-ups of players and coaches. Kentucky has led the nation in average attendance for 15 of the last 16 years, but seemed to be motivated by a brand new arena 85 miles to the west in Louisville. Now the plan appears to be to renovate Rupp Arena to make the improvements needed without building a new arena. In the long run, it would be a mistake to neglect the history that Rupp Arena brings to Kentucky and to college basketball as a whole.

Breaking Down the Play is a regular feature during the season to provide in-depth analysis on the Xs and Os of an SEC team. Today’s Breaking Down the Play goes in depth on Kentucky’s ability to feed the post for a variety of options.

Kentucky’s ability to feed the post provides the Wildcats with a variety of options out of the Dribble Drive Motion Offense. The Cats were not establishing a post presence in their first several games of the year, but in the last two games they have made the inside out game a bigger part of their offensive strategy. In fact, Kentucky has run a designed play to give Terrence Jones the ball in the low post on the first play of the game in both of their last two contests. Kentucky has been extremely effective when making a pass to the post because of at least three different offensive options that open up for the Wildcats.

Below are the three plays from the game against Portland that showcase Kentucky’s options out of the post in the Dribble Drive offense:

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1. The Florida Gators beat Stetson on Monday night for head coach Billy Donovan’s 400th career victory. However, the Orlando Sentinel says Billy the kid has a new nickname — Billy the Forgotten. Despite being the youngest active Division I coach to reach 400 wins, Donovan’s milestone victory was overshadowed and overlooked. Donovan is ready to move past this achievement and just get back to work.  “I think as it relates to fanfare, attention or exposure or things like that I just feel like that’s probably for other people to talk about. I just have a job to do,” Donovan said. “I have respect for Tom [Izzo], certainly what [Mike] Krzyzewski’s done, [Jim] Calhoun, [Jim] Boeheim and those guys, but I think if you’re coaching good enough players, you’re going to eventually win at that level.” Donovan would sure like to get win #401 on Friday when the Gators take on #4 Syracuse. That one might mean a lot more than win #400.
2. The SEC honored Ole Miss forward Murphy Holloway as the SEC Player of the Week. Holloway led the Rebels to wins over TCU and the University of Miami this week. Holloway scored 20 points and four rebounds against TCU, and came back with 13 points and 17 rebounds against Miami. He averaged 16.5 points and 10.5 rebounds in this stretch. Florida’s freshman guard Bradley Beal took home SEC Freshman of the Week honors after he averaged 18.5 points and seven rebounds while leading the Gators to victories over Wright State and Jacksonville. Beal scored a team-high 22 points against Wright State. Congrats to both players for their outstanding performances.
3. Mississippi State played with their full line-up with the return of big men Renardo Sidney and Arnett Moultrie. Conditioning was again an issue as the Bulldogs ran away from North Texas. “I played them until they couldn’t play,” said head coach Rick Stansbury. “One of them was wanting to come out of the game and we just turned our heads and let him stay in the game. We gave up some points in that stretch but he (Sidney) needed that.” Moultrie finished with 20 points and nine rebounds in 30 minutes of action. Sidney continued to struggle as he only managed nine points and 3 rebounds in 20 minutes. Sidney will have to find ways to contribute without being a liability on both ends of the court because of his lack of conditioning. It doesn’t seem that Stansbury is ready to give up on Sidney just yet.
4. Kentucky coach John Calipari is critical of his team’s slow starts so far this season. On Saturday, Portland led the Cats 7-6 going into the first TV timeout four minutes into the game. “The first play was great,” Calipari said. “Then we had about five plays after that (that) were just sloppy.” Calipari’s plea for better play coincides with a big week for the Cats as they face St. John’s on Thursday night and a huge test against North Carolina on Saturday. Kentucky was able to overcome sloppy play against Marist, Portland, and Radford, but North Carolina will require a full 40 minutes of the team’s attention. Despite the slow starts, the Cats opened the week as the #1 team in the country.
5. Tennessee arrived back in Knoxville Friday night after a good effort in Maui. But head coach Cuonzo Martin didn’t expect a letdown against Oakland on Monday night. “We aren’t going to get caught up in any jet lag — Hawaii is in the wind,” Martin said. “This is an important game, and we’re going to have to be focused to win on the road.” Perhaps it wasn’t jet lag, but it could have been that the Volunteers were looking forward to a big game this weekend with Pittsburgh. Regardless of the reasons, the Vols dropped a big one to Oakland by the score of 89-81. Oakland is a strong team at home having won 41 of its past 43 home games. The Vols lost to the Golden Grizzlies by an almost identical 89-82 score last year.

This is a big week for the SEC, and an even bigger week for Vanderbilt. The  Commodores play two top 25 home games this week, against #11 Xavier on Monday night and at #6 Louisville on Friday night. I know the Commodores are without starting center Festus Ezeli. Undoubtedly, this will be a different team once Ezeli returns, but a loss in late November or early December still counts as a loss. Even without Ezeli.

Ezeli isn't walking out on the court tonight for Vanderbilt (Associated Press)

Why do I think this week is a Make or Break week for Vandy? Besides the fact that they’re playing two Top 25 ranked teams, the implications could be further reaching than more early season losses.

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1. The injuries keep coming for the SEC and college basketball. Florida‘s starting forward Erik Murphy has a torn meniscus in his right knee and will be out indefinitely according to The Gainesville Sun. Murphy injured his knee in practice on Thursday. “It does appear he has some form of a meniscus tear,” Florida coach Billy Donovan said. “How severe or how long he will be out, we’d probably find out a lot more on Monday. He’s out for the game (against Stetson) Monday and I’d assume he would be out for the next week as well.” Florida has a big game this week against Syracuse in the Big East/SEC challenge on Friday. The Gators played Ohio State earlier this season in an another top 10 match-up, and Murphy was crucial to Florida’s offense. He scored 14 points and grabbed three rebounds in 24 minutes of play against the Buckeyes. Donovan seems optimistic that Murphy will return soon.
2. Another SEC team that has been hit hard with injuries is looking to its freshmen to lead the way. BJ Young, Rashad Madden, Hunter Mickelson, and Devonta Abron combined to score 53 points for Arkansas in their win over Grambling State. All four posted career-highs in points, and Mickelson grabbed a career-high eight rebounds as well. “When those guys came off the bench, I thought they took the tempo up a notch for us and really got us into our transition game,” Arkansas coach Mike Anderson said. “They got the most minutes of any of the guys out there, so to me, that’s a reflection of their play. I thought they were at times pretty impressive.” The development of the Hogs’ four freshmen is key as Arkansas is left with only nine scholarship players this season. All four will get plenty of opportunities moving forward as the Razorbacks’ leading scorer and rebounder, Marshawn Powell, is out for the remainder of the season with a torn ligaments in his knee.
3. Kentucky recorded only four turnovers in an 87-63 win over Portland on Saturday night. The four turnovers are the lowest for the Wildcats since a 1993 NCAA Tournament game against Utah (two turnovers). Much has been made of freshman Marquis Teague‘s ability to lead Kentucky at the point guard position, but he led the way with eight assists and zero turnovers. Teague added 14 points and four steals, and looked increasingly more comfortable in his role. That is a good sign for the Wildcats as they prepare for a big week with a matchup against St. John’s on Thursday and the much anticipated game against North Carolina on Saturday.
4. Kentucky coach John Calipari sent out shock waves in Big Blue Nation on Sunday as he asked a (hypothetical?) question to Cats’ fans. Calipari asked via his website CoachCal.com which non-conference team the Kentucky faithful would like to see dropped from the schedule if necessary. The SEC could add two additional conference games to each team’s schedule with the addition of two league members beginning next season. Calipari writes, “If we had to – and this doesn’t mean we have to at this point because we still have 16 league games – but if we had to drop one series and there were no other options, who would it be? Would it be North Carolina, Indiana or Louisville?” For what it’s worth, college basketball is better with these high powered non-conference games, but it’s understandable if that is not in the best interests of Kentucky basketball. Regardless, Kentucky and Louisville is one of the best rivalries in the game, and it has to keep going if for nothing more than the drama of Calipari vs. Rick Pitino.
5. Auburn set a school record with 17 blocked shots in their win on Friday night against Nicholls State.  Rob Chubb and Willy Kouassi led the way with five blocks each. Kenny Gabriel blocked four more. The 17 blocks put Tigers tied for second with Kentucky (17 blocks against Morehead State in 1998) for the all-time single-game SEC list. Auburn head coach Tony Barbee was impressed, but wants to keep seeing improvement. “We still, as a program, have to grow and develop that confidence,” Barbee said. “The only way you do that is by winning. These guys are hungry, but I want them to be better and they know that. We can be better.” The Tigers improved to 3-0 with this win, and face a rebuilding Seton Hall team on Friday. The Tigers have been a solid club defensively, but offensively are still a work in progress. According to KenPom.com, Auburn ranks 170th in adjusted offensive efficiency. Barbee will have to find some scoring to continue to see his team accumulate victories.

1. Did anybody try cooking for Thanksgiving? It’s okay, sometimes things don’t turn out exactly how you planned. I’m sure everybody grinned and ate it anyway. Well, LSU‘s season isn’t turning out how coach Trent Johnson planned either. In their most recent game, they fell to South Alabama despite building a 12-point lead. “Like I told the team, you just can’t show up and expect to win a game, whether you are at home or on the road,” Johnson said. “The one thing that sort of concerns me is that although we had 17 assists and 11 turnovers, and when we got up 10, I thought we had some guys try to go off on their own a little bit.” LSU came into the game with a two-game win streak, but were out-rebounded by the Jaguars 42-31. This is the Tigers third loss of this early season. The problem for Johnson and the Tigers is that nobody is grinning and pretending to enjoy what is happening to this LSU team.
2. The Georgia student newspaper, the Red and Black, says coach Mark Fox is optimistic about how his young Bulldogs are coming along. Fox was impressed with how his team responded after a difficult loss to California with a hard-fought win over Notre Dame the following night. But Georgia’s schedule just gets tougher from this point forward. “This schedule is challenging and for a young team, it’s extra challenging,” Fox said. “You gotta learn how to beat good teams and you don’t learn how to beat good teams by just playing bad ones. So we’re gonna have to grow up on the job. We’re gonna have a lot of teachable moments like we had against Cal and Notre Dame. There is just so much for this group to experience.” Georgia will get plenty of opportunities to grow up on the job as they play Xavier, Cincinnati, Colorado, and Southern California over the next few weeks. Freshman Kentavious Caldwell-Pope has filled in to produce some much needed scoring with 13.2 points per game so far. The Dogs are counting on Caldwell-Pope to increase his field goal percentage (40.4%) as he gets more experience throughout the season.
3. Arkansas is still learning to deal with the injury of leading scorer Marshawn Powell. Freshman Devonta Abron started in place of Powell against Utah Valley on Wednesday night and finished with three points and three rebounds. The entire frontcourt really struggled in Powell’s absence. Abron, Hunter Mickelson, Michael Sanchez, and Marvell Waithe combined to score six points and grab 13 rebounds. “We have to work with what we have now,” 6’2″ guard Madracus Wade said of Powell’s injury. “The young guys have to step up. … We’ve all got to get in there and rebound.” Arkansas won 67-59, but it is clear that Mike Anderson’s up-tempo system can’t run entirely on guard play. The Razorbacks have to find frontcourt production soon to avoid a major letdown in Anderson’s first year at the helm.
4. Tennessee‘s narrow losses against #6 Duke and #8 Memphis have the Vols confident that they can play with anyone in the nation. A big reason for the Volunteers success in Maui was the outstanding play of power forward Jeronne Maymon who scored 32 points and grabbed 20 rebounds against Memphis. The performance was the first time a Division I player has scored at least 30 points and 20 rebounds in a game since Blake Griffin in 2009. “We know we’re good enough to play against anybody on any given night,” Maymon said. “Each night we go to practice like we’re getting ready for the No. 1-ranked team.” Maymon and Tennessee proved, despite losing two close games, that they were highly underrated with the potential to be an NCAA Tournament team. The Volunteers were picked to finish 11th in the SEC in the preseason and it is seems clear that the Vols will finish much higher than that.
5. The Clarion-Ledger has a few observations from the first five Ole Miss games of the season. The most interesting note is just how bad the Rebels’ offensive efficiency has been this year. They are 17-97 (17.5%) from beyond the arc, bad enough for 340th in the nation. The Reb’s two point percentage is 49.8%, which is significantly better at 125th in the nation. Andy Kennedy seems to be struggling to replace do-it-all guard Chris Warren, who averaged 19.1 points per game last year. Terrance Henry is the Rebels leading scorer thus far with 12.2 points per game, but he is shooting at an alarming 41.2% from the field. The Rebels wins thus far are a bit misleading. While the Rebs are 4-1, a 30-point loss on Sunday to Marquette signifies that unless Kennedy can solve their offensive woes, more difficult times lie ahead for Ole Miss once they take a step up in competition.

1. Alabama’s 6-0 start has put the college basketball community on full alert. Pat Forde of Yahoo! Sports writes about the ten things that have impressed him so far in this early season, and Alabama’s solid play is the first mention. He cites the excellent defense from Anthony Grant‘s Crimson Tide and assertiveness of forward Tony Mitchell. Mitchell and his thunderous dunks have been impressive thus far, helping this Alabama squad enter the discussion as one of the SEC’s best teams, an exclusive club of which they were not a member in the preseason. Grant’s exciting athletes and intense defense has brought praise not only for the Crimson Tide, but the legitimacy of the Southeastern Conference.
2. But don’t get too comfortable, Alabama fans. The injury bug that has hit multiple SEC teams thus far is headed to Tuscaloosa. JaMychal Green was held out of Wednesday’s game Alabama A&M with a hip pointer. And the Tide’s leading scorer, Mitchell, left the game on crutches. The Daily Bama Blog reports that Mitchell’s injury appears to be only a sprained ankle.  “When it happened I’m sure it was painful, but I think our medical staff will do a great job making sure he’s healthy,” coach Grant said. A huge sigh of relief for Alabama as both Mitchell and Green are crucial to the Tide’s success. Alabama returns to action Sunday against VCU, and both players should be back in action.
3. The guys at Anchor of Gold spent some time praising Jeffery Taylor’s outstanding defensive presence. Taylor was assigned to Oregon State star Jared Cunningham who was coming off a 35-point effort against Hofstra and a 37-point massacre of Texas. When Taylor matched up with Cunningham one-on-one, Cunningham went 2-6 and managed 7 points in 28 minutes of action. Defensive specialist Dai-Jon Parker spelled Taylor for spurts and held Cunningham to 2 points in 8 minutes. Taylor and Parker’s perimeter defense remains key to Vanderbilt‘s success this season. A number of athletic and high scoring guards from Kentucky, Florida, and others will come into Nashville this season, and Taylor will need to repeat his “ferocious” defensive effort for the Commodores to continue to string together victories.
4. John Calipari‘s Kentucky Wildcats played a little 2-3 zone in their 88-40 route of Radford on Wednesday night. “I think it’s something that we need to think about doing some,” Calipari said. “And we’ve got to get better than we are right now.” A zone could be a viable option on defense for the Cats because of Kentucky’s length and athleticism.  “I don’t see us giving up wide-open shots because we’re so big,” Calipari said about the possibilities of playing more zone. “I would probably do it with a big lineup so that every shot is a contested shot.” Kentucky has just over a week and a half to figure out what defense to play before the Cats take on the number one ranked North Carolina Tar Heels.
5. It’s an abbreviated Morning Five today as we encourage you to enjoy the holiday. And of course, enjoy lots and lots of college basketball. Happy Thanksgiving to all SEC fans. May your dunks be thunderous and your defense be ferocious.

What’s wrong with this Kentucky team? They “only” won by 10 points against the front-runner in the Big 12. They “only” won by 10 against one of the best and most physical mid-major teams in a day game in which they had been away from home for about a week. By now we have heard at length how Marquis Teague is not leading this team like the great point guards (Wall, Knight) before him. Twitter inevitably arose with chants of “overrated” during the first half of the Kansas game where UK struggled in its first true test. Even our own national overlords at Rush The Court questioned whether or not this team is more than a collection of highly talented individuals. Suspicions are high, as this team is under the microscope of critics looking for any little thing to nitpick.

For the record, this Kentucky team is fine. They are young, and will only get better as they come together through tough games in December. They may even lose a game or two throughout the season. But for my money, they are still the best team in the country.

Get down low big fella...

That doesn’t mean the Wildcats are without faults. Turnovers are an issue, and have been mentioned with the shaky play of Teague at the helm. But improvement will come with time and experience, something Teague will get plenty of with big December games against UNC and Louisville. Interior defense has been somewhat of a concern as physical post players can take advantage of the lack of a true center in the middle of the Kentucky defense. Old Dominion’s 6’9″, 230-pound bruiser, Chris Cooper, showed what can happen when someone bodies up to Kentucky’s front line as he poured in 17 points and 12 rebounds for the Monarchs. But have you seen Kentucky’s 6’10” freak of nature, Anthony Davis? Give him time, folks. He will adjust to the physical nature of the college game. And then we’re all really in for a show.

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1. Ready to debate? By all means, grab a cup of coffee first and let’s get to it. Ron Chimelis of The Republican says John Calipari doesn’t need to win an NCAA title to be a Hall of Famer. Chimelis thinks Calipari already has the resume to make it in. He cites Cal’s 512 wins (42 of those were later vacated by the NCAA leaving him with 470 official wins), three Final Fours appearances (two of those were wiped from the record books), and his remarkable turn-arounds with Massachusetts and Memphis. Chemelis thinks Calipari will in fact win the title that has evaded him throughout his career, but he has a Hall of Fame resume without it. What say you? Will there be a HOF ballot more criticized and talked about than Calipari’s? Does he need a national title to punch his ballot into the Hall? Or do you despise Calipari so deeply that you don’t want him in no matter how many championships he wins?
2. Regardless of your feelings for Calipari, you have to agree that he has produced a long line of talented point guards dating back to his days in Memphis. Cal has taken up for his newest floor general, Marquis Teague, by taking to Twitter. Teague has been erratic in his first four collegiate games for Kentucky, committing 18 turnovers and never quite settling in to the flow of the game. Calipari tweets, “Gotta love the #BBN, only our fans would point out that my last two PG’s also had 18 turns in the 1st 4 games. DRose & Tyreke had a bunch 2.” He quickly followed with another tweet, “Marquis will be fine. I’m gonna spend more time w/ him & once we get it figured out everyone will be talking about how good he is.” Freshmen, especially point guards, almost always take a little time to adjust to the speed of the college game. Remember, Teague has only played in four college games. Give the young man time. Cal has proven that he has an outstanding track record with point guards, and Teague will be another first round draft pick after developing in the Kentucky system.
3. As was mentioned here in the SEC Morning Five on Monday, Arkansas forward Marshawn Powell injured his knee in practice last Thursday. The results of his MRI revealed torn ligaments that will cause the Razorbacks’ star to miss the rest of the season. This is unfortunate news for Powell and Arkansas. “This is definitely a setback, but I told him that sometimes you have to have setbacks in order to have a great comeback,” Arkansas coach Mike Anderson said. “He is in good spirits and looking forward to helping his team in any way that he can.” The Razorbacks are down to nine scholarship players. It is crucial for Anderson’s system to have the depth to sub in and out for his fast-paced style of play. Powell was averaging 19.5 points per game and his absence will require another (or several) Razorback(s) to step up to fill the scoring gap.
4. John Gasaway writes that Vanderbilt’s defense has not been nearly as bad as the discussion has indicated. He says the Commodores are an excellent defensive rebounding team and create a good amount of turnovers to offset the high number of two point field goals that they allow. Gasaway has been somewhat impressed with the Commodores saying “this will be the best Commodore team of recent years when (Festus) Ezeli returns.” The problem according to Gasaway is that Kentucky, Alabama, and Florida are all better than they have been in recent years as well. League play will be brutal at the top of the conference, as the top four are sure to trade off tough losses. The notion expressed in Basketball Prospectus is the same one shared here — while the SEC may not be the best conference from top to bottom, the top four is as good as any conference in the country. Vanderbilt certainly belongs in the top tier, and their defense will only improve once Ezeli returns.
5. Speaking of Ezeli, Jeff Goodman of CBS Sports says that Ezeli’s return will be a game-changer on both ends of the court for Vanderbilt. Ezeli’s defense and shot blocking ability gives the Commodores an inside presence to guard the low post, which has been a concern in the early going. On offense, he demands respect from opposing defenders, opening up the floor for the shooters – John Jenkins, Jeffery Taylor and Brad Tinsley. His presence will mean the difference between a Vanderbilt team that is hanging by a thread at the bottom of the latest Top 25 poll, and the team that was ranked in the Top 10 in the preseason. “He’s as important to us as a guy like Jared Sullinger is to Ohio State,” coach Kevin Stallings said. “I’m not saying he’s as good, but he gives us the same presence. You have to game plan for him.”