1. In a Wednesday teleconference to preview Sunday’s release of the NCAA Tournament pairings, committee chairman Jeff Hathaway all but handed two of the four top seeds to Kentucky and Syracuse, each of whom entered their conference tournaments with a record of 30-1. “I think we all agree that if the season ended today, we know who the two best teams are,” he said. “If you’re looking at 3 and 4 on the first line and the entire second line, we have the same handful of teams in mind but where they would be laced will be a tremendous debate.”
2. Georgia head coach Mark Fox took his team on a brief detour upon the Bulldogs’ arrival in New Orleans on Wednesday. He had the bus travel through the city’s Ninth Ward. “It’s one thing to see it on TV or hear about it from somebody else,” sophomore forward Marcus Thornton said. “But to actually see some of the damage yourself and see some of the places — there used to be a lot of homes that just aren’t there anymore. It kind of makes you stop for a second and be thankful for everything that’s fortunate in your life. I think it was a good experience for us all to see that.” Fox, who has a had a brother that used to live in New Orleans, did the same thing with his Nevada team in 2007 when they were in town for the NCAA Tournament.
3. Mississippi State’s Rodney Hood declared himself “100 percent” healthy in advance of the Bulldogs’ SEC Tournament opener against Georgia. Hood, who suffered a deep bone bruise in his left knee late in the first half of a 73-64 loss to No. 1 Kentucky on Feb. 21, participated in a practice and shootaround yesterday without a brace protecting his knee. He played a total of 34 minutes in the Bulldogs’ two contests last week.
4. LSU forward Malcolm White spent part of Wednesday answering questions about his takedown of Kentucky’s Anthony Davis in their January 28 meeting. “It was out of character,” White said. “I just made a bad play. I should have made a play on the ball.” White grabbed Davis from behind, and “flung him down to the ground” late the Wildcats’ 74-50 victory. The story goes on to say “As Davis sprawled in the lane, White walked away… and kept walking to the locker room. The referees called a flagrant foul and ejected White.”
5. More and more of the holiday tournaments for next season have announced their fields. On Wednesday, the Gazelle Group announced the four participants of the “Champions Round” of the Legends Classic. Joining Indiana, UCLA and Georgetown will be Georgia. The four will meet at Brooklyn’s brand new Barclays Center, on November 19-20. Georgia participated in the CBE Classic this past November, losing to California and beating Notre Dame in Kansas City. Two seasons ago, the Bulldogs went 1-2 at the Old Spice Classic in Orlando.

• #1S Davidson: Championship Appearances: 57; Record 57-46; Best Finish: Champion – 1966, 1968, 1969, 1970, 1986, 1998, 2002, 2006, 2007, 2008; Last Season: L, First Round.
• #1N UNC Greensboro: Championship Appearances: 15; Record 12-13; Best Finish: Champion – 2001; Last Season: L, Quarterfinal.
  

  UNC Greensboro Lost In The Quarterfinals Last Year. Will This Season Be Different For Wes Miller and Company? (AP)

• #2S Wofford: Championship Appearances: 14; Record 11-11; Best Finish: Champion – 2010, 2011; Last Season: Champion.
• #2N Elon: Championship Appearances: 9; Record 9-8; Best Finish: Runner-up – 2008; Last Season: L, Quarterfinal.
• #3S Georgia Southern: Championship Appearances: 19; Record 12-18; Best Finish: Semifinals – 1993, 1994, 2001, 2004, 2005; Last Season: L, First Round.
• #3N Western Carolina: Championship Appearances: 33; Record 16-31; Best Finish: Champion – 1996; Last Season: L, Semifinal
• #4S College of Charleston: Championship Appearances: 14; Record 17-12; Best Finish: Champion – 1999; Last Season: L, Final.
• #4N Samford: Championship Appearances: 4; Record 2-3; Best Finish: Semfinals – 2009; Last Season: L, First Round
• #5S Furman: Championship Appearances: 59; Record 44-52; Best Finish: Champion – 1971, 1973, 1974, 1975, 1978, 1980; Last Season: L, Semifinal
• #5N Appalachian State: Championship Appearances: 41; Record 40-38; Best Finish: Champion – 1979, 2000; Last Season: L, Quarterfinal
• #6S The Citadel: Championship Appearances: 60; Record 11-59; Best Finish: Runner-up – 1959; Last Season: L, First Round
• #6N Chattanooga: Championship Appearances: 35; Record 52-24; Best Finish: Champion – 1981, 1982, 1983, 1988, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1997, 2005, 2009; Last Season: L, Quarterfinal

Tournament Schedule (All games played at U.S. Cellular Center, Asheville, NC)

• Friday, March 2, 11:30 am ET: #4S College of Charleston vs #5N Appalachian State (SoConTV); Season Results: Feb 4 (College of Charleston 74, at Appalachian State 62); Series Record: Appalachian State leads 17-11; Tournament Series: College of Charleston leads 4-3.
• Friday, March 2, 2:00 ET: #3N Western Carolina vs #6S The Citadel (SoConTV); Season Results: Feb. 16 (at Western Carolina 70, The Citadel 53); Series Record: The Citadel leads 34-27; Tournament Series: Tied 1-1.
• Friday, March 2, 6:00 ET: #4N Samford vs #5S Furman (SoConTV); Season Results: Feb. 18 (at Samford 55, Furman 49); Series Record: Furman leads 8-3; Tournament Series: Tied 1-1.
• Friday, March 2, 8:30 ET: #3S Georgia Southern vs #6N Chattanooga (SoConTV); Season Results: Dec. 1 (at Georgia Southern 84, Chattanooga 76), Jan. 28 (Georgia Southern 75, at Chattanooga 72); Series Record: Chattanooga leads 31-17; Tournament Series: Chattanooga leads 3-0.
• Saturday, March 3, Noon ET: #1N UNC Greensboro vs #4S/#5N Winner (ESPN3); UNC Greensboro vs College of Charleston: College of Charleston leads 20-9; UNC Greensboro def. College of Charleston 73-66 on Jan. 12 and 78-63 on Feb. 15. UNC Greensboro vs Appalachian State: Appalachian State leads 20-17; Appalachian State def. UNC Greensboro 78-64 on Dec. 1 and UNC Greensboro def. Appalachian State 77-73 (OT) on Jan. 26.
• Saturday, March 3, 2:30 ET: #2S Wofford vs #3N/#6S Winner (ESPN3); Wofford vs Western Carolina: Western Carolina leads 23-19; Western Carolina def. Wofford 67-57 on Jan. 7 and Wofford def. Western Carolina 82-56 on Jan. 30. Wofford vs The Citadel: Wofford leads 48-45; Wofford def. Western Carolina 82-63 on Dec. 3 and 62-55 on Jan. 26.
• Saturday, March 3, 6:00 ET: #1S Davidson vs #4N/#5S Winner (ESPN3); Davidson vs Samford: Davidson leads 7-1; Samford def. Davidson 77-74 on Jan. 28, Davidson def. Samford 81-54 on Feb. 15. Davidson vs Furman: Davidson leads 96-61; Davidson def. Furman 86-65 on Dec. 3 and 71-53 on Feb. 1.
• Saturday, March 3, 8:30 ET: #2N Elon vs #3S/#6N Winner (ESPN3); Elon vs Georgia Southern: Georgia Southern leads 9-8; Georgia Southern def. Elon 69-63 on Jan. 5. Elon vs Chattanooga: Chattanooga leads 11-9; Elon def. Chattanooga 88-87 on Jan. 21 and Chattanooga def. Elon 83-75 on Feb. 9
• Sunday March 4, 6:00 ET: Semifinal #1 (ESPN3)
• Sunday March 4, 8:30 ET: Semifinal #1 (ESPN3)
• Monday March 5, 7:00 ET: Semifinal Winners (ESPN2)

Team Tournament Capsules

• #1 Belmont: Championship Appearances: 11; Record 15-6; Best Finish: Champion – 2006, 2007, 2008, 2011; Last Season: Champion
• #2 Mercer: Championship Appearances: 28; Record 23-25; Best Finish: Champion – 1981, 1985; Last Season: L, Semifinals
• #3 USC Upstate: First Appearance
• #4 ETSU: Championship Appearances: 7; Record 10-4; Best Finish: Champion – 2009, 2010; Last Season: L, Semifinals
• #5 North Florida: Championship Appearances: 3; Record 2-2; Best Finish: Runner-up – 2011; Last Season: L, Final
• #6 FGCU: First Appearance
• #7 Lipscomb: Championship Appearances: 8; Record 4-7; Best Finish: Runner-up – 2006; Last Season: L, Quarterfinals
• #8 Jacksonville: Championship Appearances: 13; Record 5-12; Best Finish: Runner-up – 2008, 2009; Last Season: L, Quarterfinals

What Is The Best Matchup Of The Opening Round? It Could Very Well Be Torrey Craig and USC Upstate Against FGCU

Tournament Schedule (All games played at University Center, Macon, GA)

• Wednesday, February 29, 2:30 ET: #1 Belmont vs #8 Jacksonville (ESPN3); Season Results: Jan. 4 (Belmont 75, at Jacksonville 63), Jan. 28 (at Belmont 85, Jacksonville 71); Series Record: Belmont, 15-6; Tournament Series Belmont, 1-0; #1 vs #8: 20-5
• Wednesday, February 29, 8:30 ET: #2 Mercer vs #7 Lipscomb (ESPN3); Season Results: Dec. 1 (Mercer 79, at Lipscomb 72), Feb. 23 (at Mercer 63, Lipscomb 54); Series Record: Lipscomb, 12-8; Tournament Series Lipscomb, 2-1; #2 vs #7: 24-4
• Thursday, March 1, 2:30 ET: #4 ETSU vs #5 North Florida (ESPN3); Season Results: Jan. 16 (ETSU 64, at North Florida 63), Feb. 11(at ETSU 65, North Florida 50); Series Record: Lipscomb, 12-8; Tournament Series Lipscomb, 2-1; #5 vs #4: 16-14
• Thursday, March 1, 8:30 ET: #3 USC Upstate vs #6 FGCU (ESPN3); Season Results: Dec. 19 (USC Upstate 80, at FGCU 75), Feb. 23 (at USC Upstate 87, FGCU 74); Series Record: ETSU, 13-1; Tournament Series: North Florida 1-0; #3 vs #6: 19-11
• Friday, March 2, 6:00 ET: #1/#8 Winner vs #4/#5 Winner (ESPN3)
• Friday, March 2, 8:30 ET: #2/#7 Winner vs #3/#6 Winner (ESPN3)
• Saturday, March 3, 7:00 ET: Semifinal Winners (ESPN2)

1. Kentucky head coach John Calipari has become the face of coaches recruiting college players who stay for only one year.  Recently, one of his star freshman, Michael Kidd-Gilchrist, said he “wasn’t going anywhere” after this season. Despite that comment, Calipari defended his actions, “It’s not my rule. I don’t even like the rule one-and-done.” Calipari continued by saying, “Whether it’s Carolina, Duke, Florida, we’re all in the same boat. If a kid plays really well and that’s what he chooses to do, you can either try to talk him out of it or the (other) option is, don’t recruit good enough players that can be drafted.”
2. Auburn head coach Tony Barbee set his deadline for when he would decide if Varez Ward and Chris Denson would return for Wednesday’s game with Alabama: “Before we get on the bus for Tuscaloosa.” Both were suspended for Saturday against Arkansas.
3. The AP wrote Tuesday that Alabama’s JaMychal Green was “expected to return to the starting lineup” for Wednesday’s contest against Auburn. In his absence, he saw the Crimson Tide improve their NCAA Tournament outlook, defeating Tennessee, Mississippi State and Arkansas. “It’d be pretty big,” said Green, who came off the bench against the Bulldogs. “I’ve never been there. It’d be a great experience for everybody on the team. It’s just the way I want to go out.”
4. For a team picked 11th in the preseason, Tennessee remains alive for finishing as high as the #2 seed in the SEC Tournament. For that scenario to play out, the Volunteers must win out and Florida must most lose to Kentucky on Saturday. They enter the final week of the regular season tied with Alabama for the fourth and final bye position. “We are fighting for our lives,” head coach Cuonzo Martin said. “You have to get better every day. There’s plenty of work to do. Our guys are hungry right now.We’re fighting. We don’t have any luxury or margin for any error to be happy or be successful or think we’ve done something special. But we have every right just like everyone else to win ball games.”
5. In winning six of their last seven games, players on Tennessee credit team chemistry as one of the reasons for the improved play. “We didn’t have a level of team togetherness, passion for one another,” head coach Cuonzo Martin said. “Where you say, ‘I really wanna see my teammate be successful before I see myself have success. You start to play together, you don’t worry about if your shot is falling or not; you’re just playing basketball.”

1. Kentucky’s Michael Kidd-Gilchrist made some headlines afters the Wildcats beat Vanderbilt Saturday. “I’m graduating here. I’m not going nowhere,” Kidd-Gilchrist was quoted as saying by Brett Dawson of Rivals.com and other reporters who were present at the time. “I’m staying at Kentucky.” When several reporters chuckled, Kidd-Gilchrist then added: “I’m dead serious. I don’t know why y’all laughing.” Whether MKG ultimately decides to stay another one, or three, years at Kentucky is not for us to decide, but we’ve got to wonder why he’s making such statements before the season has ended unless he was just trying to be funny.
2. Gregg Doyel came to that Kentucky-Vanderbilt game with no intention of writing about Anthony Davis, but after his 28-point, 11-rebound, five-block effort against the Commodores, all he could say was that “[he’s] even better than I thought he was, and I already thought he was the best pro prospect in college basketball. But he’s more than that. He’s the best player in college basketball, and it’s not even close between him and whoever’s second. A handful of guys in college basketball profoundly impact the game on defense. Another handful profoundly impact the game on offense. How many players do that at both ends? Kentucky has had 52 players earn All-America honors and 100 get drafted by NBA teams, but Kentucky had never had an Anthony Davis. Almost nobody has. The only college player I’ve seen who was this dominant at both ends of the floor, as a freshman no less, was LSU’s Shaquille O’Neal in 1990.”
3. Florida pulled off the rare achievement of not only never leading at Georgia, but also never being tied, not even at 0-0. Before the game, Casey Prather was caught dunking in the layup line before the game by officials who then enforced rule Rule 10, Section 6, Article 1, which says that a technical foul shall be assessed to a “team member dunking or attempting to dunk a dead ball before or during the game, or during any intermission.” “I’ve got a little bit of an issue with that,” Florida head coach Billy Donovan said. “I don’t know if that situation was handled the right way. I wasn’t out there. It was hard for me to comment on that. But certainly our players know that. I think the biggest thing with our players is generally there’s an unwritten rule when the officials come on the floor (you stop).”
4. When Alabama was securing the BCS National Championship, those closely monitoring the outcome was Kentucky head coach John Calipari. In a Lexington Herald-Leader article entitled “Calipari, Saban demand rare brand of excellence,” Calipari and Saban both offered mutual admiration for the other. “Earlier this winter, Calipari expressed his admiration for Saban and Alabama’s national championship football team. Attention to detail and execution led Calipari to offer the Tide as an example for UK’s basketball team to follow in its own championship quest.”
5. As Black History Month winds to close, an article by Mark Wiedmar in the Chattanooga Times Free Press points out, accurately, how far the SEC has come in terms of diversity — to the point now where the SEC can boast about being the most diverse league among the six power conferences. Wiedmar notes “to think the SEC didn’t hire its first black head basketball coach until Wade Houston came to Tennessee in 1989 and didn’t have a black head football coach until Sylvester Croom went to Mississippi State in 2004. Yet in the years since, every school in the league except South Carolina and Florida has had at least one black coach in either football or men’s basketball.”

1. LSU extended its longest SEC winning streak since 2008-09 by holding off Georgia last night. The four-game winning streak has the Tigers “pushing for a bid” in the NCAA Tournament for the first time since that same season. They still must overcome bad non-conference losses to Coastal Carolina and South Alabama, though. As Storm Warren said in advance of Wednesday’s contest with Georgia, “We don’t want to slip up again.”
2. After a hiccup against Alabama, Tennessee continued its late-season surge by beating fading Ole Miss on Wednesday. Prior to their loss to the Rebels, Volunteer guard Skylar McBee said Tuesday in regards to any potential postseason aspirations, “We’ve just got to take care of business one day at a time, and I think if we keep trying to get better, then everything else will take care of itself… I think you see a lot more people trying to figure where they’re going to be at the end of the season. You can kind of work the numbers a little bit better because you can see who has to go play at this place and who’s got who and what teams you’ve got left. But I think it’s a mindset you’ve got to have every day that, ‘I know I can’t look forward.'”
3. Despite being reinstated to the team by head coach Anthony Grant, Alabama’s JaMychal Green will not play in Thursday’s critical contest at Arkansas. When asked what went into the decision, Grant said, “”He’s not playing Thursday. We’ll see how the week goes this week, and we’ll make some decisions after Thursday.” The Tide enters the game as a #10 seed in the latest RTC Bracketology. Arkansas’ slide started with a 72-68 loss at Alabama on January 28 starting a 2-5 slide that has seen the Razorbacks’ RPI fall from inside the Top 50 to #88.
4. One Birmingham News columnist, Kevin Scarbinsky, wrote of Grant’s decision: “It’s the first sign of clarity for the remaining players in weeks,” and “Grant has earned the benefit of the doubt by putting this entire season at risk to teach a lesson that should last long past March Madness.” When Alabama cooled an improving Tennessee team on Saturday, “It gained the confidence of knowing it could win without Green and Mitchell if it applied pressure on defense and took the ball to the rim on offense.”
5. Alabama’s opponent Arkansas has battled through the fatigue that manifested in a 19-point loss to Tennessee and a 30-point blowout at home to Florida. “I think sometimes fatigue is a factor and it might be even with our guys fatiguing now with having… only eight guys, eight scholarship guys for a period,” head coach Mike Anderson said Tuesday. Anderson has cut back on practice and weight rooms sessions for players have also been shorter.