Zach Hayes is RTC’s resident bracketologist.   He’ll be regularly out-scooping, out-thinking and out-shining Lunardi over the next three months.

Rather than wallow in my own pity after my Patriots were knocked out of the playoffs, it’s my duty here at RTC to provide our readers with another Monday morning bracketology. While the week was somewhat quiet due to the holiday, there were some significant upsets (Portland State!) and big wins (Texas winning in Madison) to shake up the bracket from last week’s edition. Once again, I took a still-developing RPI with a grain of salt and factored in non-conference SOS, but mostly I’m just digging through each team’s schedule to find quality wins/bad losses and comparing them to the other teams in the field for seeding.

As always, I mixed in a few upsets in the bracket for fun.

Some quick notes about the bracket:

• You might be thinking that Tennessee, Michigan State and UCLA are overseeded. While that may be true, I had to factor in each of those teams winning their respective conference tournaments before Selection Sunday, meaning they’d garner three significant wins and take the conference title.
• The four 1-seeds remained the same from last week: North Carolina, Connecticut, Pittsburgh and Oklahoma (I added the individual regions to the bracket and seeded these four teams closest to home).
• Texas received the final 2 seed with their road win over Wisconsin, slightly edging out Notre Dame.
• Baylor edged Syracuse for the final 4 seed. Baylor has a nice win over Arizona State and hung with Wake Forest while Syracuse’s three big wins- Florida, Kansas, Memphis– are all overrated.
• Biggest jump goes to Butler (10 to 7) while the biggest drop goes to Xavier (3 to 6). Butler won at Xavier on Monday.
• Kansas also took a three seed drop from 8 to 11 after their second half collapse at Arizona. Much like Illinois over Missouri, that was a very important game for a Kansas team looking for a signature win.
• Maryland continues to be boosted by their two wins over Michigan and Michigan State
• Portland State moves from a 15 seed to 14 seed with their shocking win over Gonzaga, with the Zags dropping to the last 3 seed on the table

Conference Winners: Vermont, Xavier, North Carolina, Belmont, Oklahoma, Connecticut, Portland State, VMI, Michigan State, Cal State Fullerton, VCU, Memphis, Butler, Cornell, Siena, Miami (OH), Hampton, Creighton, BYU, Quinnipiac, Austin Peay, UCLA, Navy, Tennessee, Davidson, Lamar, Alabama State, North Dakota State, Western Kentucky, Gonzaga, Utah State

Last Four In: California, Boston College, Kansas, Dayton

Last Four Out: Kentucky, Miami (FL), Cincinnati, Louisville

Departures: Murray State, Stetson

Arrivals: Austin Peay, Belmont

Bids per conference: Big East (8), ACC (7), Big 10 (7), Big 12 (6), Pac 10 (5), SEC (3), MVC (2), WCC (2), Atlantic 10 (2), MWC (2).

Not much change from last week in terms of the teams in the field. Next Sunday it could shake up a bit with all of these key bubble games:

Key Bubble Games for 12/29-1/5:

• Cincinnati at Memphis, 12/29- This would be a stellar win for Cincinnati, who are currently in the last four out.
• Seton Hall at Syracuse, 12/30- The Hall probably need wins over Syracuse and West Virginia to climb back into the picture.
• George Mason at Dayton, 12/30- Big game for Dayton in the bubble picture. If Mason should win this game, I may replace Vermont with the Patriots.
• Oklahoma at Arkansas, 12/30- Arkansas has a shiny record and zero good wins. This would qualify.
• Northwestern at Penn State, 12/31- Reaching here a bit, but you never know this early.
• UNLV at Louisville, 12/31- Louisville needs this game at home for a win over an NCAA team.
• USC at Oregon, 1/2- If USC wants to start creeping back, winning at Oregon is a good start.
• South Carolina at Baylor, 1/2- See Arkansas for South Carolina.
• Arizona at California, 1/2- Huge bubble game for both teams.
• Missouri at Georgia, 1/3- The Tigers cannot afford to slip up here.
• Tennessee at Kansas, 1/3- Believe it or not, KU is on the bubble. A win over 2-seed Tennessee would go a long way towards securing a bid down the road.
• NC State at Florida, 1/3- See Kansas for Florida. They’re lacking quality wins.
• Charlotte at Maryland, 1/3- If Maryland slips up here, they could be out of the field.
• West Virginia at Seton Hall, 1/3- Seton Hall needs this one at home.
• Washington at Washington State, 1/3- Washington State dropped from consideration for this bracket. This is the first step in working their way back.
• Creighton at Illinois State, 1/3- HUGE game in the Missouri Valley.
• Cincinnati at Marquette, 1/4- Cincinnati with another chance for a big win here.
• Kentucky at Louisville, 1/4- Biggest bubble game on the slate this week.
• Virginia Tech at Duke, 1/4- Virginia Tech can creep back into consideration if they can spring a huge upset at Cameron.
• Arizona State at California, 1/4- California is barely in. A win over Arizona State gives them more comfort.
• Arizona at Stanford, 1/4– Another big bubble game for Arizona.

Zach Hayes is RTC’s resident bracketologist.   He’ll be regularly out-scooping, out-thinking and out-shining Lunardi over the next three months.

Happy Holidays, everyone. My name is Zach Hayes and you might know me as a college hoops writer for the blog Northwestern Wins. Due to the unfortunate folding of that site, the head honchos here at Rush the Court graciously invited me on board as their Senior Bracketologist from now until Selection Sunday. Just think of me as Joe Lunardi but seven inches taller and without a hairpiece. Every Monday morning for the next six weeks or so a new bracket will be revealed until February heats up and multiple brackets per week will be released. I hope you guys enjoy this new RTC feature. For me, it’s just a ton of fun.

Quick disclaimers: The obvious one- it’s probably too early for bracketology (blasphemy! It’s never too early for this, how dare you! You know what I mean). RPI is still rounding into form at this point, and many key numbers I use from ESPN (Wins vs. Top 50, etc.) have yet to be released. I didn’t use much for this first bracket: record, conference strength, SOS, perused the individual schedules for quality wins/bad losses, and took RPI with a grain of salt. On the bracket you’ll notice I also made predictions for the entire tournament based on my matchups.  Syracuse as the monumental upset should surprise no one that follows college basketball.

These seedings are based purely on performance thus far. If I was projecting future performance, I’d probably have Louisville in the tournament because they have to improve, right? Other than some of the mid-major/small conference auto-bids (i.e., I’m predicting Creighton takes the Missouri Valley even though you’d go with Illinois State by default), these are all based on the small amount of games played thus far. As you know, this entire operation will improve once teams complete more of their resumes.

RTC Bracket 12.22.08

Some explanations about the first edition (click brackets or right-click/view image to see a larger version):

• The 1 seeds were pretty clear to me even before I began gathering info: North Carolina, Connecticut, Oklahoma and Pittsburgh. In fact, Pittsburgh and Oklahoma are 1-2 in RPI, respectively. Butler is #4 and Northwestern is #9, so take it for what it’s worth.
• #2 seed Tennessee and #3 seed Michigan State are probably over-seeded for their performance this season. But I had to take into account that I have both teams pegged to win their conference tournaments, meaning three extra wins before Selection Sunday that will certainly boost their seed.
• My bracket came down to 12 teams for 8 positions: California, Maryland, Florida State, Stanford, Miami, Boston College, Louisville, Kentucky, Dayton, Cincinnati, Illinois State and Arizona. As much as I wanted to deny Illinois State and Stanford because of their lack of any semblance of a quality win, they’re undefeated and I had to slip them in the field. Maryland has the wins over Michigan and Michigan State and Arizona has the win over Gonzaga, with two of their three losses by the narrowest of margins. Dayton is 10-1 and has the Marquette win, with their only loss at Creighton. Florida State has nice computer numbers and beat California, Cincinnati and Florida, meaning if they’re in, Cal has to be. Painfully, the final seed came down to Louisville (only average win: depleted Mississippi) and Boston College (only average wins: UAB, Providence, @Massachusetts). I went with BC.

Conference Winners: Vermont, Xavier, North Carolina, Stetson, Oklahoma, Connecticut, Portland State, VMI, Michigan State, Cal State Fullerton, VCU, Memphis, Butler, Cornell, Siena, Miami (OH), Hampton, Creighton, BYU, Quinnipiac, Murray State, UCLA, Navy, Tennessee, Davidson, Lamar, Alabama State, North Dakota State, Western Kentucky, Gonzaga, Utah State

Multiple bids per conference: Big East (8), ACC (7), Big 10 (7), Big 12 (6), Pac 10 (5), SEC (3), MVC (2), WCC (2), Atlantic 10 (2), MWC (2).

Last Four In: Boston College, Stanford, Florida State, California
Last Four Out: Louisville, Cincinnati, Miami (FL), Kentucky

Any questions please leave them in the comments and I’ll do my best to respond.

Here it is, through Monday night’s games…

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Big East/SEC Invitational. This is so ridiculous.  Tonight was the opening night of yet another conference challenge series invitational that theoretically is a great idea, but is executed all wrong by the powers-that-be.  Why don’t the Pac-10, Big 12, SEC and Big East realize that interest will be much greater in these things if they’re made into week-long EVENTS, similar to the way the ACC and Big 10 do it, and they let ESPN carry all the games throughout the week.  The Pac-10/Big 12 Hardwood Series is bad enough, considering nobody even knows about it; but this Big East/SEC thing is an abomination.  It only involves four teams from each conference, and somehow a team like South Florida gets invited.  South Florida… most people don’t even realize that USF is IN the Big East or even carries a basketball program!  Furthermore, they’ve decided to have doubleheaders in semi-neutral venues, which only serves to confuse people and create situations where half the stands are empty, even though two top 25 teams are playing (see: UT-Marquette tonight in Nashville).  How cool would it be to have three legitimate made-for-tv challenges between all the power conferences in the first three weeks of December, leading into Bowl Week?  Make this happen.  FYI – the much-maligned SEC went 2-0 tonight, but who wouldn’t beat South Florida?

• Tennessee 80, Marquette 62. The score was Marquette by 2 with just over ten minutes remaining.  Then Tennessee and, more precisely, Mr. Headband as Yarmulke Wayne Chism, took over the game.  The Vols scored on eleven of their next twelve possessions, and Chism was involved in seven of them.  Game pretty much over.  Chism, incidentally, set a new career-high with 26 pts and 11 rebounds, and it was clear that in the second half he was feeling it.  The Vols didn’t get a huge amount of production from anyone else, though, (Tyler Smith had 14/3; Bobby Maze 10/6 assts) but their long arms and athletic defense did force Marquette into its worst shooting performance of the season (38%).  Wesley Matthews continued to show his value, as he dropped 30 (15 from the line) on a myriad of drives and scoop shots in the lane.  Matthews is #2 in the nation in FT attempts (97), behind only Blake Griffin, which shows just how frequently he gets into the paint and absorbs contact.
• Vanderbilt 71, South Florida 52. We’re not going to spend too much time on this turd of game, but one interesting aspect of it was that the much-ballyhooed Mike Mercer (transfer from Georgia) and Gus Gilchrist (transfer from Maryland, sorta) made their tv debuts.  Mercer had 10/3 assts, while Gilchrist added 12/8 off the bench.  Anyone expecting these two players to turn USF into a Big East contender should have their heads examined.  AJ Ogilvy and Jermaine Beal had twenty each for the Commodores.

This Sweaty Vol Fan Was Outworking Wayne Chism Tonight

It’s Hard Out Here For a Pimp.

• LMU’s Bill Bayno is taking a leave of absence due to a “serious medical condition” related to coaching-related stress.  Maybe the 0-10 record with a trip scheduled to Pauley on Wednesday had something to do with it.
• Mississippi State’s Rick Stansbury was hospitalized yesterday with migraines and flu-like symptoms, although further tests were being done.
• Mike Davis lost half of his team today, as former Hoosier Armon Bassett decided to transfer (whereabouts unknown), and three other players were found academically ineligible for the spring semester.   UAB is now down to six scholarship players.
• RIP, Pete Newell.

Scores that Have Us Wishing For Saturday.

• Clemson 76, North Florida 36. In the past seven years, Clemson has had starts of 10-0, 17-0, 11-0, 9-0, and now in 2008-09, 11-0 again.  In those other four unbeaten starts, the final result was two NITs, one NCAA first round loss, and one losing record.  Woo.  Hoo.
• Texas 88, Texas Southern 72. We’ve said it before, but if Dexter Pittman (19/5) gets going, Texas is a whole different animal.  One troubling aspect of tonight’s game is they allowed 0-9 TSU to shoot 58% against them – Rick Barnes cannot be happy about that.

On Tap Wednesday (all times EST). Nothing like a Duke v. UNC-Asheville game (w/o Kenny George) to keep us warm at night.  We’re actually very intrigued with how Syracuse responds 48 hrs after losing at home, whether Pitt will dominate a good Siena team, and if St. Mary’s can go into Mac Court and beat a young Oregon team.

• NC State (-9.5) v. East Carolina – 7pm
• Syracuse (-25) v. Canisius (ESPNU) – 7pm
• Duke v. UNC-Asheville (ESPN2) – 7:30pm
• LSU v. Nicholls St. (ESPN FC & 360) – 8pm
• Memphis (-22) v. Arkansas-Little Rock – 8pm
• Arkansas (-6.5) v. Austin Peay (ESPN FC & 360) – 8pm
• Ohio St. v. Jacksonville (ESPNU) – 9pm
• Pittsburgh (-18.5) v. Siena (ESPN2) – 9:30pm
• St. Mary’s (-2.5) @ Oregon – 10pm
• UNLV (-10) v. Santa Clara – 10:30pm
• UCLA (-30.5) v. Loyola Marymount – 11pm

John Stevens is a featured columnist for RTC.  His columns appear on Tuesdays throughout the season. 

It seems like we’re still feeling things out, getting our bearings, and getting to know some teams in this college basketball season, but believe it or not we are one-third through the 2008-09 campaign.  Pretty soon it’ll be the Christmas-time tournaments and then conference play, at which point the season seems to accelerate until we get to those beautiful, life-affirming days of the conference tournaments, Championship Week, and the NCAA Tournament.  I was browsing through some of the pre-season columns here on RTC and came across this one that talked about how the fair, wonderful, and beautiful people in Las Vegas saw the season shaping up.  Specifically, there’s a pretty sweet table listing every Division One squad with even the most remote chance of winning the 2009 title, and the money line they were offering for each team.

The Lemmings Survey the Cliff

(Note:  My sentiments above regarding the gambling gods in Las Vegas have nothing to do with the fact that the yearly RTC Vegas field trip is coming up in March.  I think those things are true, no matter what.  Wonderful, good-looking people they are, all of them.  Every one.  God bless them.  Seriously…)

Now, in case you don’t know how a money line works, here’s the deal.  Let’s say you go to a casino in Las Vegas and look up at the big board at the sportsbook and you see something that says North Carolina +300.  This means that if you think UNC will win the title in 2009, you walk up to the incredibly nice man at the front of the sportsbook and tell him you want to make that bet.  +300 means that if you bet $100 and UNC wins, the man will give you back $400, meaning the $300 offered in the money line, and your $100 bet (minus a small commission).  Often, you’ll see a negative number next to a team, like (and I’m just throwing this name out) Fordham –200.  This means that if you bet $200 to win (money lines can be applied to single games, conference titles, national championships, whatever) on Fordham, and Fordham wins, the nice man will hand you back $300 – the $200 you bet, and the $100 offered on that money line.  A positive number means that’s how much you’ll win if you bet $100.  A negative number means that’s what you have to bet in order to WIN $100.  And of course you can bet as much as you want up to the maximum, i.e. with UNC above, you can bet $10 and win $30, or you can bet $500 and win $1500.

The original article covered pretty much everything noteworthy about the accompanying preseason table, but a couple of other items stood out to me.  First of all, the very top.  Everyone knew how great UNC was going to be, but here’s Vegas, telling us that they’re willing to give us FOUR TIMES our money if we have the so-called guts to put some cash down on what might end up being one of the all-time great college teams.  Yeah, that sound you’re hearing right now?  That’s me kicking myself.  And without recapping the whole original article – who wouldn’t take a shot on Louisville and Connecticut (+1200 and 1400?!?)?  I also literally get dizzy and have to sit down when I see Pitt (+2000), Oklahoma (+3500), Gonzaga (+4000!!), and a pretty doggone hot and versatile Wake Forest team (offered at an abominable +8000).  Hey, Cincinnati readers, you looking for Xavier?  They’re not even listed.  You’d have to have your bet cheapened by taking the entire field at +1200.

But of course this is all with benefit of hindsight.  I had this information in the preseason just like everyone else and I just sat on it.  So the question becomes, where are we now?  What is Vegas offering?  Is there any value comparable to what we could have had in the preseason?  Well, wonder no more, my friends.  Here’s the latest:

source: thegreek.com

Vegas is still willing to almost triple your money with a bet on UNC, offering +175, claiming there’s a 36.4% chance that they’ll be raising the trophy in early April.  It looks like they’ve woke up to Gonzaga and Tennessee as well, despite recent losses, but certainly not enough to put anyone off such a wager.  But look at Louisville – true, they have a couple of things to iron out but that loss to Western Kentucky is far enough back in the rearview mirror, and since his days at Providence Rick Pitino has been the best in the business as far as 1) “learning” about his team from losses, and 2) getting his teams, and specifically the defense they play, to peak in March.  Are you telling me that if one of your friends came up to you right now and said, “Give me $10 right now.  If Louisville wins the title, I’ll hand you back $150,” you wouldn’t take that bet? 

Obviously the story here is that, because of the sheer dominance of North Carolina and the way they’ve just eclipsed the entire college basketball landscape, most of the tremendous value that was on the board back in November is still there even a third of the way into the season.  For some teams it’s come back a little (UConn, Oklahoma) but it’s still pretty inviting.  For other squads you can get even better deals than back in November (Louisville, Texas, Kansas, Pitt), and you have the Tar Heels to thank for that.  I mean, come on — they still don’t even bother to list #7 Xavier.  Vegas is telling us here that any bet against UNC is basically a sucker bet.  They might be right.  But they’re certainly willing to reward you like crazy if you feel adventurous enough to bet against the Tar Heels, should they falter. 

Source: http://bigpicture.typepad.com/

Monday
– Stony Brook at #2 UConn at 7 PM on ESPN Full Court, ESPN360.com, and the Big East Network: The only way this game stays within 20 is if the Huskies actually have to take final exams. Nothing to see here unless you know one of the Huskies benchwarmers and want to see him get some PT.

– Cleveland State at #11 Syracuse at 7 PM on Time Warner-New York: Should be another snoozefest, but you might want to check the Orangemen out to see how they are adjusting to life without Eric Devendorf (or not). If Time Warner-New York is on their game, they will run a feature on the 1985-86 Cleveland State team that upset Indiana in the NCAA tournament that was documented in John Feinstein’s classic “Season on the Brink” (great winter break reading for the erudite RTC fan).

Tuesday
– South Florida vs. Vanderbilt at 7 PM on ESPN 2 and ESPN360.com: This game is officially at a “neutral” location, but the game is being played in Nashville. Even Coach K would be embarrassed to call that a neutral site. The Commodores could use a win here as they have been disappointing so far while the Bulls have been surprisingly competitive. However, since Vanderbilt plays in the SEC and USF plays in the Big East the reverse will be true during league play.

– #23 Marquette vs. #19 Tennessee at 9:30 PM on ESPN 2 and ESPN360.com: The game of the week (before Saturday). Another “neutral” site game in Nashville. The Volunteers will be looking to bounce back from their loss to Dionte Christmas Temple. The loss dropped them 11 spots from a #8 ranking. They can make a case for a top 10 ranking again if they can beat Marquette. Meanwhile, the Golden Eagles have been playing well (7-1) and come into the game with a top 25 ranking. Unfortunately, that only makes them the 8th highest ranked team in the Big East. I know it’s early and sounds ridiculous for a top 25 team, but Marquette could use a win here to start building a case for a NCAA tournament bid in case they fall back a little in the Big East because I still have a hard time believing the Selection Committee will give the Big East 10 bids.

Wednesday
– Cram for your last finals or go through the games you missed while studying for those finals/writing that term paper because this is a weak set of games.

Thursday
– Mississippi State at Cincinnati at 6:30 PM on ESPN 2 and ESPN360.com: The Bearcats (6-2) are off to a respectable start–losses to FSU and Xavier–by almost any league’s standards except for the Big East where they will struggle to stay out of the bottom third of the conference. The Bulldogs (7-3) are also off to decent start, but may be without coach Rick Stansbury who was admitted to a local hospital for new-onset migraines (the administration expects him to be able to coach that night). The Bearcats will have their handful trying to score inside with “The Human Eraser” Jarvis Varnado who comes into the game with a 6.2 blocks per game average.

– Evansville at #1 UNC at 7 PM on ESPN and ESPN360.com: I’m expecting the line for this game to be UNC by 20, but don’t sleep on Evansville. They come into the game with a 7-1 record including a 32-point win over a Western Kentucky team that handled preseason Final Four favorite Louisville its only loss. The Tar Heels may also be a little off their game if they start buying into the hype (we aren’t) or if they continue to have late-night trysts with America’s sideline princess.

– Mississippi at #9 Louisville at 9 PM on ESPN and ESPN360.com: The Rebels shouldn’t really present a challenge Louisville, but I haven’t bought into Rick Pitino’s Cardinals yet. In their only game that could be considered moderately challenging, they fell apart losing to Western Kentucky. If Pitino hopes to contend for a national title this year, his team needs to be able to put away teams like Mississippi early. We’ll also be watching to see Samardo Samuels, who is playing like the best freshman in the country right now.

Friday
– Get some sleep or go get some sun because you’re going to be glued to your couch all day tomorrow.

A10 Weekend. The A10 used three televised games on Saturday to announce its presence to America, knocking off an SEC, Big East and Big 12 team in the process (two of which were effectively road games).  With the relative weakness of the Pac-10 and SEC this year, the A10 could make a run at a legitimate four NCAA bids this season.  Today’s results could go a long way in the Tourney Committee’s minds toward that end.   Great weekend for the Atlantic 10.

• Temple 88, Tennessee 72. Every outlet in America is making the “Merry Christmas” joke, so we’ll refrain here, but suffice it to say that Temple’s Dionte Christmas stole Bruce Pearl’s cookies and blew up his sled with an explosive game where it seemed as if every shot he threw at the rim was flushing straight through.  More importantly, Temple exposed Tennessee’s defense for what it is – simply not good enough to sustain any kind of legitimate run in March.  The Owls shot a blistering 55%, led by Xmas’ 35 on seven threes, and it often appeared as if the Vol players had little interest in covering him.  The roof nearly came off the place when he hit three trifectas in a row during a personal 1:30 run to blow open the game.  Temple, who had not defeated a top 10 team since John Chaney was still on campus, celebrated with a spirited RTC, to which, we say – deserved.

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We delayed the start of the Blogpoll this year so we could get a better sense as to the first few weeks of the season, so here it is.  The blogpoll is represented through Monday night’s games (although records are current).

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It’s been a while since we did this consistently, but now that we actually know which games will be played more than 24 hours in advance it’s time to get back into our routine of providing you with the best college basketball links we find each day. If you find something that you think would be of interest to other college basketball fans, leave a link in the comment section and we’ll include it in the next Fast Breaks. Some of these are a few days old, but we have some catching up to do. . .

• Dana O’Neil with a look at the gray areas in recruiting top prospects. It makes us long for the days when Pete Bell bought Neon Bodeaux with a Lexus that he didn’t even ask for.
• Seth Davis with his annual “Ten sophomores ready to break out” selections, which selects the sophomores that he expects to have big years after relatively quiet freshman years. This eliminates obvious selections like early national POY favorite and thespian Blake Griffin.
• Kevin Armstrong with his very early season freshmen All-American. Having seen Greg Monroe against Tennessee last week (there’s a post coming about that someday) I agree with Armstrong’s assessment of the Hoyas big man although I wish Monroe would become a bit more aggressive, but I guess seeing freshmen like Kevin Durant and Michael Beasley has spoiled me.
• Xavier will have to wait one more year before Jordan Crawford can suit up there after the NCAA rejected his petition to not miss a season following his transfer from Indiana. Score another one for Kelvin Sampson.
• ESPN with a look at the transition at Bucknell. Do they really have NCAA 2nd round banners?
• We wrote about the passing of Pete Newell a few weeks ago, but last night approximately 200 people gathered in Berkeley, CA to remember him.
• It looks like Tyler Hansbrough is healthy enough to save lives. Last night, Tyler responded to the “challenge” posed by RTC columnist John Stevens. The question now is will Psycho T keep on playing or continue to be day-to-day?

Kurt of SEC Hoops: The Good, The Bad, The Dirty is the RTC correspondent for the Southeastern Conference.

The misery continues for the Southeastern Conference. Only one unbeaten remains after MSU, South Carolina and Tennessee dropped games, with only LSU keeping their heads above water. The Wildcats from Kentucky met a couple of high-profile-conference foes and matched up well, while Mississippi State dropped two close ones in their matchups against power-conference squads. As a whole, the conference is wallowing badly at the moment, but Tennessee – powered by All-American Tyler Smith – is looking like the perennial powerhouse they have become in the past few years under Bruce Pearl and set to take the SEC regular-season title once again.

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