1. Georgia won its first two games of the season against Wofford and Bowling Green, but there are some concerns for the Dawgs moving forward. The University of Georgia student newspaper points out that the Bulldogs have been outrebounded in three of the four halves they have played thus far this season. “It was definitely frustrating, especially coming from a team last year we were really good in that area,” said senior guard Dustin Ware. “It’s something we’re definitely going to address and we’re just going to keep getting better at.” Rebounding was an area that Georgia expected to experience problems in after the Bulldogs lost big men Travis Leslie and Trey Thompkins. However, being outrebounded 43-28 by Bowling Green is a major sign of trouble ahead for when Mark Fox’s team plays bigger and stronger teams in the front court.
2. I feel like I’ve heard this story before: An SEC big man goes through a physical transformation in the offseason and plans to contribute more to his team this season. Unlike Renardo Sidney’s supposed improvements, this time, it sounds like reports of better conditioning and a new look seem to be true. Ole Miss sophomore Demarco Cox has worked his way into the starting lineup for the Rebels after dropping 40 pounds over the summer. He’s running every day and changed his diet and the hard work seems to be paying off. Cox started on Monday night against Grambling State, and the big man grabbed ten rebounds in 35 minutes of play. The Rebels will need Cox’s continued improvement in order to provide additional depth to a front line that is already one of the best in the SEC.
3. Speaking of Renardo Sidney, Andy Katz points out how detrimental he can be to Mississippi State’s on-court chemistry. Sidney is expected to play Thursday night against Texas A&M after missing the last game with a groin injury. Coach Rick Stansbury is hoping to get to a point where he can play Sidney alongside transfer Arnett Moultrie. “There’s no question they can play together,” Stansbury said. “Arnett can play inside and out. There is plenty of room on and off the court. Arnett is a terrific rebounder. And the two of them would be tough to handle in there. But our challenge is not about minutes together but to have [Sidney] have productive minutes. We hope it gets better.” The Bulldogs need to right the ship after an early season loss to Akron, and any corrective measures begin with Sidney. Sidney and Moultrie could be one of the SEC’s most dominant frontcourts, but Sidney just can’t seem to get to a point where he helps MSU more than he hurts them.
4. SEC basketball is accustomed to playing second fiddle to football season, especially in pigskin-crazed Florida. But it seems that in the midst of a mediocre college football season, Gator fans are beginning to turn to basketball much earlier than usual for a reprieve. The University of Florida student newspaper, The Alligator, writes that Billy Ball (referring to Billy Donovan’s typically fast and exciting style of play) is the perfect cure for those needing to turn their eyes from the football field. Donovan’s team this year likes to run with the potential to win frequently. And the author even thinks a Final Four year could be in store. Based on their play against Ohio State Tuesday night, Florida needs to figure out a way to involve their low post players more and begin playing unselfishly if the Gators are going to satisfy their fans. Florida has a difficult schedule coming up with games against Syracuse, Arizona and Texas A&M. While those will be exciting, the ultimate excitement comes with winning big games and not simply playing in them.
5. Auburn fans are satisfied with the progress on the court for second year coach Tony Barbee. The Auburn Plainsman writes that improvements are already evident. The author points out that “the team played with as much heart as any in the country, and that shows effective coaching.” The Tigers are 2-0 to start the new season, and the effectiveness of the Tigers appears to lie with the progress of junior center Rob Chubb. Chubb is averaging 17 points and seven rebounds per game in 24 minutes of action. Auburn will continue to rely on a solid post game from Chubb and the contributions of 6’1″ guard Frankie Sullivan, who sat out last year with an injury. After struggling a bit against McNeese State, Sullivan came back to score 22 points and grab five rebounds against Kennesaw State.

The Make or Break series will tell us what we need to know about each SEC team by looking at the three most important non-conference games on each team’s schedule. Depending on the outcome, these three games could make OR break that team’s season because of the strengths it shows or weaknesses it could expose. The next team in the series is the Auburn Tigers.

The Auburn Tigers look to improve on what was a dismal 2010-11 season. Last season, the Tigers went 4-12 in SEC play, and were a forgettable 11-20 overall. In Tony Barbee’s first season as head coach, his team was known for its tough, hard-nosed play. But Auburn ranked second to last in the SEC in scoring offense (62.4 PPG), field goal percentage (39.8%) and 10th in rebounding margin (-0.9). The Tigers have a promising roster coming back this season, however, as they return 6’1″ guard Frankie Sullivan after a season-ending injury last year. Sullivan only played in six games last season, but averaged over 12 points per game in his freshman year. Barbee has also secured a couple of impact transfers in former Texas guard Varez Ward and former Clemson guard Noel Johnson, who will be eligible in December. If Auburn can continue its gritty play, and find a consistent offensive presence somewhere on the court, then year two under Barbee will be a lot better than the first.

Tony Barbee should see signs of improvements this season from the Tigers

The three key non-conference games that will make or break the Tigers schedule this season:

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1. Exhibition Fever: Catch it! This part of the season ramps up the scrimmages that aren’t secret and that make money for the athletic department. Exhibition results aren’t meant to be true measures of a team’s effectiveness but usually fans can glean one or two interesting items from the results. On Tuesday Auburn beat Paine College, 86-60. Sophomore guard Chris Denson’s team-high 21 points was complemented by junior center Rob Chubb’s 14 points and 8 rebounds. Head coach Tony Barbee expressed his pleasure with the exhibition results post-game: “I like that we outrebounded them by 17. I was proud that we had a 2-to-1 assist to turnover ratio. Those are goals of ours for every game.” Now every TV commentator has their Auburn Keys of the Game written for them. Thanks, coach!
2. Yesterday Billy Donovan scored 13 points in a losing effort against Billy Donovan. No, they have not made a cloning breakthrough at the University of Florida; Coach Donovan’s son Billy plays for Division III Catholic University. As the exhibition opponent, the younger Billy’s team was drummed to the score of 114-57 at the O’Connell Center Thursday evening. The Cardinals were overwhelmed by the Gators’ relentless press (50 points off 23 turnovers) and long-range shooting (20-40 three-pointers). Freshman guard Bradley Beal scored 20 points and redshirt junior guard Mike Rosario scored 18 in their first exhibition game as Gators.
3. A little further north, Division II Kentucky Wesleyan College suffered a similar but less-intense three-point storm from South Carolina. In Wednesday night’s exhibition game, the Gamecocks made it rain with 10-of-19 three-point shooting and thundered to a 69-59 victory. Freshman forward Anthony Gill led all scorers with 14 points. Sophomore forward Damontre Harris tallied five blocks helping USC’s zone bother KWC’s shooting. Gamecocks coach Darrin Horn focused on the surprising positives after the game: “I think our guys are confident in each other. And that’s why you see 14 assists on 23 buckets the first time out.”
4. Tennessee’s Jordan McRae is a key component for his already-limited team. If McRae can contribute at both ends of the floor, the Volunteers will have a successful and entertaining transition into the Cuonzo Martin era. During yesterday’s 73-52 victory over Carson-Newman College, McRae led all scorers with 17 points and added three blocks and two steals. Former Marquette player Jeronne Maymon pulled down 15 rebounds with ten points. Renaldo “Swiperboy” Woolridge had four points, two assists and two blocks in just 18 minutes of play. We wonder if he’ll play better once his official Swiperboy shoes are on store shelves across Knoxville.
5. With the loss of Trey Thompkins and Travis Leslie to the NBA, one would expect Georgia coach Mark Fox’s biggest worry would be replacing those two forwards. Thompkins and Leslie provided roughly 43% of the Bulldog’s points, 47% of all offensive rebounds and 40% of all defensive rebounds last season. Instead of finding the next Trey and Travis, the current crop of Bulldogs are focusing on using the frontcourt players they have: Junior John Florveus and freshmen John Cannon and Nemanja Djurisic. Fox said in a Wednesday interview session, “they all have different traits that you like. But none of them are complete yet, and they just have so much to learn and experience as they start to get their feet wet.” While we don’t expect any of Georgia’s frontcourt players to contribute heavily in offensive sets, they will need to approximate Leslie’s and Thompkins’ rebounding productivity to regain their 32nd-best national rebounding margin ranking from the end of the 2010-11 season.

1. Rumors are circulating in Lexington that guard Stacey Poole, Jr., is frustrated and considering transferring from the University of Kentucky. Stacey’s father got involved saying, “I can’t confirm the rumor at this time.” Poole didn’t receive much playing time last year for the Cats, and with star recruit after star recruit committing to John Calipari’s team, it’s not likely that his court time will increase in the future. Reports indicate that Poole has not impressed coach John Calipari in practice thus far this year, and the player has become increasingly disappointed with his role.
2. Reports out of Vanderbilt’s practices are that freshman guard Dai Jon Parker is going to help tremendously with the Commodores’ shaky perimeter defense. Vanderbilt struggled mightily last year in that area, especially with the defensive liability of starting point guard Brad Tinsley. Kevin Stallings’ team ranked ninth in points allowed last year in the SEC. If Parker can provide shutdown defense on the speedy backcourts populating the SEC, he could see significant playing time in his first year with the ‘Dores.
3. Speaking of the Commodores, Vandy coach Kevin Stallings feels somewhat fortunate that injured center Festus Ezeli wasn’t out longer than the expected six to eight weeks on his sprained MCL. “Anytime a guy (gets hurt) in the knee area, the first thing you think of is he done for the season?” Stallings said. “Fortunately that was not the case.” Stallings knows that not having Ezeli manning in the post for a while will have a huge effect on his team’s play. Anticipating early season tests against Louisville, Xavier, and several other ranked teams, Stallings said, “we’re not the team that’s picked in the Top 10 without him.”
4. We mentioned this yesterday, but Chris Herren’s inspiring documentary, UnGuardable, aired on ESPN on Tuesday night chronicling his ugly battle with drug addiction. The story hits very close to home for Florida Gators forward Erik Murphy, according to the Gainesville Sun. Murphy’s father asked Herren to mentor his son after Murphy had some troubles of his own last season. Murphy learned a lot from Herren both on and off the court, and here’s hoping the lessons will leave a lasting positive impression to keep him out of trouble and playing basketball.
5. Speaking of trouble, Auburn announced that head coach Tony Barbee has suspended a pair of players for a violation of team rules. There is no word yet on the rules broken by guards Tony Neysmith and Josh Langford, nor is there information about how long the suspension will run. Neysmith averaged 2.4 points and 1.3 assists per game while Langford averaged 4.6 points and 2.6 rebounds per game last season. Auburn, a team rebuilding after a 4-12 SEC record in Barbee’s first season on the Plains, really just needs as many live bodies as it can suit up at this point, so this is rather unfortunate news for Tiger fans.

1. In last night’s annual Kentucky Blue vs. White game, Sophomore Terrence Jones went off for 52 points setting a record for most points scored in the intra-squad scrimmage. While just an exhibition game, the barrage of points has to be encouraging for Wildcat fans hoping for a new and improved Jones. Freshman Anthony Davis guarded Jones for most of the evening, but it didn’t seem to matter who was on him as he scored from just about everywhere on the court. Jones was 24-31 from the field, finishing with 16 rebounds and six assists. Scrimmage or not, 52 points is impressive. Jones displayed an ability to score in a variety of ways — knocking down threes, taking it strong to the rim and even finishing with his much-discussed right hand. Eight Kentucky players scored in double figures overall as freshman Kyle Wiltjer finished with 27 points on 5-8 shooting from beyond the arc and sophomore, Doron Lamb also scored 31 points.
2. Memphis coach Josh Pastner has a message for all SEC teams — don’t ask to play his Memphis Tigers in a non-conference game. Pastner says it won’t happen on his watch. He singled out Arkansas, Tennessee, Mississippi State, Ole Miss and Florida as teams he does not want to play in order to avoid giving a recruiting advantage for those looking to recruit in Memphis. He says the solution, however, is simple. Invite Memphis to play in the SEC. Pastner says, “That will solve everything. You don’t have to ask me; we would play twice. If you’re coming in here, if you want to play Memphis, go to your presidents and vote Memphis in the SEC. That’s the easiest way to do it. If you’re asking me for a non-conference game, it’s not going to happen.” Pastner is either making a good case for Memphis to be considered for expansion to the SEC or he is setting the Tigers up to be the most hated non-conference rival by the entire league.
3. Several SEC teams will be taking part in secret scrimmages over the next couple of weeks to prepare for opening games. Why the secrecy? Well, nobody seems to know, but you may want to delete your browser history if you click on the link. Better safe than sorry. The SEC teams taking part in the secrecy and their mysterious opponents are: Virginia @ Vanderbilt, Georgia Tech @ South Carolina, LSU @ Rice, Arkansas-Little Rock @ Ole Miss, Georgia @ Clemson, UCF @ Florida and Western Kentucky vs Alabama. Anybody with super-spy abilities, we need video and/or pictures. This message will self-destruct in five seconds.
4. Ole Miss junior Murphy Holloway has been cleared to play immediately for the Rebel Black Bears. Holloway played two seasons for the Rebs before transferring to South Carolina to care for his daughter. After sitting out a year with the Gamecocks, Holloway decided to transfer back to Mississippi. He had to apply for a waiver with the NCAA to avoid having to sit out another year. The waiver was granted and Holloway will be allowed to play this season. He provides an immediate post presence for Ole Miss as he averaged 10.1 points and 7.6 rebounds per game in his sophomore year. Andy Kennedy’s squad will get an impact player with SEC experience.
5. Tennessee‘s athletic program boasts that their men’s basketball coaching staff has more than 5,000 career college basketball points during their playing careers. In fact, they claim to have more than 1,000 more college points than any other Division I staff. Here’s to hoping that this sets up an SEC coaching staff battle between former players. Rod Strickland vs. Anthony Grant. Orlando Antigua vs. Cuonzo Martin. Billy Donovan vs. John Calipari. John Pelphrey vs. Darrin Horn. Tony Barbee vs. Tracy Webster. Rick Stansbury vs. Kevin Stallings… Okay, maybe not that last one. Having a coaching staff with this much experience can give the Tennessee players a slight boost of confidence, but shouldn’t be much of an advantage otherwise. It is fun to think about a pick-up game of epic proportions at the next SEC media days. Battle royale style.

Midnight Madness* (9 PM Madness just doesn’t have the same ring to it) brings excitement and fanfare, but more importantly, it symbolizes the beginning of the college basketball season. Two-a-days have officially begun, and the only thing sweeter than the return of basketball is knowing that you don’t have to run wind sprints tomorrow at 6 AM. And if by some odd circumstance you do find yourself running drills early in the morning, at least you don’t have to do it again in the afternoon like all twelve of our SEC basketball teams.  Here is an initial report from basketball practices around the SEC:

• Florida coach Billy Donovan has been impressed with the decision making from 6’6” Casey Prather. Donovan said, “He’s made more of an impact the first two days of practices and really hasn’t even looked to score. He’s actually been more productive in practice offensively by taking a whole less amount of shots.” He also believes that 6’7” Will Yeguete’s rebounding skills will be key for the Gator’s frontline this year. Donovan said, “Will continues to be a guy that’s going to have to help us on the backboard rebounding-wise. I think I said the first day I thought one of my concerns was losing Chandler (Parsons), Vern (Macklin) and Alex (Tyus), we lost a lot of rebounding. And we’ve got to be scrappy around the glass.”
• Kentucky coach John Calipari stressed using the floater as an effective tool in the UK offense. Even in the case of a miss, it draws the defender up and leaves a big man open for the rebound. Cal said, “It’s the best shot in the Dribble Drive. That’s a great shot for us.” Everyone knows the Cats have athleticism, but it sounds like Kentucky will be blessed with some good shooters as well. CoachCal.com editor Eric Lindsey wrote, “Saturday was the best I’ve seen Michael Kidd-Gilchrist shoot the ball. During a timed drill, he frequently strung together streaks of five or more 3-pointers.” And even more encouraging for Cat fans, Lindsey wrote, “in that same drill, Darius Miller hardly missed. I didn’t see what the clock was set to -– it was only a few minutes -– but it sounded like Miller led everyone with 61 makes.” And if you like watching players get “posterized,” then there’s UK’s athletic freshmen Anthony Davis and Kidd-Gilchrist taking turns dunking on each other. First Davis dunks on Kidd-Gilchrist:

And then Kidd-Gilchrist returns the favor:

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With the completion of the NBA Draft and the annual coaching and transfer carousels nearing their ends, RTC is rolling out a new series, RTC Summer Updates, to give you a crash course on each Division I conference during the summer months. Our latest update comes courtesy of our SEC correspondent, Gerald Smith.  This season he will be covering the NCAA Basketball with zeal, nerd-culture references and a fistful of silliness at halftimeadjustment.com. You can also follow him on Twitter (@fakegimel).

Reader’s Take

Summer Storylines

• One Big, Mostly-Happy Conference: After several years of divisional lopsidedness in conference scheduling and tournament seeding – to the dismay of programs like Alabama — the SEC has merged the West and East divisions for basketball. A 16-game conference schedule, consisting of the same pairings within and across old divisions, remains for the 2011-12 season. Starting with this year’s SEC Tournament, teams will be seeded and awarded first-round byes by their overall conference record. The most vocal dissenter against peace, conference unity and love was Mississippi State coach Rick Stansbury. He argued unsuccessfully that divisional championships create excitement for the fans. MSU athletics must have sold some awesome merchandise for Coach Stansbury’s six SEC West Division championships.
• Too Much of a Good Thing? – Stansbury also argued that a united 12-team conference won’t produce a true champion unless each team plays a full 22-game home and away conference schedule. In July’s coaches’ conference call, some SEC coaches (South Carolina’s Darrin Horn & LSU’s Trent Johnson) agreed, but wonder if such a schedule is feasible. Other coaches (Kentucky’s John Calipari & Alabama’s Anthony Grant) believe that teams should worry more about strengthening their non-conference scheduling and RPI ratings. Increasing the schedule to at least 18 games would placate athletic directors and the SEC’s broadcast partners, but would add further scheduling imbalance and hysteria. In meetings, the decision to increase the number of conference games was postponed until after the 2011-12 season. The SEC coaches will meet again later in August to debate their options.
• Missouri Newbies – Two coaches previously employed in the Show-Me State join the SEC during this period of conference remodeling. As an assistant under former Arkansas coach Nolan Richardson, new Arkansas coach Mike Anderson became very familiar with the “40 Minutes of Hell” system (and Coach Richardson’s snakeskin boot collection). After stops with UAB and Missouri, Anderson returned to Fayetteville to replace John Pelphrey.
• Caught lying to cover-up his impermissible BBQ — mmmm… impermissible BBQ… *gurgle noise* — Tennessee was forced to fire Bruce Pearl. Missouri State’s Cuonzo Martin was hired to fill Pearl’s vacated orange blazer. With his athletic director resigning and additional NCAA penalties applied to his program, Martin may long for his past days in Springfield.

A major growth spurt led to a similar shoot up the 2011 high school rankings for Kentucky's Anthony Davis. (Sam Forencich/USA Basketball)

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Jared Quillen is the RTC correspondent for the SEC conference. We will be publishing a series of conference report cards over the next week for conferences that got multiple NCAA bids to recap the conference, grade the teams, and look at the future for the conference.

Conference Recap

• It was a good year for the Southeastern Conference. After a weak showing in the NCAA Tournament last year, the SEC was the only conference with multiple teams (Kentucky and Florida) in the Elite Eight. The SEC also got five teams into the NCAA Tournament for the first time in three years. It was a major improvement over the sad slump that was 2009 when the SEC only qualified LSU, Tennessee, and Mississippi State at 8, 9, and 13 seeds, respectively.
• When the season started, I predicted the conference could get five and possibly six teams in the tournament and I still contend that Alabama was snubbed.  But regardless of that, five teams is a good showing and a sign of improvement for a conference that lost a little respect as an elite conference in the past few years.
• Florida was consistent all year, winning close games by playing calmly even when trailing late, but the biggest turning point for the conference came when Kentucky finally was able to win those same close games.  The Wildcats were sitting at 7-9 in conference play and likely facing a first-round game in the SEC when they won close games against Florida, Vanderbilt, and Tennessee finishing the regular season 10-6 and easily marching through the conference tournament.  Kentucky was the favorite at the Final Four in Houston, but poor shooting likely cost the Wildcats their eighth national championship.  And the debate about John Calipari’s ability to win it all with young teams goes on.

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When Missouri shocked the college basketball world with its announcement that it had selected Frank Haith to replace Mike Anderson most writers believed that the Miami administration would instinctively look to Manhattan, Kansas to find a replacement for Haith in Frank Martin, who grew up in Miami and still has strong ties down there. It was widely expected that the Hurricane administration would make a hard push at bring the Kansas State coach to Coral Gables where he could rejuvenate a program that has had few bright spots in its uninspiring history. Hurricane fans, long a fickle fan base even in football where they had a 20-year run that rivals anything done in that sport, even expressed a modicum of excitement at the possibility that their basketball program could finally become relevant even if it would take some work to catch ACC stalwarts like Duke and UNC. Yet it has been a week since Haith left Miami and according to Martin they have not even contacted him or anybody representing him.

We can't believe Miami hasn't contacted you either, Frank

Much has been made of the fact that Martin reportedly made significantly more than Haith ($1.55 million per year vs $1 million per year for Haith), but according to Martin that figure is if he hits all of his incentives and his actual base salary is “only” $1.1 million per year, which is essentially the same as Haith’s salary. The Miami administration has a well-earned reputation of not being willing to open up their checkbook for big-name coaching hires and the fact that they are without an athletic director at the present time (their prior athletic director Kirby Hocutt left for Texas Tech) may limit their ability to spend a few extra dollars even if they wanted too. In the end, that–either Miami’s incorrect assumption on Martin’s salary or inability to offer up more money without an athletic director–may end up costing the Hurricanes a golden opportunity to become relevant as they reportedly have their sights set on Tommy Amaker and have offered him “roughly $1.1 million for five years”, the same as Martin’s base salary. Amaker is said to be interested in the job, but has some reservations due to the effect it might have on his wife’s career (she is an Instructor in Psychology at Harvard Medical School). Amaker has clearly done a good job turning around the Harvard program from 8-22 to 23-7 and brought them to the verge of the school’s first NCAA Tournament bid, but you would have hard time finding someone connected with basketball who would put Amaker at the same level as Martin.

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Jared Quillen is the RTC correspondent for the SEC. With tournament action set to tip from Atlanta on Thursday, get set with RTC’s regular season recap and postseason outlook.

Postseason Preview

Hottest Teams Going Into The Postseason:

• Florida – Pasting Alabama to close out the season is a really good sign.
• Kentucky – Looking good on a lot of people’s brackets after winning two tough ones and they’ve been top 10 at KenPom.com all season.

Tournament Sleeper: Mississippi State – Too much talent here to not be dangerous when push comes to shove.  The question is, will they play the way they’re capable or the way when they’ve fumbled?

Best First Round Matchup: Tennessee vs. Arkansas, Thursday – The South Carolina/Ole Miss game doesn’t carry much weight, and I don’t see Georgia having too much trouble with Auburn, nor Vanderbilt with LSU.  Arkansas is the higher seeded team here due to the wackiness of the Southeastern Conference Tournament seeding (more on that later).  Arkansas won the previous meeting 68-65 in Fayetteville.

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