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The marathon that is the college basketball regular season is just about ready for its sprint through March Madness.
Trailing at the end of the pack is SEC basketball. The only way these teams could save themselves from an embarrassing limp to the finish line would be if Mississippi coach Andy Kennedy called a taxi cab to drive them the rest of the way. And we wouldn't recommend that as a solution.
How bad is SEC basketball this year? So bad that the cosmos is trying to keep spectators away.
Last year's SEC tournament in Atlanta was nearly derailed when tornado warnings resulted in a storm that tore parts of the roof off the Georgia Dome. But a quick move to the Georgia Tech campus paved the way for Georgia to beat Arkansas in the tourney title game. Because there was no way to rectify ticketing assignments between two arenas on short notice, the general public was told to keep out. Although given the choice, I'd rather get hit in the head with roof debris than watch a Georgia-Arkansas title game.
Maybe God knew how bad the field for the 2009 SEC tournament would be, and wanted to test which natural disasters were large enough to stop the whole event. Now that the SEC tournament is in Tampa next week, we'd advise area residents to be lookout if the Hillsborough River starts spouting molten lava.
Of course, in this harsh economic climate, asking fans to shell out for mediocre college basketball is like asking Billy Gillispie which part of Lexington he'll want to live in by 2011. These things just aren't in the realm of possibility anymore.
My good friends at CBS Sports have spent too much money shelling out for the rights to broadcast SEC basketball for these schools to put out a product that's the awful equivalent of Big Ten football. It's certainly not news that SEC basketball sucks this season. But as we wait for the last SEC team to fizzle out by the round of Sweet 16, let's hurl some insults at these teams to make us feel better.
From worst to first:
ARKANSAS (14-14, 2-13): It's been pointed out that the two teams that played for the SEC title last year are now the two worst teams in the league. That's not all you need to know about SEC basketball, but it's a start.
GEORGIA (12-18, 3-12): Last month, I took my kids on a road trip from Columbia, S.C., to Athens, Ga., to watch our Florida Gators beat up on the bottom-dwelling Bulldogs. Instead, Georgia ripped Florida a new one with an 88-86 upset. It boosted the Bulldogs' conference record at that point to 1-9. OK, so Florida sucked for losing. But here's what I wanted to make fun of Georgia fans for. Of the 10,000-capacity Stegeman Coliseum, there were maybe 6,000 or so fans in attendance (listed attendance was 8,348, but those figures are always bull). Of those 6,000-plus fans, the fandom split was about 55 percent Georgia fans, 45 percent Florida fans. And the reason it wasn't a 50-50 split was that at least the Georgia student section was on hand to wreak havoc. I guess for the boosters, the answer is to fire the coach mid-season, let an interim guy try to rally the troops, but YOU can't be bothered to show up for a game the rest of the way. Or maybe they were worried a tornado would rip the roof off the place. As we've discussed, that's been known to happen in northern Georgia.
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ALABAMA (16-13, 6-9): Here's another situation where a fan base is forced to suffer through an interim coach. Well, good luck in the hiring process for your new coach. I'm sure you'll easily find a great basketball mind who's content to stew in the shadow of Nick Saban country. And if a new basketball coach were to start stealing some spotlight with success, I can completely envision Saban trying to undercut the guy by using his $4 million a year salary to buy a minor league ABA team to come to Tuscaloosa and draw away fans and media attention.
MISSISSIPPI (16-13, 7-8): Andy Kennedy's actions should make him the Lane Kiffin media magnet of SEC basketball. Or that would be the case if the nation cared enough about SEC basketball. What had the potential to be the most entertaining soap opera in the league has kind of died on the vine. Could you imagine if Lane Kiffin were charged with punching a Cincinnati taxi cab driver, and then Kiffin's wife got in on the action by suing the cab driver for claiming she wasn't getting any action any more? Tennessee's football coach is at the point where CNN would break into a presidential address if it were given footage of Kiffin picking a booger and wiping it on the back of his tie. Kennedy could become the Travis Bickle of Oxford in the offseason, no one would know or care.
MISSISSIPPI STATE (18-12, 8-7): Who knows, maybe it's not too late for Rick Stansbury's team to make some noise in the NIT. But if we were waiting for Mississippi State basketball to be the saving grace of SEC basketball, then we're either doomed or stupid.
VANDERBILT (18-11, 7-8): Kevin Stallings' club finally got its signature win Wednesday night by upsetting No. 12 LSU. Then again, LSU has already clinched up all its business for the regular season, so it doesn't have to beat anybody in this atrocity of a season the rest of the way. Though now that A.J. Ogilvy is healthy, it would be funny if the Commodores made a run and stormed past the Tigers again in the tournament.
AUBURN (20-10, 9-6): They've got 20 wins, and are above .500 in the conference standings. As Dean Wormer would say: "Congratulations, Mr. Kroger. You're at the head of the SEC West pledge class."
KENTUCKY (19-11, 8-7): They say you've got to kiss a few frogs before you find a prince. Well, Kentucky found itself a toad with Billy Gillispie, and doesn't know how to end the date. After punching its ticket to the NIT with a 90-85 loss to Georgia at Rupp Arena on Wednesday night, the Wildcat fan base is telling itself it's not going to be hasty, and will give Prince Charming one more year to set things right. Yeah, I'll believe that right after I see a Kentucky contingent in Tampa chanting "One more year! One more year!" in the closing minutes of a 74-54 loss to Alabama in the first round. Per Hardy Vision policy to be nice to guys who play college sports for free, hats off to Jodie Meeks and Patrick Patterson for what they've accomplished while surrounded by a cast of teammates who are nothing special. Good luck the rest of the way while living under Gillispie's toadstool.
FLORIDA (21-9, 8-7): Anyone can make "Tim Tebow's toughness could have saved the day" jabs at the way this basketball team melts under pressure and lets games slip away. But seriously, Tebow could beat the crap out of everyone on this team at the same time with one arm tied behind his kneecap. So for that matter could Patton Oswalt. This team has Nick Calathes and everybody else. And everybody else waits for Calathes to do the dirty work. Meanwhile, file this under Dubious Achievement Awards: Walter Hodge is the all-time winningest basketball player in Florida history, but obviously a lot of help came from coasting along on the bench of the back-to-back national title teams. How many programs have as their all-time winningest player a guy who spent his junior and senior seasons ending up in the NIT? Well, that's what happens when you hire the ex-coach of the Orlando Magic.
SOUTH CAROLINA (20-7, 9-5): At first glance, you might be tempted to say this is the team that succeeds because everyone else sucks. But the Gamecocks' turnaround is being done with a new coach who's leading essentially the same team that last year went 14-18 overall and 5-11 in conference play. Devan Downey is a quality candidate for conference player of the year. With any luck, Darrin Horn's team could win an NCAA game for the first time since 1973. With typical Gamecock luck, they will fly to Boise, Idaho, for their first-round game when they're scheduled to play in Miami.
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TENNESSEE (18-10, 9-5): If your team is going to be not so good in a not-so-good year for your conference, at least have your coach be larger than life. Bruce Pearl is the deal. He's the real-life reality show you want to follow no matter what's happening on the court. At least the Vols put together a non-conference schedule that shows they have a pair. Oh, and he's on a 7-1 run against Billy Donovan. If any program that can be halfway happy about surviving this down year, it's the Vols.
LSU (25-5, 13-2): Congratulations on being far and away the undisputed kings of this horrible, horrible basketball season. We'd be fine if Marcus Thornton or Tasmin Mitchell is the conference player of the year. Coach Trent Johnson, in his first year with the Tigers, could charge into the March brackets as high as a -- are you sitting down for this? -- sixth seed. No offense, but if this is the sexiest team the SEC has, it has about as much chance of getting laid in March as Mrs. Kennedy. Fortunately, there's still time before the conference tournament for LSU football coach Les Miles to offer some seminars in crazy. One part of football mentality we can see Miles trying to instill: playing basketball with an actual football. Who knows which way that crazysumbitch will bounce on the hardwood in Tampa next week?
That's just some stuff for SEC basketball fans to think about while the rest of the country enjoys quality college basketball. Wait'll next year, when Bruce Pearl diverts a rare March hurricane from Tampa by tearing off his shirt and whirling it over his head to create enough wind force to send the storm in the other direction. SEC fans who can defy logic and say this has been a good year will have no trouble in defying the laws of nature too.
Gregory Hardy writes the Sports Guesspert column for the Columbia (S.C.) State.
