The SEC is a lot of fun to watch this year. Tuesday night gave us more reminders of why. Five games were on tap, and that showed us about all we needed to know.
The only result that was even remotely not a surprise was Tennessee beating Vanderbilt 67-62 in Knoxville. The Volunteers were the clearly better team (Vandy is in a rebuilding year) and at home, so they were expected to win and did, although the Commodores made it interesting after scoring just 15 points in the first half.
The game of the night was in Athens, where Arkansas just stopped the bleeding in their last game and visited a Georgia team that is better than a lot of people realize and has Yante Maten, one of the best players no one knows about. Maten had another big night with 26 points and 15 rebounds, but Daryl Macon was the hero for Arkansas with three three-pointers in the second overtime en route to 25 points, giving the Razorbacks a hard-fought 80-77 win. Arkansas evens their SEC mark at 4-4, while Georgia falls to a tough-luck 3-5.
Next on the list is Alabama traveling to Ole Miss, where Andy Kennedy quietly continues to put good teams out on the floor. This time around, Deandre Burnett is becoming the star, and he had 24 points on the night, but the real stars were the Rebel defense as they held Alabama stars Collin Sexton and John Petty to a combined 3-21 from the floor in a 78-66 win in Oxford. This result may surprise some, but it was in Oxford and Ole Miss is better than you think.
Speaking of home court, LSU had an interesting home record entering last night’s tilt with Texas A&M: they had not won a home game in SEC play. That changed, however, as they got out to an early lead and Texas A&M couldn’t rally in a 77-65 win for the Tigers that also pushes the Aggies to 2-6 in SEC play. That tells you all you need to know about how even and deep the SEC is this year.
There was one other game, and it told us something as ide from the result. Mississippi State came to Lexington to take on Kentucky, who just fell out of the top 25 for the first time since 2014. The jury has been out on the Wildcats all year, and that remains the case after this one, a 78-65 win that was perhaps a bit closer than the final score tells you. Mississippi State led 52-49 and looked to have a bit of momentum, but Kentucky went on a 13-2 run to take over the game after that as the Bulldogs never got closer than five. While it is a plus that the Wildcats overcame that adversity and deficit to win, that they were challenged by a now 2-5 Bulldog team tells you they are not leaps and bounds ahead of anyone else in the conference.
Indeed, if one thing is clear at this point, no team in the SEC appears to be leaps and bounds ahead of anyone else at this point. Florida and Auburn each have one SEC loss, but both are beatable by any SEC team. Likewise, Texas A&M is 2-6, but if healthy the Aggies can beat anyone at home or on the road.
It will make for more fun over the next month or so, to be sure.
Side Dishes
If you wondered about the gulf between Virginia and others in the ACC, Tuesday night helped. The Cavaliers manhandled Clemson 61-36 in Charlottesville to go to 8-0 in ACC play. Duke is trying to keep pace, handling Wake Forest 84-70 in Winston-Salem.
Villanova continued to roll in the Big East, taking care of Providence 89-69, while on the opposite end, Creighton kept St. John’s winless with a 68-63 win.
And speaking of interesting home and road records in conference, until last night UNLV might have had the most interesting one of all. The Runnin’ Rebels had not lost a Mountain West road game and had not won a conference home game. They went to Fresno State and lost 69-63, so now they had a road loss to fall to 3-4.
Tonight’s Menu
- Marquette visits Xavier to get the evening started (6:30 p.m.)
- ACC action early on has Florida State hosting Georgia Tech and Syracuse hosting Boston College (7 p.m.)
- Florida tries to remain on a roll as they host South Carolina (7 p.m.)
- A key Southern Conference game is on tap with UNC Greensboro hosting Furman (7 p.m.)
- The Southland also has a key matchup on the evening with Southeast Louisiana visiting Sam Houston State (7:30 p.m.)
- Miami just bounced back at NC State, but the task is tougher now as they host Louisville (8 p.m.)
- A big game in the Summit League is also a rivalry game as South Dakota hosts South Dakota State (8 p.m.)
- Staying in the Midwest, the co-leaders of the Missouri Valley will battle as Drake hosts Loyola Chicago (8 p.m.)
- A good SEC game on tap is Auburn visiting Missouri (8 p.m.)
- The Pac-12 has a good one on tap with Stanford visiting USC (9 p.m.)
- The Mountain West has a few games on tap, the best of which might be Nevada taking their undefeated mark into Wyoming, always a tough road trip (11 p.m.)
