Welcome to the latest edition of Talking Hoops With Ted Sarandis. A lot has happened of late in the ACC and SEC alone, and that’s where we spend a good deal of time at first.
We start in the ACC, where defending national champion North Carolina has now lost three straight games and is not looking good along the way. The latest was a loss at Clemson, never an easy place to win even when the Tigers are not as good as they are this year, and they also saw Theo Pinson leave with an injury. The school suspended Jalek Felton earlier in the day, which is a hit to their depth. A few days earlier, they lost at home to NC State, a team we now have to start talking about as a potential NCAA Tournament team since they have four top 25 wins.
The loss to NC State came on the same day Virginia scored a big win at Duke, and that marked the first time in almost 45 years that Duke and North Carolina lost at home on the same day. The interesting thing about the ACC right now is that 12 of the 15 teams have a potential path to an NCAA Tournament at-large bid. Of those 12 teams, not all will make it; chances are the number of teams that get in will be no higher than eight.
We transition to the SEC from there, starting with the conference going 6-4 in the Big 12/SEC Challenge on Saturday. That marks the first time the SEC came out on top in the event, and it was highlighted by Kentucky rallying from being down by 17 to win. We wondered if that might just be a one-hit wonder with the Wildcats struggling at home against Vanderbilt on Tuesday night. Ultimately, they won in overtime.
From there, we talk about the SEC’s depth this year, as well as Auburn’s amazing season in the face of adversity from the FBI investigation. The Tigers have a top 5 RPI and are leading the conference.
We go on to talk a little about the story at Michigan State, focusing on basketball. Not much is clearly known at this point, but Tom Izzo appears to be figuring out how he will address this. Ultimately, he will have to, even if it means saying that he can’t talk about it right now because investigations are ongoing.
Last, but not least, we look at some of the midseason award favorites as January draws to a close, then look ahead to this weekend’s games.
We hope you enjoy the podcast, and be sure to share it with your fellow college basketball fans.
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