Every coach in America is busy right now talking parity and balance, the all-purpose explainer words used to answer questions about the annual outburst of January upsets when conference play begins.
To hear them talk, every single victory in Brutally Tough League X is a landmark achievement, deserving of a pay raise, a contract extension and a bump in the shoe contract.
But in his heart of hearts, every coach knows who the patsies are in his league. Every coach looks at his upcoming schedule and pencils himself in a "W" or two somewhere. They'd deny it to their graves, of course, but it's true.
Yet in the Southeastern Conference this year, the parity-and-balance chatter is gospel truth, not just company-line spin.
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In our league, to be frank, I would say it's the most balanced in the country. I don't know that anybody in our conference is going to beat any other team by 40, like I've seen in the Pac-10 and some other conferences this season. We've got a lot of even teams. ” |
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— Mark Gottfried,
Alabama head coach |
Through Kentucky's seven-point win at Auburn Tuesday night, there had been 29 SEC games played. Twenty-one have been decided by single digits -- 16 by six points or less. Only two have been decided by 20 or more points.
Great for the fans. Hard on the coaches.
With less than one-third of the league schedule complete, every school has at least one league loss. Every school has at least one league win. Half the 12-team league has at least one road victory. And Florida is the only school with a double-digit average margin of victory or defeat (plus-10 on the nose).
When Georgia can go into Lexington and Gainesville and win, nothing is guaranteed. When Alabama can go into Athens with a 2-23 road SEC record under Mark Gottfried and win, anything goes. When every league game Tennessee has played has been decided by six points or less, something is up.
For the favorites, there are no walkovers. For the underdogs, no game is Mission Impossible.
"This is a conference, on paper, with six, seven or eight teams that are good enough to play in the NCAA Tournament," Georgia coach Jim Harrick said.
When Gottfried goes home from the office, he fires up the satellite dish and watches college basketball. He's seen enough to be convinced of the SEC's depth and competitiveness.
"In our league, to be frank, I would say it's the most balanced in the country," Gottfried said. "I don't know that anybody in our conference is going to beat any other team by 40, like I've seen in the Pac-10 and some other conferences this season. We've got a lot of even teams."
Gottfried's team has managed to poke its head just a bit above the crowd in the most even place in an even conference, the Western Division. Alabama is 4-1 and a game up on Mississippi, tied with Florida and Georgia for the best record in either division.
With Arkansas faltering and Mississippi State 2-0 against the Eastern Division but 0-3 against the West, it could come down to a Bama-Ole Miss tussle.
"We've got an opportunity right now," Rebels coach Rod Barnes said, citing his team's upcoming three-game home stand against LSU, South Carolina and Vanderbilt. "The race could go down to the wire. We just hoped Alabama wouldn't run away from the bunch. Right now, they haven't run away.
"I thought at the beginning of the year Alabama had the edge, but after them anybody could finish second or sixth. And I think I've been correct. The only team that's struggling is Auburn."
The Crimson Tide may yet run away, but keep Feb. 6 and March 3 in mind. That's when Alabama plays Ole Miss.
Still, Alabama looks like the class of the West at present. It has no mid-week game, allowing it a full week to prepare for Kentucky in Rupp Arena. Alabama hasn't won in that building since Wimp Sanderson and Eddie Sutton were the coaches, but this team should at least have a chance.
Through last Saturday, the two teams had produced almost identical statistics. Kentucky is second in the SEC in scoring (82.4), Alabama is third (80.5). Alabama is second in victory margin (15.2), Kentucky is third (15.1). Alabama is second in field-goal defense (38.8 percent), Kentucky is third (39.5). Alabama is 11th in 3-point percentage (32.3), Kentucky is 12th (31.9). Kentucky is first in rebounding (42.8), Alabama is second (40.9). Alabama is fourth in turnover margin (plus-2.8), Kentucky is fifth (plus-1.8).
"Defensively we've been pretty consistent," Gottfried said. "We're holding teams in the 30s or low 40s (in shooting percentage). Offensively we've been up and down. We've not shot from the 3-point line like we can."
Erwin Dudley has helped make up for that inside, despite the plethora of zones being thrown at Alabama. The 6-foot-8 postman has stepped up his offensive production in the New Year, averaging 18.7 points and 9.2 rebounds to keep defenses from fixating on deluxe shooter Rod Grizzard on the perimeter. Dudley has made 15 of his last 19 shots and has led the Tide in scoring four of its last six games.
"Erwin has played well," Gottfried said. "When Kenny Walker ('Bama's other low-post threat) has played well, we score better."
Score better, win games. But nobody is winning easy these days in the SEC.
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Games of the Week
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Arkansas-Little Rock at Western Kentucky
Thursday
Two best teams in the Sun Belt meet for the first time, with a rematch scheduled Feb. 7 in Little Rock. Expect Western 7-footer Chris Marcus to be back for that one, and expect lots of points in this one. UALR hasn't scored fewer than 69 since November, and Western has only scored fewer than 75 at home once this season.
Florida at Arkansas
Saturday
Razorbacks have been their usual underachieving selves for the first half of the season. This would be the perfect time to begin their usual second-half surge.
Kentucky at Florida
Jan. 29
Marquee game of the year thus far in the SEC. Nobody on the Wildcats' roster has won in Gainesville -- and likewise for the Gators in Lexington. Tubby Smith is Mr. Defense, but his team has given up 94 and 90 to Billy Donovan's bunch their last two trips to the O'Connell Center.
Marquette at Tulane
Jan. 29
The league's two surprise teams square off. Green Wave is 3-0 on the road, 0-2 at home in C-USA play. The sparse home crowds are never a factor for the visitors -- but the impending Super Bowl/Mardi Gras atmosphere could be
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Will Work for Bids
Right now, Conference USA looks like a three-bid league: Cincinnati, Memphis and Marquette. Everybody else had better hustle, or start setting their sights on winning the league tournament -- which will be played in Cincy.
If it plays out with C-USA getting just three bids, it will mark the second straight season of less than four teams in the Dance. Last year there were only two, Charlotte and Cincinnati.
The next tier of teams behind the Big Three is Charlotte, South Florida and Louisville. Of the three, the 49ers (10-6) have the best shot. Four of their six losses have come to likely NCAA Tournament teams (Indiana, Florida, Miami and Cincinnati), and they've won five of their last six heading into a home game with struggling Louisville on Wednesday night. During that stretch Charlotte averaged 81 points per game, as sharp-shooting guard Jobey Thomas has raised his game another level. Thomas attempted just 13 free throws in Charlott's first 10 games but has gotten to the line 41 times the past six games.
Charlotte's most recent victory was costly to host South Florida, which is trying to make good on coach Seth Greenberg's proclamation that this would be the breakthrough year for the Bulls. South Florida was drummed by Memphis, then lost a three-point heartbreaker to the 49ers, and now faces league games at Tulane, at home against Cincinnati and at Louisville over the next two weeks. At 12-5, South Florida is starving for a couple quality wins.
At 9-1 and having beaten Ohio State and Tennessee, Louisville looked like a strong NCAA contender. Since then the Cardinals are 2-4 and desperately searching for someone to take some of the scoring load off guard Reece Gaines. The reliance on Gaines only grew last week when the Cards lost freshman point guard Carlos Hurt to season-ending back surgery. That left Pitino with two walk-ons at point and forced more ball-handling and distributing duties on Gaines, who is much better off at the shooting guard.
The Cards' 50 points in a thumping at Cincinnati last Saturday was the lowest total by a Rick Pitino -- coached team in 20 years, since his days at Boston U.
"It's not going to happen this year," Pitino said of Louisville's NCAA chances. "It's not going to happen, not with freshmen and sophomores as the nucleus of your team. Anybody can get hot in the conference tournament, but right now what I've looking to do is improve the skill level and let the chips fall where they may come tournament time."
Around the South
Memphis coach John Calipari wants some respect. Right now. He's mad at the pollsters who have left his 15-4 team out of the rankings since December, and he's mad at the RPI computer that ranks the Tigers 48th. According to the Memphis Commercial Appeal, Cal referred to the Top 25 as "a crock of crap" and the RPI as "full of crap."
Quoth the crap-flinging Cal: "Think about it. You've got the ACC, the Big Ten, the Big (12), fighting like crazy to get five and six teams (in the NCAAs). Do you think they want us in? Or Marquette? Or anyone else? They would like just one team from Conference USA. ... Duke doesn't want to see us in the tournament; I'll say it. All I'm telling my team is, 'You're not getting any respect.' And they're not."
If it weren't for Bob Huggins and Marquette's Tom Crean, you'd have to say Tulane's Shawn Finney was building a great case for C-USA Coach of the Year. Finney's second Green Wave team is now 11-5 and 3-2 in league play, posting three consecutive league road wins for the first time since 1997. Forward Bryan Brown has become the bellcow, averaging almost 23 points per game his past three outings.
Buzz Peterson's trial by fire continues in Knoxville. The Volunteers finally won a close one Saturday by holding off Syracuse, thanks to 18 points from surprise starter Jenis Grindstaff -- but in the process they lost emotional leader Ron Slay to a season-ending knee injury. "The guy is just a warrior and we'll miss him a lot," Peterson told the Commercial Appeal. "I keep thinking, 'What else could go wrong?' We've gone through a lot of stuff this year, so why can't we go through this?"
The injury news was better for Arkansas. Guard Brandon Dean, averaging 14.2 points per game, could be back Wednesday night against Georgia after spraining a knee against Ole Miss. The Razorbacks originally feared Dean could be out for several weeks.
Keeping with the injury theme: Auburn might not have been fully forthcoming with Kyle Davis' return from an elbow surgery that it said would keep him out a month but only kept him out five days. But give the kid credit for having the guts to play through pain. Davis has gritted his teeth to average 8.3 points, 6.5 rebounds and 4.5 blocked shots since the surgery.
Vanderbilt forward Matt Freije was named SEC Player of the Week this week. Coach Kevin Stallings is happy to see one of the good guys in the game be honored. "I don't think I've ever had a player try harder to do what the coaches want," Stallings said. "He exhausts himself in the first drill of the day. He goes as hard as he can every minute he's one the court." Freije leads the Commodores in scoring (16.8) and rebounding (4.8) and averaged 21 points in consecutive victories over Auburn and South Carolina.
Florida coach Billy Donovan was full of praise for Georgia after the Bulldogs upset his Gators Saturday, but he believes his team was a willing accomplice in the defeat. "If we play again like we did against Georgia," Donovan said, "we will not win another game this year."
Pat Forde of the Louisville Courier-Journal is a regular contributor to ESPN.com
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