| | An allegedly true story: After Florida botched an extra point and was upset
by Alabama last month, a pall settled over a Gainesville sports bar where
fans had gathered to watch the football game. After a few seconds one fan
stood up and yelled, "(Expletive) it! It's basketball season!"
|  | | Florida's Billy Donovan has Gator fans thinking hoops. |
Basketball season at Spurrier University, center of the
Southern football universe in the 1990s? Talking hoops in October at a
school that routinely plays football into January? Is Billy Donovan's run
'n' gun attack really capable of creating as much excitement as Spurrier's
Fun 'N' Gun?
Believe it if you can. Hoops has arrived at Florida. In fact, hoops has
arrived across the South. Dixie isn't just for shoulder pads anymore -- nor
has it been for the latter half of this decade.
Since 1994, no conference has been better at basketball than the
Southeastern Conference. The automatic elitist response is "What about the
ACC?" But check some numbers.
Number of national titles in the past six years: SEC three, ACC zero.
Number of berths in the Final Four: SEC seven, ACC five.
Number of different schools comprising those Final Four berths: SEC four
(Arkansas, Kentucky, Florida and Mississippi State), ACC two (Duke and North Carolina).
And as for this year? It's not only basketball season in Gainesville, but in
Auburn, Ala., as well. Both schools are in the top eight in the preseason polls and many think they'll make the postseason Final Four.
Among those is ESPN analyst Len Elmore, who rates the SEC the top league in America for the 1999-2000 season.
"This year it's the SEC," Elmore said. "I've gotten in some arguments with
some colleagues over that. Dick (Vitale) says it's the Big Ten, others still
think the SEC. But top to bottom, you've got a possibility of five teams in
the Top 20 and four in the Top 10," Elmore said, naming Tennessee, Kentucky and Arkansas in addition to the Gators and Tigers.
Elmore has seen the SEC transformed since his playing days at Maryland in the early 1970s.
"There's absolutely been a growth in competitiveness in that conference,"
Elmore said. "When I was in high school (in New York) you always heard about Kentucky. And when Pete (Maravich) was at LSU you heard about it up here as well. But other than those two teams, there wasn't much you heard about the SEC."
Indeed, under Adolph Rupp, Kentucky ruled the SEC with such a ruthless
hegemony for so long that the rest of the league scarcely mattered.
Especially in the days before integration. It wasn't uncommon to find
assistant football coaches stashed away in the basketball office,
moonlighting as the head coach of a sport nobody cared about.
Finally, in the 1970s you had the occasional novelty act to threaten the
'Cats: Ernie & Bernie (that's Grunfeld and King) at Tennessee; Pistol Pete at
LSU; etc.
Then Dale Brown dared stand up to Kentucky in the 1980s and took LSU to a pair of Final Fours. Georgia popped up in the '83 Final Four. Alabama became competitive under the Man From Plaid, Wimp Sanderson. Sonny Smith rode two Chucks -- Person and Barkley -- to five years of fame at Auburn.
| |
“ |
The specter of football was always there to cast a shadow. It's not like that now, where there were just two seasons:
football, and waiting for football. Basketball is its own distinct season.
” |
|
|
—
ESPN college basketball analyst Len Elmore
|
That was progress, but not sustained progress. The league didn't really open
up and blossom until the 1990s, when Rick Pitino and Nolan Richardson forced the SEC to alter its flight plan.
Upon Arkansas' inclusion in the league in 1992, the 'Cats and Hogs held the
rest of the conference in thrall. One or the other went to the Final Four
every year from 1993-98, riding a crest of fabulous athletes, scorching
tempo and suffocating defense.
They were not only great, they were fun to watch. Plod-around ball hit the
endangered list.
Nolan and Ricky P. were hell on the recruiting trail as well. If you
couldn't recruit your own backyard, you were sunk.
For years, players from the South kept turning up elsewhere. Louisville made
its mark in the 1980s with stars from Georgia (Derek Smith and Pervis
Ellison) and Mississippi (Lancaster Gordon, Charles Jones and Kenny Payne). Karl Malone slipped through everyone's net and wound up at Louisiana Tech. Georgetown tapped a pipeline into New Orleans. Mitch Richmond somehow got from Ft. Lauderdale to Kansas State. Memphis State kept Tennessee and others out of its backyard. Ray Allen matriculated from South Carolina to Connecticut. Vince Carter and Cliff Rozier both went from Florida to North Carolina (although Rozier eventually wound up at Louisville).
But slowly, some recruiting roadblocks have been erected.
Ole Miss hired Rob Evans and followed him with Rod Barnes. Mississippi State hired Richard Williams and followed him with Rick Stansbury. Both programs have enjoyed excellent seasons the past five years on home-grown talent.
Tubby Smith scored big in the home state when he was at Georgia. Alabama's Mark Gottfried and Auburn's Cliff Ellis are doing the same in Alabama. Ditto for Jerry Green at Tennessee.
And there are no words to describe the recruiting tornado Donovan has
stirred up at Florida. Not only has he locked up his fertile home state, but
he's ventured out to get prep All-Americans from South Dakota (Mike Miller), West Virginia (Brett Nelson), New Hampshire (Matt Bonner) and Georgia (Donnell Harvey).
The days of Kentucky lording its talent over the rest of the league are long
gone. In fact, the 'Cats are probably the third-most talented team in their
own division, behind Florida and Tennessee.
But the SEC hasn't just upgraded its recruiting. What it has lost in
humorous characters -- Dale Brown, Wimp, Hugh Durham, Ed Murphy at Ole Miss -- it has gained in better coaching. Basketball skills actually seem to be taught nowadays at several SEC schools that used to simply trot out the athletes in a directionless muddle.
So the ball is better. And as the fan in the bar in Gainesville pointed out,
people are noticing.
"The specter of football was always there to cast a shadow (in years past),"
Elmore said. "It's not like that now, where there were just two seasons:
football, and waiting for football. Basketball is its own distinct season
now."
Pat Forde of the Louisville Courier-Journal is a regular contributor to ESPN.com. His regular college basketball column is part of ESPN.com's Insider. To subscribe, click here. | |
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