SEC Tournament: Friday Wrapup, Saturday Outlook

Here’s what went down on Friday in the SEC Tournament:

LSU 67 KENTUCKY 58-Here’s my recap of UK’s ouster from the SEC Tournament

MISSISSIPPI STATE 82 SOUTH CAROLINA 68

Hey, I can’t be expected to be perfect. I finally got one of these games wrong, and it spells big time trouble for the South Carolina Gamecocks.

South Carolina now has to sit at home, cheer against every bubble team and underdog, and hope Selection Committee thinks they did enough before their recent three losses in four games to make the NCAA Tournament. In my opinion, they’re out, but with a weak bubble, they could definitely get lucky.

The ‘Cocks jumped out to a double digit lead early in the first half, and had a 4 point lead at the half. Carolina also had a 55-52 lead with just under 9 minutes left, but in the next three minutes, Mississippi State grabbed a 7 point lead with a 10-0 run.

I have made fun of the Bulldogs for falling in love with the three ball after catching fire in Rupp Arena earlier this season, and I don’t think it’s a coincidence that State attempted only 15 threes and they played one of their better games of the year. Barry Stewart led Rick Stansbury’s club with 20 points in their quest to sneak into the Tournament.

TENNESSEE 86 ALABAMA 62

That’s two misses by me in a row now. In hindsight, I probably believed a little bit too much in my sleeper pick of Alabama, because they were severely overmatched tonight by Tennessee. Despite shooting only 4-24 from three point range, UT dismantled ‘Bama with suffocating defense, forcing 18 turnovers and 36.7% shooting and relentless attacking of the basket and offensive rebounding.

UT shot an astounding 31-48 from inside the arc, suggesting that maybe, just maybe, they would be better served if they quit jacking up so many threes. Please tell me why Scotty Hopson and Tyler Smith are shooting a combined 12 threes in a game…they made only 2. Tyler Smith overcame his poor three point shooting to lead the Volunteers with 22 points. JP Prince also added a great all around game, pouring in 14 points, 10 rebounds, 5 assists, 3 steals, and 2 blocks.

JP Prince is a really nice player...as long as he doesn't shoot threes

Alonzo Gee had a difficult evening for Alabama, scoring only 12 points in his last SEC game on 4-11 shooting.

Based on the way UT and LSU played today, they look like they are destined to meet in the finals, because they look like the class of the conference.

AUBURN 61 FLORIDA 58

Quantez Robertson blocked a last second three point attempt by Erving Walker to seal yet another SEC East team’s NCAA Tournament death certificate. I’m not sure how many non-Auburn and Florida fans actually saw it, because I know I was more interested in yet another Syracuse game with an overtime. I was lucky enough to tune for the final exchange, which play-by-play man Tim Brando punctuated with a really strange call saying something along the lines of “Quantez Robertson with the block, the defensive play of the game, the defensive play of the year, maybe THE DEFENSIVE PLAY OF THE DECADE!!” I think he got caught up in the moment a bit.

Florida was stifled all game long by the SEC’s best scoring defense, shooting 35.5%, including an 8 point 3-13 effort from star point guard Nick Calathes. I thought Calathes would step up when he team really needed him, but no dice for the Gators tonight.

Korvotney Barber and Frankie Sullivan led four Tigers in double figures with 12 points.

W1 LSU VS. W3 MISSISSIPPI STATE, 1 PM EDT, RAYCOM

The Bulldogs and Tigers meet in the first SEC semi-final in a rematch of LSU’s 97-94 double OT triumph in what may have been the game of the year in the SEC. It seemed like a long game at the time, then UConn and Syracuse played for 70 minutes last night and made that game seem like child’s play. LSU also beat State in Baton Rouge earlier in the year, but that game wasn’t nearly as competitive: LSU won 81-57 on January 21.

Like most of the SEC, State was victimized by LSU’s two All SEC performers, Marcus Thornton and Tasmin Mitchell. Thornton has performances of 19 and 31 points, while Mitchell has scored 41 and 24 points in his two games against the Bulldogs. Mitchell is a nearly impossible mismatch for MSU, especially when they play their four guard lineup. Jarvis Varnado is not quick enough to guard him and Mitchell has abused the smaller players of State.

However, 6-8 220 lb. forward Kodi Augustus played a total of 3 minutes in the first two matchups, and I would imagine he will be a much more natural matchup than one of State’s small guards.

The cliché “it’s hard to beat a team three times” applies in this case, but I think that LSU is a little too good for Mississippi State, even though State could well play itself into the NCAA Tournament with a win tomorrow. I look for LSU to win a bit more comfortably than they did in Starkville, but not quite as easily as in Baton Rouge.

PREDICTION: LSU 73 MISSISSIPPI STATE 65

E1 TENNESSEE VS. W2 AUBURN, 3:45 PM EDT, RAYCOM (LAST RAYCOM GAME EVER)

So, Auburn lives to fight another day. I do believe that they will get in regardless of whether they win this game: winning 9 of 10 to close the season is too much to ignore in my opinion. However, the Tigers won’t want to leave things up to the Committee, and a win over the Vols would cement their status.

Based on Tennessee’s dominant performance in beating previously hot Alabama, the Vols look determined to reverse the bad fortunes Bruce Pearl has had in previous SEC Tournaments.

This is a very interesting matchup, because it was against Tennessee that Auburn began its run of 9 wins in 10 games with a Korvotney Barber tip in with under 5 seconds remaining to knock off the Vols at home, 78-77. That looked like a bad loss for Tennessee at the time, but now it just looks like a hotly contested game between two of the SEC’s better teams.

With the way Auburn plays defense and Tennessee plays defense when it wants to, I expect this game to be much lower scoring. Neither Tennessee nor Auburn is a strong shooting team, but the two teams combined to shoot 56.3% total, which is quite an aberration. Tennessee also grabbed only 18 total rebounds in the first game, which is roughly a half’s worth of offensive rebounds for UK opponent.

Auburn had a lot of trouble with Tyler Smith in the first matchup: he went off for 21 points. Tennessee had even more trouble with Rasheem Barrett (27 points) and Barber (21 points on 8-8 shooting).

I expect a tough, hard fought, low scoring game tomorrow. In the end, I think Tennessee’s depth and athletic length will prove too much for the hard charging Tigers.

PREDICTION: TENNESSEE 66 AUBURN 60