Florida Gator Basketball: Where Do They Stand In The SEC?

Written by Ryan Collins, Gatorsfirst.com Staff Writer

Before we answer this question, let’s take a look at the Southeastern Conference as a whole.

The critics currently label the conference as “down”, but why?

LSU lost their first home game last weekend to No. 13 ranked Xavier. The Tigers are tied for fourth in the overall SEC standings, but Xavier is 17-2 with losses to Duke and Butler.

Tennessee has played a brutal schedule so far, and notched an impressive win against Georgetown—but they also lost twice to Gonzaga and have lost to both teams in last year’s NCAA Final game—Memphis and Kansas.

Both Memphis and Kansas lost almost all of their starters to the NBA and have bounced in-and-out of the rankings so far this year. A 90-72 home loss to Kentucky was a devastating blow for the Vols due largely to a 54-point performance by Kentucky stand-out guard Jodie Meeks.

Meeks leads a resurgent Kentucky squad that has started conference play undefeated. The junior has scored in double figures in all of the Wildcats’ 20 games and has had five games with 30 or more points.

At this juncture, despite dropping its opening two contests of the year (to VMI and UNC), Kentucky may be the premier SEC squad capable of the highest NCAA tournament seed.

As for the rest of the SEC and tournament possibilities, LSU and Tennessee must play strong and wrangle a few victories over Kentucky and Florida to secure bids.

The real X-factors for the SEC are Mississippi State and South Carolina. The Mississippi State Bulldogs display a lackluster non-conference resume and have preyed upon a few SEC bottom-feeders to lunge out to a 4-1 conference record.

South Carolina’s emotional last-second home win against Florida may stand as the signature run-sparker for this team. A few solid victories and a good showing in the conference tournament will certainly help either the Bulldogs or Gamecocks reach NCAA glory.

Where do the Florida Gators fit into this bucket of mediocrity we call the SEC?

The Gators sport an overall record of 17-3 (losses to Syracuse, FSU and South Carolina) and a conference record of 4-1. The previously mentioned last-second loss to South Carolina may be the equivalent of the Gators football loss to Ole Miss, providing a renewed sense of focus and practice. However, the young Gators have yet to face Kentucky, Tennessee or LSU.

So far this season, the Gators have been “living or dying” by the three-point shot. With the lack of dominant big-men, the Gators have had success by using their athleticism and hustle to convert fast-breaks and force turnovers.

The major difficulty for this squad is dealing with the ramifications of the three-ball not falling on the road—and this will be a major factor for the duration of conference play.

The three-ball aerial attack is led by last season’s SEC Freshman of the year, Nick Calathes. He is developing tremendous leadership skills and has an SEC-high 6.5 assists per game.

The rest of the young Gators have been inconsistent at best. In dealing with the early departure of C Marreese Speights to the NBA, the Gators frontcourt has been a vacuum of physical play.

Sophomore Alex Tyus and Freshman Kenny Kadji have been out-rebounded frequently and it will be interestingly to see them match up down low against Patrick Patterson (17.7 points per game) of Kentucky, Tyler Smith (17.7 points per game) and Wayne Chism (12.6 points per game) of Tennessee and Tasmin Mitchell (15.5 points per game) of LSU as the season progresses.

After looking at the stats, it does appear that the Southeastern Conference is particularly guard-heavy.Eight out of the 12 teams are led in scoring by guards.

The SEC is also last of the six “BCS” conferences in RPI and strength of schedule. The SEC leads the other BCS conferences with five out-of-conference blowout losses.

Currently (1/26/09) only the No. 24 UK Wildcats reside in the AP top 25 and no SEC teams are in the ESPN/USA Today poll. For humor’s sake, watch here to see Tennessee fall off the AP charts as the season progresses.

Clearly this is no ACC or Big East.

Any thoughts?

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