Save the Shield! A Vanderbilt sports blog

1. What were the biggest surprises in the SEC over the first half of the season?

By far, the biggest surprise has been Tennessee’s failure to dominate the league.   Sure, it’s easy for me to throw stones at one of my team’s big rivals (even if their non-dominance over the rest of the league comes the same season they’ve owned us, sigh) but their inconsistent form is the big news of the season.   At the beginning of the year they were supposed to tower over an otherwise mediocre conference.  Instead, we have the mediocrity without the one good team to carry the conference banner.

South Carolina fans had every reason to anticipate the arrival of Darrin Horn but I don’t think they dared to think they’d be this good in his first year.   LSU was supposed to be good but I don’t think anyone expected them to be the best team in the league.   Arkansas’ out of conference form was pretty unexpected, so their failure to continue it in SEC play could be considered a huge surprise relative to the expectations set by those Big XII wins.

2. Who is the SEC Player of the Year over the first part of the season?

I was all prepared to give this to Downey, because I think he’s singlehandedly willed Carolina to at least a couple of key wins, and I think there’s a tendency to get blown away by Meeks’ spectacular performance against Tennessee.   But darned if he didn’t go out and do almost the same in setting a Bud Walton Arena record, so I have to give it to him.

I should have said that Jodie Meeks’ emergence is the biggest surprise of the SEC season.   I certainly didn’t see that coming.

3. Is the SEC really this down? Why or why not? What can the conference do in the postseason? Is there any hope for a Final Four team? Where does the conference go after this year?

Yeah, it’s pretty down.   I tend to look to “computer ratings” (which are really only as valid as the guy writing the algorithm) for questions like this because there are just too many OOC games for me to hold them all in my brain at the same time.   But in this case Pomeroy and Sagarin are just confirming what the intuitive “sight test” tells us, that the SEC is the worst of the high-major conferences.

Really the SEC this year is like the ACC was in football: few really horrible teams, but a bunch of mediocre that are evenly matched.   Parity is fun for the fans involved but generally underappreciated by outsiders, who focus on our lack of Top 25 contenders.

In the postseason, most likely we win a good number of NIT games and relatively few NCAA ones.   However, the big problem holding league teams back is youth, so there’s some chance that one of our young teams might catch fire and make it to the Sweet Sixteen or maybe the Eight.   Final Four seems a stretch without several huge upsets.

After this year, the conference improves, rapidly.   Really a staggering number of teams can attribute their spotty play to inexperience.   Ole Miss should be a lot better once they get their injured guys back.   Vanderbilt has been treading water, barely, without a senior and with a ton of freshmen getting starts.   Florida, Tennessee, and South Carolina have all strugged through growing pains.    Many of these young teams will be in a position to win big OOC games in the next year or two. 

4.Which teams will make the Big Dance?

LSU’s probably the only team close to a lock now.   Kentucky, Tennessee, South Carolina, and Florida all look pretty probable.   Five teams seems like a lot for the league, but it’s the most likely outcome.   Unfortunately, they all figure to be seeded between 6 and 10 (stealing from Lunardi, but I think that’s about right) which means that a 1997-style first-round blowout is very much something to fear.

There’s also a better than average shot that another one of the young teams could catch fire in Tampa — not a place full of pleasant memories for Vanderbilt fans, incidentally — and win its way to the NCAAs.  If Georgia can do it, anyone can, right?