Pretender or Contender

[cardvolfan]

Wow, some crazy SEC basketball this week. No team is safe from poor games. Here’s the question I pose after 2 weeks of conference play: Who are contenders for an SEC regular season championship and who are pretenders with basically no shot at all?

Fire away, and please include your opinions.

 

[tennrich1]

Wow, some crazy SEC basketball this week. No team is safe from poor games. Here’s the question I pose after 2 weeks of conference play: Who are contenders for an SEC regular season championship and who are pretenders with basically no shot at all?

Fire away, and please include your opinions.

I'm baling out on this one at this point...Rarely have I've seen an SEC season where it's hard to tell if anyone has a clear shot at the SEC championship. If I were made to pick...with zero confidence....Arkansas...only because of Acuff.... I guess

 

[omghulkhands]

When in doubt, use KenPom. Which would pretty squarely put us as a 2nd tier contender.

Florida and Vandy are 1 and 1a

Then it’s Bama, us and Arky

I doubt anyone else has a chance.

 

[jeff1vol]

Ill go out on a limb and say... TEJAS!!! Why not?

 

[cardvolfan]

When in doubt, use KenPom. Which would pretty squarely put us as a 2nd tier contender.

Florida and Vandy are 1 and 1a

Then it’s Bama, us and Arky

I doubt anyone else has a chance.

The one team in the SEC that I don’t understand in KenPom ratings is Missouri at #54. Everyone else kind of syncs up, at least in my mind.

 

[BernardKingGOAT]

Don't know who it might be, but I think 12-6 could at least tie for the reg season title. No one will be better than 13-5

 

[Just a VolinTears]

When in doubt, use KenPom. Which would pretty squarely put us as a 2nd tier contender.

Florida and Vandy are 1 and 1a

Then it’s Bama, us and Arky

I doubt anyone else has a chance.

I think Arkansas is right there with Florida. They have the best player in the SEC, Acuff, and guard play wins in March

 

[DonDiego]

I don't know if Texas A&M really has a chance to win it all, but man, that D and full court press puts them in almost any game. They probably need more of an inside presence to really pull it off, though.

 

[Orangeslide]

Florida has the frontcourt to win it, they just need serviceable guard play. Vandy‘s frontcourt is suspect, I don’t trust Coach Cal at Arkansas. Bama may be the one that pushes Florida to win the conference. A@M style of play will fade down the stretch, plus they are small in the frontcourt, but I admit they are fun to watch. I think we will finish somewhere in the 5 or 6 slot. We are at best a sweet 16 team in the big tournament but I could see us go out in the round of 32. I just don’t see the SEC knocking it out of the park in the big dance. Estrella just doesn’t seem to be able to deliver, Carey is too shaky at the FT line, and our backcourt outside of Gillespie hasn’t shown they can step up. We are easy to game plan for. Maybe Henderson is the X factor for us. I hope Im wrong and I have been before, so there’s always hope. Please don’t lay an egg Saturday at home with Kentucky. Go Vols!

 

[Jax_Vol]

I don't know if Texas A&M really has a chance to win it all, but man, that D and full court press puts them in almost any game. They probably need more of an inside presence to really pull it off, though.

Right...too short.

We don't have the elite ballhandlers so we're out.

 

[hUTch2002]

Ill go out on a limb and say... TEJAS!!! Why not?

They have certainly surprised me. It’s one thing to beat Vandy at home, but that AND Bama on the road? Impressive. Maybe that was a better win than I realized. I didn’t think it was bad at all, but maybe it’s actually a good win instead of middle of the road.

 

[scottchatt]

Pretty early to make the call, but I’ll give it a shot:

Contenders:
Florida - best front court in the SEC, maybe the country. Back court is good enough. Look like a F4 team again.

Arkansas - If Fland was still there they’d be a massive problem. Still look legit, and love him or hate him, Cal knows how to win.

Bama - this one is a hard call. Can’t play defense, but if they’re on, they’re going to outscore you. I’ll assume they will shoot well more often than not and call them a contender.

Texas - we lucked into getting a bad game from them. Complete team, and won’t be surprised to see them in S16.

Vols - I still have us as a contender. We definitely have some road losses coming, but if we can hold serve at home, 12-6 could be enough.

Pretenders

South Carolina , LSU - appear to not care about men’s basketball

Auburn - ole Bruce pulled a fast one on them. The Steven Pearl era may be very, very short.

Oklahoma, Ole Miss - I keep thinking they are not as bad as their record, keep proving me wrong. Ole Miss is in better shape just because of Beard, and could jump to a contender with a little luck. I know they lost the head to head with Oklahoma…it’s basketball.

Georgia - just not enough talent here. Mike White doing a good job with what he has, just not going to be enough.


State - good OT win against Texas, haven’t shown a lot else.

Kentucky - Pope is done unless we see a typical Kentucky march run. Always good to see these guys lose.

TAMU - complete chaos is going to win some games. You can know it’s going to happen and still not be prepared. I think tight whistles take them out of some games.

Vandy - single biggest fraud out there. Wins against no one except a bama team that couldn’t hit 3s in memorial. Could end up with four straight losses after their amazing 16-0 start against directional schools.

 

[ColinS]

Florida seems like the favorite to me. Arkansas, Bama, and Vandy will win a lot of games. Tennessee, Kentucky, and Auburn seem kind of average to me. Georgia is a fraud