Halfway through the SEC season, is there any doubt who the favorite is for Player of the Year?

Tennessee’s Tyler Smith got the nod in preseason. And while he’s having a solid year, he’s not been spectacular.

Kentucky’s Patrick Patterson was considered the best big man in the league.

South Carolina’s Devan Downey was expected to be the most electrifying point guard.

Florida’s Nick Calathes was considered the most complete point guard.

Mississippi State’s Jarvis Varnado was the reigning Defensive Player of the Year.

None of those has been the best player, however.

Here’s a hint: If you saw an opponent scurrying on the court, looking for this lethal weapon, he might be yelling:  “Guard 54, Where Are You?”
           
The 54 refers to the amount of points Jodie Meeks scored on Tennessee in an improbable 18-point win at Thompson-Boling Arena last month.

Meeks, who averaged 8.8 points in an injury riddled 2007-08 season, hasn’t come close to duplicating that 54-point outburst, but he still leads the SEC in scoring at 25.1 points per game to rank among the nation’s top five.

And if you doubt his value, check out the final few minutes of Kentucky’s must-win home game against Florida. With Kentucky down by six with three minutes left, Meeks scored 10 points — including a remarkable trey with 4.7 seconds left — to lift his team to victory while Patterson was sidelined for the final nine minutes with an ankle injury.

Meeks is on pace to record the highest scoring average by an SEC player since 1991, when LSU’s Shaquille O’Neal scored at a 27.6 clip.

Who else would make the All-SEC team at the midway point?

The best player on the best team has been LSU’s Marcus Thornton. Thought to be a one-dimensional ball hog until this season, Thornton is averaging 20 points and playing solid defense.

Downey has sparked South Carolina to a first-place tie in the East Division with his 20-point scoring average and SEC-best 63 steals. He also averages 4.4 assists.

Calathes had 33 in a loss at Kentucky, and even though he missed clutch free throws at the end, he carried his team most of the game. He averages over 18 points, ranks first in the SEC in assists and shoots over 50 percent from the field.

Smith is the only SEC player who ranks in the top 20 in scoring, rebounds and assists.

Patterson is averaging over 18 points, leads the league in field-goal accuracy at 65 percent and is fourth in rebounding.

Honorable mention: Ole Miss guards David Huertas and Terrico White, Arkansas forward Michael Washington, LSU forward Tasmin Mitchell, Vanderbilt center AJ Ogilvy and Varnado.
 


Kentucky the king of 20-win seasons

I stumbled across a statistic this week that peaked my interest: Kentucky is on the verge of suffering double digit losses in a season for a record fourth year in a row.

Double digit losses are common in the SEC, just not at Kentucky.

I decided to research this in another direction: 20-win seasons are also common at Kentucky, but not so much at other SEC schools.

Here’s what I found: Kentucky has had a remarkable 53 20-win seasons, 52 since 1945.

No other team under the SEC umbrella has half that many 20-win seasons.

Alabama is next with 25, but just five in the last 13 years, when 20-win seasons are more commonplace and easier to achieve.

Tennessee has 21, all but one since 1965.

Vanderbilt has 16, all but one since 1965.

Arkansas has 28, but only 12 as an SEC team.

South Carolina has 14, seven as an SEC team.

LSU has 18, all but three since 1970.  Florida and Mississippi State have 15 each.  Georgia has 10.  Ole Miss has nine.  And Auburn has seven.

It’s hard to believe that Auburn, with as many star players as that program has produced, has so few 20-win seasons.

Regarding consecutive 20-win seasons, Kentucky leads the SEC with 17, a streak snapped last season.

Florida has the second-best 20-win streak at 10 (and counting) followed by Arkansas with nine on two different occasions. Alabama, LSU and Tennessee have had streaks of five, Mississippi State and Vanderbilt four, and Auburn, Georgia, Ole Miss and South Carolina three each.


 
Georgia a “sleeping giant” in hoops

Chip Towers, who covers Georgia for the Atlanta Journal Constitution, said the chances of the Bulldogs hiring Bob Knight as coach are one percent.

Towers doesn’t see the merit in hiring a 68-year-old coach who won’t be around long. Instead, he expects Georgia to pursue a younger coach like UAB’s Mike Davis, Oklahoma’s Jeff Capel or VCU’s Anthony Grant.

Towers called the Georgia job a “sleeping giant” and said the reason the school hasn’t had more success or tradition is because it didn’t take hoops seriously. It will now, with a former basketball player, Damon Evans, as athletic director.

Considering Georgia’s recruiting base, Georgia might he the most underachieving basketball program in the SEC. In the past 10 years, the Bulldogs have had just one 20-win season, one NCAA Tournament win and one improbable SEC Tournament title.

Tubby Smith won 45 games in his two-year tenure, then left for Kentucky. Can’t blame him. But you wonder what Georgia would have achieved had Smith stayed.

Towers thinks Georgia made a huge mistake forcing out Hugh Durham in 1995. Durham, who took Florida State to the Final Four in 1972, took Georgia to the Final Four in 1983. He had four 20-win seasons and four more years of at least 18 wins. But in his last five seasons, he had just one winning record in SEC play, never won more than 18 games and mustered just one NCAA appearance.

Towers said Evans believes there’s no reason Georgia can’t do in basketball what Tennessee has done under Bruce Pearl.
 

This entry was posted on Friday, February 13th, 2009 at 12:23 am and is filed under Homepage, The Ace Reporter . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.