Here are the top stories (and links) from the SEC’s East Division on this Wednesday morning:

UT:  A young team struggling to find its shooting touch and having to play in Memorial Gym.  Last night that described Vanderbilt, not Tennessee as the Vols won 76-63 in Nashville.

UT:  Wayne Chism didn’t get the start last night, but he still scored 20 and helped his reputation as a Vandy-killer.

UT:  It was an impressive performance for Tennessee… just one week after Jodie Meeks lit up the Vols for 54 points.  “When you lose a home game, you’ve got to make one up on the road,” Bruce Pearl said.  “I think winning at Vanderbilt qualifies as making one up becasue they’re not going to lose in here very often.”

UT:  The Vols lost their #1 ranking when they lost in Nashville last year.  But Mike Strange of The Knoxville News Sentinel writes that Tennessee needed this game more than the last one.

UT:  In football news, Lane Kiffin has added another coach to his staff.  But it’s not what you think.  Former Syracuse offensive coordinator Mitch Browning is joining the UT staff as a graduate assistant.  Not a bad get for an unpaid coach.  How long before fans of other schools begin to suggest that Browning will be paid under the… ah, it’s already happening.

Vandy:  The Commodores lost their Memorial magic when they missed some easy shots early and “it got in our heads a little bit,” according to Kevin Stallings.

Vandy:  Forward George Drake agreed with his coach.  “We got off to a very slow start.  We found ourselves kind of trying to dig ourselves back into the game throughout.”

USC:  Here’s a complete preview of tonight’s battle between Florida and Carolina in Columbia… including three things to watch.

USC:  Billy Donovan has some nice things to say about the Cocks’ Dominique Archie, calling him “the most underrated frontcourt player in the league… I love the way he plays.”

USC:  Does anyone want to stay at South Carolina?  Steve Spurrier has already replaced five coaches this off-season.  Special teams coach Ray Rychleski is rumored to be talking to the Indianapolis Colts and now there’s word that defensive line coach Brad Lawing has been contacted by Nick Saban.

USC:  Why was Darrin Horn wearing a t-shirt that read “Garnet Army” yesterday?  Seth Emerson of The State explains.

UK:  Roman Harris believes Kentucky has finally learned how to play Billy Gillispie’s style of basketball.  “Blue collar.  Really play hard on the defensive end.  Really compete.”

UK:  Maybe so, but Gillispie isn’t taking tonight’s game with Auburn for granted.  His latest coachspeak: “They could be 3-0 in the conference very easily.”

UK:  You can expect to see Patrick Patteron on the Rupp Arena court tonight, despite a finger injury.

UGA:  Betcha there are some Bulldog fans happy to hear this news — Miami is supposedly interested in luring Willie Martinez from his defensive coordinator job at Georgia down to Coral Gables.  Mark Richt says the Hurricanes have yet to ask for permission to talk with Martinez.

UGA:  Chip Towers of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution believes fans should be careful what they wish for when it comes to Martinez.  As we’ve written before… we agree.

UF:  If the 16-2 Gators keep getting into early foul trouble, road games (like tonight’s tussle in Columbia) might get a whole lot trickier.

UF:  Here’s a by-the-numbers preview of the Gators/Gamecocks game.

UF:  The Swamp will be getting a visual upgrade (lemme, lemme, lemme upgraaaaade ya, upgraaaaade ya) when two video boards are added to the end zones. One will be a 137-by-30-foot monster in the south end zone.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 21st, 2009 at 9:47 am and is filed under Florida, Homepage . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.