The Cats get back on track.
Greetings, BBN!
The Kentucky Wildcats stayed on the right side of .500 with a win over the Vanderbilt Commodores Wednesday night, improving to 7-6 and 18-8 overall to remain in their tie for 8th place and creep a bit closer to the tie for 7th place going on between Tennessee and Ole Miss. The win was only their second in SEC play by 20 or more points, and in case you haven’t noticed, beating any SEC team by 20+ points is really difficult this year.
In other news, Missouri took down #4 Alabama in Mizzou Arena while putting up a whopping 110 points in a 12-point win. They were actually slight betting favorites for heading in. I guess now we know why. The Tigers are 9-4 in league play and own victories over two teams currently ranked in the Top 5.
Remember: this team went 0-18 in league play last season under Dennis Gates, and now he’s trying to keep the school from racking up too much in court-storming fines!
Here are your SEC standings as of February 20th:
SEC Basketball Standings
Notes:
- Oklahoma lost again, falling by 23 at Florida. Sure, it was at the #2 team in the country, but they are an absolutely 3-10 in league play with four more ranked teams left to face! I’m calling it right now: their goose is cooked. A record number of SEC teams might make this year’s tournament, but Oklahoma will not be one of them.
- Arkansas gave #1 Auburn a good run, actually taking a 58-57 lead with 3:06 to play inside Neville Arena. They might be losing against the Top 10 teams, but they sure aren’t the same team that started 0-5. Unlike Oklahoma, they’ve got a manageable remaining schedule, and winning four of their next five might be enough to get them heading to the SEC Tournament with some hope.
- Mississippi State’s struggled to pull through against the big boys in the league this season. Well Tuesday night they finally hauled one in: final score 70-54 Bulldogs against #7 Texas A&M to get State their first Top 10 win of the season.
- Biggest games of the weekend: #17 Kentucky at #4 Alabama and #6 Tennessee at #7 Texas A&M.