LITTLE ROCK — Last spring, the SEC’s men’s basketball coaches voted to do away with divisions and become one, rather long, division.
Apparently, the thought was that it would help when it came time to hand out invitations to the NCAA Tournament.
Somehow, the coaches believed it was better to be in fifth place in a one-division format than second in a splitdivision format.
If that sounds like a drastic move, that’s because it was.
Outside of Kentucky, SEC basketball has closely followed the economy. It’s been slumping for years.
Granted, SEC Commissioner Mike Slive may have realized how bad his league was, top to bottom, before the coaches did.
Although he would never use the word bad to describe SEC basketball, he’s the one who went out and got the ESPN contract to give the programs more exposure and help recruiting — which is why SEC basketball was on television three school nights this week.
The truth is, nothing is going to fool the NCAA Tournament selection committee. They take too much into consideration to be thrown off by one long list of standings.
Sure, the Big East is not divided and it gets tons of teams in the tournament, but that’s more because they go out and beat more teams with winning records than anything else.
However, there is at least one strong indication the SEC is moving in the right direction.
The league, as a whole, is young.
All total, there are 15 freshmen, including a couple of redshirts, who are starting for 11 of the SEC teams and another 15 freshmen who are making solid contributions.
Vanderbilt is the only team in the SEC that isn’t counting on first-year players.
The two teams depending the heaviest on freshmen are Arkansas and Kentucky, with four freshmen each.
That, though, is the Wildcat way. One-and-done is practically a way of life in the Bluegrass State. It is what John Calipari did at Memphis with success, and it is what he has done at Kentucky.
He’s had so many youngsters come and go the sale of disposable razors has probably dropped drastically.
Wildcat Lodge could be renamed Freshman Inn.
This season, the No. 1-ranked Wildcats start three freshmen and use a fourth.
Arkansas starts one freshman, and which one varies by matchup or productivity, and uses three more. BJ Young comes off the bench but is sixth in scoring in the SEC.
Besides Vanderbilt, Auburn is the only other team in the league that doesn’t start a freshman. The Tigers might want to rethink that.
Incidentally, last-place South Carolina is currently limited to an eight-man rotation because it has eight players.
Tennessee, LSU and Alabama start two babies each. Everyone else has one newbie starter.
The lack of experience doesn’t really show in the standings, although Florida uses only one freshman.
What having 30 freshmen heavily contributing means — and since that is the Wildcat way you can even throw them out of the equation — is that it may not get more teams in the NCAA Tournament this year, but the future is looking bright.
Depending on what happens down the stretch, the SEC could get five, maybe even six, teams in the Big Dance.
Starting next year, that’s just the starting number because SEC teams are getting better players , and that helps with the NCAA Tournament more than playing in a league with only one division.
Sports, Pages 19 on 02/08/2012