FAYETTEVILLE - More turned into less for SEC basketball this season.
In the SEC’s first season with 14 teams created by the addition of Missouri and Texas A&M, the conference has just three representatives in the 68-team NCAA Tournament field: Florida, Missouri and Ole Miss.
It’s the fewest number of NCAA Tournament bids for the group of teams which now comprise the SEC since 1979, when Arkansas - then in the Southwest Conference - joined LSU and Tennessee in the 40-team NCAA Tournament field.
SEC coaches talked at media day in October about the expanded conference having as many as six or seven NCAA Tournament bids. It didn’t sound far-fetched considering that eight times since 1999 seven teams now in the SEC made NCAA Tournament appearances in the same season and three other times six teams did it.
“I was a little bit surprised to be honest with you,” Florida Coach Billy Donovan said.“I thought Tennessee had a really, really good opportunity to get in, as did Kentucky.
“I don’t know everybody’s resume inside and out, but I do think our league is good enough to have more than three teams.”
Alabama, Kentucky and Tennessee settled for NIT bids.
Tennessee Coach Cuonzo Martin said he was confident the Volunteers (20-12) had done enough to earn an NCAA bid when they went 8-1 in their final nine regular-season games, then beat Texas A&M in the SEC Tournament before losing to Alabama.
“You have to do your work as a team, so in some areas I guess we came up short,” Martin said. “But to only get three teams I just think is disrespectful to this league, and the caliber of coaching and talent in this league.
“You hear it’s about the last 10 games and what have you done lately? We did what we were supposed to do there. We had one of the best preseason schedules in the country.”
But the Vols didn’t fare well against their toughest nonconference opponents. They lost to Oklahoma State in Puerto Rico and lost at Virginia and Georgetown. They beat Wichita State at home, but lost to Memphis.
Tennessee also suffered from losing senior forward Jeronne Maymon to a season-ending knee injury before he played any games. He averaged 12.7 points and 8.1 rebounds last season.
“Going into the year, I thought Tennessee was the [SEC’s] best team, before Maymon was hurt,” Donovan said. “That’s a big hit for any team to lose a quality player like that.”
Kentucky (21-11) also took a major hit with the loss of freshman center Nerlens Noel, who suffered a season-ending knee injury in the Wildcats’ 69-52 loss at Florida on Feb. 12.
“Some people kind of brushed that off like, ‘Oh, he’s just one player,’ ” Ole Miss Coach Andy Kennedy said. “This kid was the most dominating defensive presence in college basketball. He was the projected first pick in the draft, and still may be the first pick. He was a huge, huge loss for Kentucky.”
Kentucky is 4-5 without Noel, including an 0-5 record away from home, capped by a 64-48 loss to Vanderbilt in the SEC Tournament. If the Wildcats had beaten Vanderbilt, they might have clinched anNCAA bid.
“Winning a game, winning two games would have given us a little more confidence in who they are as a team,” said Xavier Athletic Director Mike Bobinski, chairman of the NCAA Tournament’s selection committee.
Kentucky Coach John Calipari isn’t complaining about the defending national champion Wildcats being left out of the NCAA Tournament.
“We were hoping to limp into the NCAA Tournament, but it wasn’t to be,” he said. “If we beat Vanderbilt and didn’t get in, I would have been very upset and very vocal, but by losing to Vandy, we put in the committee’s hands, and they made a choice, and they chose, ‘Not us.’ ”
Alabama Coach Anthony Grant said he was disappointed, but not surprised, when the Crimson Tide (21-12) were left out of the NCAA Tournament. The Tide spent the SEC season trying to overcome going 1-5 in December, which included road losses to Cincinnati and Virginia Commonwealth and home losses to Dayton, Mercer and Tulane.
“I felt we’d have to do more in the SEC Tournament, and we weren’t fortunate enough to be able to do that,” said Grant, whose Tide beat Tennessee and lost to Florida. “You’ve got to be able to play your way in, and just speaking for my team, we had some losses over the course of the season that probably kept us out.”
The Tide beat Villanova at home in November, but that wasn’t enough to offset the December struggles.
“At the end of the day when you look at it, the bullet was fired then,” Grant said. “What we did the rest of the way, we were either were going to play our way in or suffer the consequences for what happened during the month of December.”
Bobinski said Alabama, Kentucky and Tennessee were among the final six teams considered for the NCAA Tournament by the selection committee along with Iowa, Southern Mississippi and Virginia.
“When people are constantly saying the SEC is down, down, down, and then you have a 10-man committee that goes in and forms an opinion - which is not an exact science - and has to make a decision, they’re still human at the end of the day,” Martin said. “Not to say that any team that got in [the NCAA Tournament] didn’t deserve to get in. But when it comes down to it, perception probably plays into it. You hear something enough, then it becomes reality.”
Calipari said the SEC “could have easily had a couple more teams” in the NCAA Tournament.
“But we were on that edge, and I think the impression that the league is down hurt us,” Calipari said. “Everybody keeps saying it over and over. That’s why I tell the coaches, ‘We’ve got to brag about each other. We’ve got to set that straight. We can’t let it go.’
“It’s not us against each other. It’s us against the rest of the leagues.”
Donovan noted that Kentucky, Florida, Vanderbilt and Mississippi State combined to have eight players be first round NBA Draft picks last season, including seven underclassmen.
“You don’t just make that up with a bunch of freshmen or guys who backed them up the year before,” Donovan said. “That’s going to take some time and it’s there’s going to be some bumps in the road. I went through it.”
After the Gators lost three juniors as first-round draft picks - Al Horford, Corey Brewer and Joakim Noah - in 2007 from their back-to back NCAA championship team, Florida went to the NIT the next two seasons before returning to the NCAA field in 2010.
“We lost those guys and we ended up in the NIT,” Donovan said. “It’s just hard all of a sudden to recover that quickly.”
Kennedy said this season has been impacted by so many SEC teams having to replace key players and eight coaches being on the job for three or fewer years.
“It think it’s been a season of transition,” Kennedy said. “SEC basketball will be fine moving forward.”
NIT at a glance
TUESDAY’S GAMES - All times
Central Niagara at Maryland, 6 p.m.
St. John’s at Saint Joseph’s, 6 p.m.
Louisiana Tech at Florida State, 6:15 p.m.
Kentucky at Robert Morris, 6:30 p.m.
Northeastern at Alabama, 8 p.m.
Norfolk State at Virginia, 8 p.m.
Ohio at Denver, 8:15 p.m.
Washington at BYU, 8:30 p.m.
Stephen F. Austin at Stanford, 10 p.m.
WEDNESDAY’S GAMES
Indiana State at Iowa, 6 p.m.
Charlotte at Providence, 6;15 p.m.
Stony Brook at Massachusetts, 6:15 p.m.
Mercer at Tennessee, 7 p.m.
Long Beach State at Baylor, 8 p.m.
Charleston So. at Southern Miss., 8:15 p.m.
Detroit at Arizona State, 9 p.m.
Sports, Pages 17 on 03/19/2013