And the winner should be Eric Musselman for SEC Basketball Coach of the Year.
The award more than likely will go to Alabama’s Nate Oats for winning the SEC, but did he actually do a better coaching job than Musselman?
No.
Oats is an excellent coach.
So is Muss, who has taken three freshmen, mixed them in with a handful of transfers — some from small schools — and led them to 20-5 overall and 12-4 in SEC play.
Oats has the Crimson Tide 20-6 overall and 15-2 in SEC play, but he returned a handful of starters from last year’s 16-15 and 8-10 team.
The Razorbacks were 20-12 last season and 7-11, but they lost their top three players.
A year ago, Texas A&M’s Buzz Williams was the SEC Coach of the Year for going 16-14 and 10-8.
Muss deserves the honor as much as Oats, but neither one probably is too worried about it right now.
Arkansas women’s basketball Coach Mike Neighbors also made a great case for being the SEC Women’s Coach of the Year, but Georgia Coach Joni Taylor received the award Tuesday.
It also could have gone to Gary Blair, who led Texas A&M to a 22-1 record and the regular-season championship. Blair was the Arkansas coach before he was told his contract wasn’t being renewed, and he left for the Aggies even though he said he didn’t need a raise, just a new contract.
Neighbors certainly has put the Razorbacks back on the national radar with wins over No. 1 UConn and No. 6 Baylor.
Arkansas is 19-7 overall and ranked No. 13 in the country. That’s a heckuva job.
Freshman Jaylin Williams, from Fort Smith, did not make the trip to South Carolina. In this day and age, that usually has something to do with covid-19.
Of course the University of Arkansas doesn’t comment on that.
Regardless, it makes me wish Gov. Hutchinson had kept all his mandatory orders in place until the end of March, and not just wearing a mask. That would have gotten everyone through the high school state tournaments, and the NCAA would be down to the Final Four.
The NCAA is implementing such strict protocols for the Big Dance that it appears it would be hard to get the virus once a team makes it to the Indianapolis area.
First, all players and coaches must test negative for seven consecutive days before they can travel to Indiana.
Let’s just hope Williams is fine. He’s come a long way from an underweight, not-very-strong high school player.
He leads the Razorbacks in taking charges and has come off the bench to show flashes of being an outstanding player.
Williams might be the most improved Razorback from the start of the season to now.
Not missing him against the Gamecocks says more about the Gamecocks than Williams.
Most of the NCAA bracketology experts are saying the men’s team is a No. 3 through No. 5 seed.
After beating South Carolina, the Razorbacks NET ranking jumped to No. 12, the same ranking they have in The Associated Press poll.
Going into that game they were No. 18 in the NET, and jumping six spots this time of the year isn’t easy to do.
They jumped ahead of Texas Tech, West Virginia, Colorado, Florida State, San Diego State and Loyola-Chicago.
If the Hogs don’t slip, they may have played themselves into a No. 3 seed, and this is a team that is getting tons of talk time on national TV because the Hogs appear to be improving each week.
No doubt they have come a long way since the start of the SEC season, and that’s why Eric Musselman deserves to be SEC Coach of the Year.