FAYETTEVILLE -- The story of the year for men's basketball in the SEC has been South Carolina, which will take a 15-0 record into Wednesday's 8 p.m. game at Alabama on the SEC Network.
The Gamecocks have not taken on a difficult nonconference schedule, which is rated as the 294th-most difficult by ESPN.com's daily RPI calculations. However, they notched a 65-59 road victory over Clemson, a neutral floor victory over St. John's (75-61) and a home victory against Memphis (86-76) in nonconference play.
The Gamecocks have opened conference play with victories at Auburn and against Vanderbilt.
Fourth-year Coach Frank Martin pointed to his team's crop of veterans -- seniors Michael Carrera, Laimonas Chatkevicius and Mindaugas Kacinas and juniors Sindarius Thornwell and Duane Notice -- when asked about the strong start.
"We started building it four years ago with a group of guys who are seniors now," Martin said. "They didn't run away from losing games as freshmen. We weren't very competitive.
"They didn't run away from losing close games as sophomores where we had leads. ... And they didn't run away from it last year, when we were a borderline top 25 team and didn't start well in conference play.
"Anyone who's paid attention to our team realizes that those seniors have grown tremendously ... and they're the leaders of our team."
South Carolina finished 14-18 in 2012-2013, Martin's first year, followed with a 14-20 mark and was 17-16 last year, the program's first winning record since 2008-2009.
"South Carolina is playing as well as anyone in the country," said Bob Simon, Alabama's associate head coach. "They have incredible chemistry and a balanced scoring attack ... which is going to be a handful for us.
New Pavilion
The $96.5 million basketball facility called The Pavilion at Ole Miss hosted its first game last Thursday with the Rebels outlasting Alabama 74-66. Ole Miss extended its winning streak to two with a 72-71 victory over Georgia on Saturday.
The Pavilion took 526 days to build from its ground-breaking on July 31, 2014, until its opening. It contains 24,000 square feet of video boards and 185,000 pounds of rebar, and took 330,000 man-hours to construct.
Tad menagerie
Georgia Coach Mark Fox, whose team lost at Ole Miss on Saturday, said the Bulldogs once came across a squirrel in their locker room at Tad Smith Coliseum, which closed its doors after hosting its 700th Rebels men's game last month.
A reporter said Ole Miss Coach Andy Kennedy had seen a raccoon in the "Tad Pad" when he asked Florida Coach Michael White, a former Ole Miss player and assistant coach, if he had any animal stories regarding the old building.
"I don't know when that happened to Fox-y, but more than likely we put the squirrel in there," White said.
White added he had seen practices cancelled because of dripping rain on the floor, as well as lighting and heating issues, but had not come across a varmint in the Tad Pad.
'Glue guy'
Tennessee Coach Rick Barnes paid a high compliment to Texas A&M guard Alex Caruso after the Aggies won 92-88 in Knoxville, Tenn., on Saturday.
"To me, Alex Caruso is the ultimate glue guy," Barnes said. "They beat us because of turnovers that led to easy baskets, and he had a lot to do with that."
Pre-conference
Kentucky posted a 74-63 victory over defending national champion Duke on Nov. 17 for the SEC's most notable victory. The Wildcats had reached No. 1 in the Associated Press poll before falling 87-77 at UCLA in a revenge game after last year's 83-44 Kentucky victory. Vanderbilt's 86-64 victory over Wake Forest was also one of the highlights of the pre-conference schedule.
Among the SEC's worst nonconference losses: Harvard 69, Auburn 51; Charleston 70, LSU 58; Mercer 69, Arkansas 66 (OT); Tennessee-Chattanooga 92, Georgia 90 (OT); and Arizona 88, Missouri 52.
Adding woes
Mississippi State Coach Ben Howland was still calling his team's margin of loss at Arkansas 18 points during Monday's SEC coaches teleconference. The Bulldogs lost 82-68 at Fayetteville after the Razorbacks closed the game with a 20-9 run that featured five three-pointers, a three-point play by Moses Kingsley and a dunk by Kingsley.
Howland called Arkansas' final margin, considering the score was 62-59 with less than five minutes remaining, "an incredible stat" on Saturday.
"We really got shellacked the last 3 1/2 minutes of that game," Howland said Monday.
Hot shot
Texas A&M forward Tyler Davis is off to a sizzling start. The freshman has made 67.8 percent of his shots (59 of 87) to lead the SEC.
Davis has cooled in conference games, starting with an 0-for-3 performance in a 92-69 victory over Arkansas. The 6-10, 265-pounder made 54 of 78 shots (69.2) against nonconference opponents before opening SEC play 1 of 9.
Davis is averaging 11.1 points and 6.0 rebounds per game heading into the Aggies' home game tonight against Florida.
Strong as Henry
Ole Miss slipped past Georgia 72-71 on Saturday on guard Stefan Moody's drive and short bank shot with 3.8 seconds remaining. Moody split defenders on the drive and took an indeterminate number of steps, possibly three or four, prior to launching the winning shot.
Rebels Coach Andy Kennedy was hollering for a timeout prior to the winning play.
"I didn't hear A.K. calling for a timeout. I just need to go," Moody said. "Really, it was a garbage play and I wanted to give it a chance to go in."
Kennedy said Moody is as strong as an ox, and compared him to Alabama's Heisman Trophy-winning running back.
"He'd been battered and bruised," Kennedy said. "He's like our Derrick Henry. We've been riding him."
Rear admiral
Tennessee forward Admiral Schofield was selected as SEC freshman of the week after averaging 16.5 points and 7 rebounds in games against Florida and Texas A&M.
Schofield is averaging 18.3 points, 7.3 rebounds and 27 minutes in SEC games after posting 4.8 points, 2.7 rebounds and 13.2 minutes per game through 12 nonconference games.
Commodore concern
Vanderbilt was 5-0, including an 86-64 victory at Wake Forest, before losing seven of its next 10 games, including an 0-3 start in SEC play.
"One game it's ball care, one game it's shooting, or it could be rebounding or foul trouble," Vanderbilt Coach Kevin Stallings said in regard to the Commodores' ever-shifting issues. "There are a variety of things that are causing us problems."
Vanderbilt gave unbeaten South Carolina a strong run on the road on Saturday before falling 69-65, and the Commodores led Arkansas with three seconds remaining before losing 90-85 in overtime.
Milestone
Ole Miss Coach Andy Kennedy notched his 200th career victory with the Rebels in a 99-80 victory over Louisiana Tech on Dec. 15. The all-time winningest coach at Ole Miss, Kennedy has a 204-117 in 10 seasons at the helm.
Tip-ins
• SEC teams are 14-5 in conference home games
• Kentucky beat Ole Miss 83-61 in a conference opener at Rupp Arena on Jan. 2 to improve to 53-2 against the Rebels at Lexington, Ky.
• Xavier of the Big East Conference went 3-0 vs. SEC competition with victories over Missouri (78-66), Alabama (64-45) and Auburn (85-61). The Musketeers (14-1) have also beaten Michigan, Southern Cal, Dayton, Cincinnati and Wake Forest. Their lone loss was to Villanova, 95-64 on Dec. 31.
Sports on 01/12/2016