OPINION | WALLY HALL: Tennessee leading way for SEC basketball


With early deadlines because of inclement weather and a late game for the Arkansas Razorbacks because ESPN chose the Hogs for several finales this season, it was time to take a look at a few other things.

The SEC currently has four teams ranked in The Associated Press men's basketball poll with Tennessee leading the way at No. 6 followed by No. 8 Kentucky, No. 13 Auburn and No. 22 Ole Miss.

Of the top 25, Ole Miss and Utah State are the only teams with just one loss and the Rebels' came on the road to the Volunteers.

Say what you want about Chris Beard but don't say the man can't coach basketball. He studied under the late Bobby Knight and he knows the game and he knows it starts with defense.

Of the top 10 teams, three already have three losses, including No. 7 Duke, which lost to the Razorbacks. Arkansas is currently 1-4 against top 25 teams with losses to No. 4 North Carolina, No. 10 Memphis, No. 13 Auburn and No. 15 Oklahoma

No. 16 Utah State's lone loss was at Bradley, which just snapped out of a five-game losing streak.

Alabama at 11-5 is not ranked but receiving points. But the Tide are riding a six-game win streak that includes SEC wins at Vanderbilt and Mississippi State and a home win against South Carolina.

Entering Tuesday night's games, the Tide and Tigers of Auburn are on top of the SEC standings with 3-0 records.

. . .

The NCAA NET rankings, which stands for NCAA Evaluating Tool, still has Houston No. 1 despite losing its past two games at Iowa State and TCU.

That happened a week after reporters were asking if anyone could beat the Cougars.

Iowa State and TCU are ranked in the NET's top 30, making them Quad 1 teams.

In the SEC, Alabama is No. 4, Tennessee No. 8 and Kentucky is No. 18 give the league four Quad 1 programs, but the NET is just part of what the NCAA Tournament selection committee looks at.

The lowest ranked NET teams to make the field as at-larges were Minnesota at No. 61 and Arizona State at No. 63 in 2019; Michigan State at No. 70 and Wichita State at No. 72 in 2021; and lowest ranked team to ever make the Big Dance was No. 73 St. John's also in 2019.

Those two seasons seem a little off as those were the two years that the record for high-ranked teams was also set.

In 2019, No. 33 North Carolina State, No. 35 Clemson, No. 38 Texas and No. 41 Furman were left out and in 2021 No. 42 Penn State didn't get in.

A lack of Quad 1 wins was cited as the reason.

Arkansas is No. 113 before Tuesday's night's game against Texas A&M, ahead of only No. 119 Missouri and No. 249 Vanderbilt from the SEC. All three came out of last weekend looking for their first SEC wins.

. . .

Some interesting numbers have been released from the bowl season that had a total of 43 bowl games including the College Football Playoffs.

More than 10,000 student-athletes participated and were watched by a total of 1.54 million in person and 190 million on television.

If that doesn't mean there are too many bowl games then nothing will since about 15% of the in person total was for the three playoff games.

As for television, the semifinal game between Michigan and Alabama attracted 27.6 million and Washington vs. Texas 18.74 million.

The most watched non-playoff game was Georgia and Florida State with 10.39 viewers.

Last year's NCAA basketball championship drew almost 15 million viewers and while that clearly makes football No. 1, March Madness included just a little more than 800 athletes. If there are going to be 43 bowl games, the NCAA needs to expand its field to 96 and not wait three years to do it.


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