Kentucky should expect SEC tourney path to NCAA bid to be available
Kentucky’s only chance to play in this year’s NCAA Tournament is perceived to be by getting the automatic bid that comes with winning the Southeastern Conference Tournament. But will there be an SEC Tournament?
Because of the coronavirus pandemic, the NCAA has given leagues the option of not playing a conference tournament and awarding the automatic bid to its regular-season champion. The deadline to decide is Friday.
Mississippi State Coach Ben Howland all but guaranteed that the SEC Tournament would be played.
“I think that it will be played for sure,” he said. “I’m very confident we’re going to play the SEC Tournament.”
Alabama Coach Nate Oats, whose team is seemingly assured of the regular-season championship, said he would be “very disappointed” if the SEC Tournament was not played.
“I have not heard any discussion (about canceling the SEC Tournament) from anybody at the SEC office, from any of our administrators, from any of the coaches on not having it,” Oats said. “So, I’m sure we’re having it.”
Although COVID-19 makes everything tentative, several other leagues plan to play tournaments. That includes the Big Ten, Big 12, ACC, Pac-12, Big East and West Coast Conference (No. 1 Gonzaga’s league).
History suggests Kentucky needs to win the SEC Tournament to play in the NCAA Tournament. Going into this weekend, UK had five remaining regular-season games (counting either a makeup game against South Carolina or a non-conference opponent). Winning all five would give UK a record of 12-13 going into the SEC Tournament. (And now the Cats’ game Tuesday against Texas A&M has been postponed, too.)
Let’s say the 11-7 league record would not be good enough for a double-bye. So, Kentucky wins games on Thursday, Friday and Saturday, but then loses in Sunday’s SEC Tournament championship game. That scenario would leave UK with a 15-14 record.
In the history of the NCAA Tournament, the worst record for a team receiving an at-large bid is 16-14. Villanova had that record as a No. 9 seed in 1991 and Georgia had that record as a No. 8 seed in 2001.
When asked about the likelihood of a SEC Tournament, the league’s basketball consultant, Mike Tranghese, said, “I think they’re intending to play. That’s the sense I get. … I have never heard anything other than they’re going to push forward and play.”
Thumb on scale?
UK Director of Athletics Mitch Barnhart is chair of this year’s NCAA Men’s Basketball Committee (aka the NCAA Tournament selection committee).
During Thursday’s meeting of the University Athletics Committee (a subcommittee of the school’s Board of Trustees), UK president Eli Capilouto playfully suggested Barnhart should find a way to get Kentucky a bid.
“We want to see how good you really are this year,” Capilouto said with a smile.
After noting that Barnhart would be joining the committee that selects teams for the College Football Playoff, the UK president added, “We’ll wait to see how good you are at that, too, Mitch. Don’t forget Kentucky.”
More seriously, Capilouto acknowledged the difficulty of Barnhart putting a thumb on the scale by saying, “I know you have to leave the room whenever we’re considered.”
Remembering Ben
Kentucky will formally remember the late Ben Jordan, Mitch Barnhart said Thursday. Jordan, who played for UK’s baseball and basketball teams, died at age 22 last month.
“We loved Ben,” Barnhart said. “He gave his all for the Wildcats. He cherished being a Wildcat. He had a servant’s heart. When the basketball team needed someone to answer the call, Ben answered the call.”
Jordan, a 6-9 pitcher, joined the basketball team last season and was tasked with providing competition in practice.
“(He) actually made Nick Richards the player that he is …,” Barnhart said of Jordan. “We’ll certainly honor Ben’s memory as we move forward.”
Weather report
The average high temperature in College Station, Texas, in February is 65 degrees.
“Before all this, I was playing golf,” said Evan Roberts, an assistant director of communications at Texas A&M. “I had a light jacket on, and I was good.”
Of course, “all this” is the combination of freezing temperatures, snow, ice and power outages that has rocked the state of Texas in the last week or so.
Roberts, who handles media relations for men’s basketball, said he and his roommate lost power in the apartment they share at 2 a.m. Monday.
“We were just freezing,” he said. ‘We had blankets, and we were all bundled up like we were going to go outside and play in the snow. And we were sitting on the couch.”
The roommate moved to his girlfriend’s house. Roberts moved in with another friend.
That proved to be only a temporary respite when rolling blackouts occurred.
“When the power came back on, we’d, like, run to the kitchen and try to cook breakfast or lunch or dinner or whatever we’d try to do,” he said.
Roberts expected relief Saturday, when the forecast high was 50 degrees. Next Wednesday’s forecast for College Station: 67 degrees and partly cloudy. That’s what A&M had to look forward to before Tuesday night’s game at Kentucky (which was postponed because of COVID-19 protocols).
A dusting?
Alabama Coach Nate Oats grew up in Wisconsin. He began his head coaching career with an 11-season stint at a high school in the Detroit area. Then he went to Buffalo, where he worked for two seasons as an assistant and then four as head coach.
Last week was a revelation for Oats.
“I found out what it’s like to get snow in Alabama …,” he said. “We would call this a dusting where I’m from.”
Of life in snowy Tuscaloosa, Oats said, “It felt like a ghost town out there this morning. Up North when it snows, you kind of check the roads out (and) see how bad they are. Roads seemed pretty fine to me on my way in (to work) this morning.”
Ouch
A note last week about games in which Kentucky had made 14 or more three-pointers caught the eye of reader Darryl Hofe. Specifically, the reference to the UK team making 15 threes in a game against Arizona in the 1993 Maui Invitational evoked a memory.
Jeff Brassow won that game on a last-second tip-in. Hofe, who was watching the game on his couch, reacted by slamming his hand on the armrest.
One problem: His wife, Carolyn, had been sitting there earlier. She had been sewing together a blanket for her father. Hofe did not notice that his wife had left three sewing needles sticking up from the armrest.
“It was my right hand,” he said. “And all three went through the palm.”
Hofe recalled seeing about six inches of each needle sticking through the top of his hand.
“Very minimal bleeding of any sort,” he said. “No damage to the bones or cartilage that I know of. … It really wasn’t that bad. And I looked at my hand and said, why did I do this?”
Good question: Why did he?
“Well, I wanted Kentucky to win,” he said. “And I loved Brassow. I just got excited.”
Hofe, now 70, is a native of West Virginia’s eastern panhandle. He has lived in Lexington since 1985.
“I had been a medic in the Army, so it wasn’t too frightening,” he said about being needled (so to speak). “And it wasn’t too painful.”
Good problem
Kentucky’s inadequacies in making three-point shots and subsequent losses had been well-documented (and thoroughly lamented).
Then Kentucky made 14 three-point shots against Arkansas. That was the most by a UK team since March, 2012. Yet, the Cats still lost. Did the 81-80 defeat make it even more difficult to cope or did making 14 three-point shots create positive momentum?
CBS analyst Jim Spanarkel suggested it was the latter. “I think that’s a better problem to have than shooting poorly and losing,” he said.
When it was suggested he had logic on his side, Spanarkel chuckled and said, “I’m not the sharpest tack in the box, but I think I’d rather have a team shooting well.”
Happy birthday
To Olivier Sarr. He turned 22 on Saturday. … To Phil Argento. He turns 74 on Monday. … To Rajon Rondo. He turns 35 on Monday. … To Julius Erving. Dr. J turns 71 on Monday. … To Jamal Murray. He turns 24 on Tuesday. … To Tom Heitz. He turns 60 on Tuesday. … To former UK assistant coach Herb Sendek. He turns 58 on Tuesday.
