1.  The Orlando Sentinel says Florida was “completely outclassed” by Kentucky last night.

2.  Brian Cox Jr. signed with the Gators because his papa — the ex-NFL’er — and Gator D-coordinator Dan Quinn worked together with the New York Jets.

3.  Off-field issues have whittled down Georgia’s secondary depth.

4.  This columnist says Anthony Davis’ defense is just the tip of Kentucky’s spear. 

5.  Michael Kidd-Gilchrist continues to come up big in the Wildcats’ biggest games.

6.  South Carolina is 1-7 in the SEC and 0-4 on the road heading to Tennessee tonight.

7.  The Vols’ Jeronne Maymon will try to remain consistent, efficient and tough versus the Gamecocks.

8.  Vanderbilt will try to snap a two-game losing streak when LSU visits Nashville tonight.

9.  No surprise — SEC coaches aren’t thrilled with the NCAA’s new multi-year scholarship option.

1.  After a flurry of technical fouls, Alabama knocked out Auburn.

2.  Anthony Grant probably won’t be happy with some of his players for calling out Auburn fans and players on Twitter after the win. 

3.  Tony Barbee says his Tiger team got “out-toughed.”

4.  Undefeated at home, Arkansas heads to Georgia looking for its first win away from Bud Walton Arena in 348 days.

5.  LSU goes on the road to Vanderbilt’s Memorial Gym tonight.

6.  MSU fans have chosen their program’s Team of the Century (from State’s first 100 years of basketball… it’d still be a bit soon to for the team of the 2000s.)

7.  Ole Miss needs to keep hitting the boards when the Rebels travel to Starkville on Thursday.

8.  Terrance Henry says he’s got the back of UM’s Nick Williams, the Reb’s top trash-talker.”

Yesterday we told you that in SEC hoops, teams have but a 24% chance of winning on the road.  Well after last night, that number has skyrocketed to a 25% chance.

SEC home teams are still 38-13 in league play, but one of last night’s two contests was indeed captured by the visitor.  In spite of the turmoil surrounding that squad.


Alabama 68, Auburn 50

One day after the indefinite suspension of Tony Mitchell, the Crimson Tide traveled into the home of its arch-rival and made off with an easier than expected win.  The Tigers had been 3-1 at home and Bama would be looking to replace Mitchell’s 13 point- and 7 rebound-average.

JaMychal Green and Trevor Releford combined for 34 points to fill the scoring void.  And UA managed to outrebound AU 30-26 on the night, even without Mitchell’s usual contribution.

The win boosts Bama to 16-7 overall and 5-4 in the SEC.  They’ve now rebounded from a four-game losing streak with a three-game win streak.  The NCAA Tournament is still in sight for Bama.  For Auburn?  The SEC cellar remains in view as the Tigers tumbled to 3-7 in league play, ahead of only Georgia and South Carolina.


Kentucky 79, Florida 58

The thinking went as follows: If anyone is going to knock off the Wildcats in Lexington, it will be the Gators.  But in reality, Billy Donovan’s team was just another speed bump en route to an SEC crown and a probable #1 seed in the NCAA tourney.

When we pointed out yesterday that UK’s average home win was by a score of 83-60, we didn’t anticipate last night’s score being so similar.

For the Cats, overconfidence might be the only concern moving forward.  Example: “We have this little swagger.  We just want to go out there and play hard and win.  We’re capable of winning a national championship if we keep playing how we’re playing.”  That’s from Anthony Davis after last night’s whipping of Florida.  Davis, of course, is a freshman who happens to have no idea of what it takes to win six games in a row in the NCAA Tournament.

There’s a reason John Calipari changed his talking point from “being physical” to “avoiding overconfidence” this week.  The latter seems to be the only thing that can slow down his Wildcats… especially in the regular season.

Darius Philon — the conflicted Alabama commitment who chose Arkansas sight unseen when the Tide tried to get him to delay enrolling for a year — is feeling better about his decision to matriculate in Fayetteville.

According to Richard Davenport of WholeHogSports.com, Philon’s defensive coordinator in high school says the player “has been wearing Razorback clothing to school and is all smiles about attending Arkansas.”

The coach also said that Philon had surgery on a torn meniscus before Christmas, but he is “rehabbing well and should be ready to go in the fall.”

Anyone not wishing the best for this kid has a heart of stone.

1.  Varez Ward is becoming a real leader for Auburn’s basketball team.

2.  Michigan has sold out its allotment of tickets for this fall’s season-opener against Alabama at Cowboys Stadium.

3.  Even without Marshawn Powell, Arkansas is playing itself onto the NCAA tourney bubble.

4.  Trent Johnson is trying to prepare his LSU team for a visit from battle-tested Vanderbilt.

5.  Forward Shaun Smith could be a big help to Mississippi State in the stretch run.

6.  Bo Wallace has an advantage in Ole Miss’ quarterback race.

When Alabama rolls into Auburn Arena tonight they’ll do so without a key contributor.  Junior forward Tony Mitchell has been put on indefinite suspension by coach Anthony Grant for “conduct detrimental to the team.”

Grant said his decision was based on “an accumulation” of issues, not just a single incident. 

Mitchell averages 13.1 points per game and 7.0 rebounds per game for the Crimson Tide. 

“It obviously hurts,” teammate Andrew Steele told TideSports.com.  “He’s such a big part of what we try to do.  But it’s a coach’s decision and we just have to focus on doing what we have to do to get a win.”

Alabama is currently 15-7 overall and just 4-4 in the SEC.  Expected to be an NCAA Tournament team — and still a probable for March Madness — Grant is making quite a statement with his suspension of Mitchell.  The Tide’s RPI and tourney resume will surely take a hit if Bama can’t overcome the loss of the talented forward tonight on The Plains.

Kudos to Grant for putting discipline first.  If the moves comes back to haunt Alabama, you can be sure his decision will be second-guessed.

1.  Kentucky figures to be a tough test for Florida tonight.

2.  Georgia appears to already be 10 men under the 85-man scholarship limit.

3.  John Calipari sends a warning to his team: “It’s an easy transition from swagger to arrogance.”

4.  South Carolina’s Darrin Horn was asked to weigh in on tonight’s UK-UF game.  (His team lost twice to the Cats by an average of 83-58 and twice to the Gators by an average of 77-66.)

5.  Point guard Trae Golden will move back into Tennessee’s starting lineup tomorrow “if he continues to work hard in practice.”

6.  Saturday’s Kentucky-Vanderbilt game will match the Commodores’ seniors versus the Wildcats’ freshmen and sophomores.

Florida and Alabama, beware.  Tonight you take your Super Tuesday acts on the road to Kentucky and Auburn respectively.  According to the numbers, the Gators and Tide each have less than a 25% chance of winning.

So far, SEC teams are 37-12 at home this season in conference action.  That’s a 76% winning clip.  And of the 12 road wins pulled off so far, five have come from unbeaten-in-league-play Kentucky. 

Alabama is 1-3 on the road this year with a victory over Georgia.  That one road win is a bit less impressive when you consider that the Bulldogs are responsible for three of the league’s 12 home losses this year.

Florida is 2-1 on the road, making them the only SEC squad whose name doesn’t end in “ucky” that’s got a winning road record.  Their victories came at South Carolina (who like Georgia are responsible for three of the SEC’s 12 home losses) and at Ole Miss.  The win in Oxford is a good one as the Rebels are 3-1 at home in SEC play.

But Tad Smith Coliseum is not Rupp Arena.  The Cats have yet to lose at home under John Calipari who is in his third year with UK. 

As for Bama, Anthony Grant’s 1-3 road team will face an Auburn squad that’s actually 3-1 at home (the Tigers’ only home loss was to Kentucky).

If you feel the need to place some wagers tonight — and we certainly don’t encourage that type of irresponsible behavior — put your money on the home teams.  If you’d done that all year, you’d have won more than three out of every four SEC contests.

Justin Taylor and Darius Philon.  Both were commits to Alabama.  Taylor had been committed to the Tide for year.  Philon had stopped taking visits after making his pledge to Bama.

And both were told in the final days leading up to signing day that Nick Saban would only take them on if they waited a full year to enroll at Alabama in 2013.

Now you can say the Crimson Tide lived up to the letter of the SEC’s new soft 25-man signing cap law.  It did.  But that won’t mask the stink of these two players’ situations.

Taylor signed with Kentucky and admitted that he felt he’d been wronged.  His high school coach — former NFL running back Stanley Pritchett who’s seen recruiting from every angle — wasn’t happy with Alabama’s actions.

Philon — after a painful to watch signing day press conference — inked with Arkansas.  He’s never even been on Arkansas’ campus.

Is Alabama alone in this kind of activity?  No.  It’s recruiting.  It’s a dirty business known for broken promises.  Commitments from players and schools are steel strong… right up until a better player or a better school comes along.

But Saban and Alabama certainly get more ink than most when it comes to their methods of roster management.  Talk of a signing cap was tied to UA.  Chatter about unwarranted medical hardships once swirled around Bama.  And now the buzz is focused on Saban for backpedaling from committed prospects like an All-America corner in an SEC title game.

Is it enough to create some bad vibes for the Alabama program?  Jeff Sentell of The Birmingham News suggests as much:

“If there’s such a thing as football karma, maybe Taylor uses this diss to spark Kentucky to an Alabama upset?  Maybe Philon does the same for Arkansas?  What if those losses kept Alabama from both the SEC and BCS title games?  That’s one way that troubled look on Philon’s face on signing day could come back to haunt Alabama’s bottom line.”

That’s not likely to happen.  Instead, Saban’s juggernaut Tide will continue to roll right along.  And top recruits will continue to commit to Alabama believing that what happened to Taylor and Philon could never happen to their superstar selves.

But Tide fans are going to have to learn to live with all this negative talk until Bama changes its ways.  That’s got to be maddeningly tiresome.  Whether UA fans will admit it or not.

The old saying goes: To make an omelette you have to break a few eggs.  Well, there’s a price to pay for the eggs.  There’s a cost.

And the cost is headshakes and tsk-tsks from the rest of the sporting world everytime another teenager says he was left at the altar or kicked to the curb by Saban.  Nothing’s free.  Not even well-made omelettes.

(Story corrected… Justin Taylor — who we’ve referenced several times here — is the Alabama commit who wound up signing with Kentucky.  Jason Taylor was a future Hall of Fame defensive end for the Miami Dolphins.  And I am the guy who has to have extra proof-reading time for my morning posts.)

It appears most folks took Super Bowl Sunday off as there’s just not much going on around the league today.  We’ll jump into a few headlines to kick off the day…


1.  There were seven ex-SEC winners in last night’s Super Bowl (and 12 ex-SEC losers).  Congrats to Eli Manning and the G-men.

2.  Alabama’s football program has an NFL feel that appeals to recruits.

2.  Auburn’s 2012 roster will offer talent, more youth.

4.  Ole Miss isn’t taking advantage of opportunities to build its NCAA tourney resume.

5.  The Rebels face Mississippi State on Thursday and they’d better be wary of hot-shooting Jalen Steele (who’s hitting 40% from three-point range).

6.  Florida’s Mike Rosario is making an impact outside of scoring.

7.  If Kentucky’s ever going to be tested, it’s going to be this week against Florida and then at Vanderbilt.

8.  Cuonzo Martin says Tennessee has “the necessary pieces” to be successful this year (despite a 3-5 SEC record).

UPDATE #1 — These aren’t happening, but someone decided to have a little fun by Nike-ing up the SEC’s football helmets.  If you like any of them, I’ll be you’re under the age of 30. 

UPDATE #2 — The SEC has named its Player of the Week (Kentucky’s Anthony Davis) and its Freshman of the Week (Florida’s Bradley Beal).

UPDATE #3 — ESPN.com’s Andy Katz ranks the SEC’s hoops teams from 1 through 12… and that would be Kentucky through Carolina.