Last week in Destin, the host of a Knoxville sportstalk radio show polled 23 members of the media covering the SEC’s spring meetings.  WNML-AM/FM’s Jimmy Hyams asked the voters to rank the SEC’s six best football coaches, six best basketball coaches and the 12 best coaches overall, combining both sports.

The results of his poll are as follows:


Top 6 Football Coaches

1.  Nick Saban, Alabama
2.  Steve Spurrier, South Carolina
3.  Bobby Petrino, Arkansas
4.  Les Miles, LSU
5.  Gene Chizik, Auburn
6.  Mark Richt, Georgia


Top 6 Basketball Coaches

1.  Billy Donovan, Florida
2.  John Calipari, Kentucky
3.  Kevin Stallings, Vanderbilt
4.  Mike Anderson, Arkansas
5.  Anthony Grant, Alabama
6.  Mark Fox, Georgia and Rick Stansbury, Mississippi State


Top 12 Coaches Overall

1.  Nick Saban, Alabama
2.  Billy Donovan, Florida
3.  John Calipari, Kentucky
4.  Steve Spurrier, South Carolina
5.  Bobby Petrino, Arkansas
6.  Les Miles, LSU
7.  Kevin Stallings, Vanderbilt
8.  Gene Chizik, Auburn
9.  Mark Richt, Georgia
10.  Mike Anderson, Arkansas
11.  Dan Mullen, Mississippi State
12.  Anthony Grant, Alabama

Jim Tressel and his downfall have been hot topics at this week’s SEC meetings with a number of coaches showing support for the man whose entire career — including all the good deeds he’d ever done — will now be overshadowed by the word “cheating.”

Well the SEC has its own version of Tressel in recently-fired Tennessee basketball coach Bruce Pearl.  And former Pearl rival — and friend — Billy Donovan says he’s been in touch with the former coach.

“I think he’s trying to move on from it,” Florida’s coach said yesterday.  “A lot of times when things happen, whether it’s Bruce Pearl or Jim Tressel, people want to push back and stay away. … It’s unfortunate what happened.  I think that’s also part of life.  His mindset is to try to move forward.”

In a bit of a surprise, John Pelphrey is not the highest-paid assistant on Billy Donovan’s rebuilt Florida coaching staff.  In fact, he’ll make $55,000 less ($180,000) than Norm Roberts ($235,000) this season.

Pelphrey — who previously served on Donovan’s UF staff — has been a head coach at South Alabama and Arkansas the past nine seasons.  Roberts served as the head coach at St. John’s for the past six seasons.

So why would a man with less head coaching experience bank more coin than a man with more head coaching experience?  Probably to turn the screws on Arkansas.

Pelphrey’s buyout for being fired topped out at $1.8 million over three years.  That’s $600,000 per season.  But any salary Pelphrey makes from another coaching job must be subtracted from that total.

Only making $180,000, Pelphrey can still collect $420,000 from the Razorbacks in 2011-12… even though he’ll be coaching against them in the same conference next season.

1.  Here’s more info on Billy Donovan’s hire of hoops assistant Matt McCall from Florida Atlantic.

2.  Pre-preseason publications are all over the board when it comes to Georgia’s finish in the SEC East this fall.

3.  Here’s a look at UGA’s post-spring depth chart for the offensive line… an area in flux after the injury to Trinton Sturdivant.

4.  If Brandon Knight, Terrence Jones and DeAndre Liggins stay in the NBA draft, Kentucky’s history suggests they’ll go in the first round.

Walter Pitchford — who played at a prep school in Michigan last season — has signed a letter of intent with Florida.  Pitchford told The Orlando Sentinel that he never wavered in his commitment to UF, even though Billy Donovan has turned over his assistant coaching staff in the past two weeks.

“It really didn’t worry me at all because that’s something that coach is going to deal with and he’s going to make the best decision.  I really wasn’t worried after I heard who was coming.  I was just waiting to see who came in.”

Florida basketball players Cody Larson and Erik Murphy — arrested this morning for allegedly trying to break into a car — have been suspended by head coach Billy Donovan.

“I’m aware of Cody and Erik’s situation and very disappointed with the news,” Donovan said via press release.  “The two are currently suspended from basketball-related activities.  I’m not going to comment further until I have more information and get a chance to meet with both student-athletes.”

No word on what punishment will be faced by student-manager Joshua Adel who was charged with acting as a lookout for the two players.

1. Kentucky 62 – Ohio State 60.  Oh, what a Knight.

2. John Calipari to Brandon Knight – just minutes before game-winning shot.  “You’re 0-12.  Pass!!!”

3. “Brick City” for Ohio State.

4. No surprise here – Kentucky leads the nation in money spent on basketball recruiting. Florida is third.

5. Why do Florida and Butler find themselves in the Elite Eight?  Experience. Both teams are used to close games.

6. A win today by the Gators will mean the school’s fifth trip to the Final Four. All have come since 1994.

7. Paying tribute to Billy Donovan. Florida has as many Final Four appearances since 2000 as Duke, Kansas and UCLA, one more than Connecticut and one less than North Carolina.

8. Brad Stevens has attended Billy Donovan’s basketball clinic three of the past four years.

9. Joe Biddle on the Tennessee coaching search: “Mooney and Turgeon seem to be the safest picks.”

10. Arkansas welcomes Mike Anderson.

11. The Crimson Tide basketball team departs Sunday morning for New York City and the NIT semi-finals.

12. Alabama’s Andrew Steele remains sidelined with a concussion.

13. From Ole Miss to South Carolina and now back to Ole Miss?  Murphy Holloway wants to finish what he started.

14. Holloway’s departure another blow to the South Carolina basketball team.

SEC Football

15. Jadeveon Clowney and the law – just a case of mistaken identity. Even Steve Spurrier is getting handcuffed.

16. Lane Kiffin and his Tennessee connections - he can run but he can’t hide.

17. Andy Staples: “Kiffin is confident, believing he and Tennessee were forthright with investigators, and the charge leveled against him suggests the NCAA believes that as well.”

18. Chris Rainey’s “phenomenal spring.” Look for him at running back and wide receiver this fall.

19. Looks like Mississippi State will open its season on a Thursday night.

20. Lots of questions this spring about the Alabama passing game.

21. Why an Oxford trio makes the Alabama town a hot-bed for college recruiters.

22. Big recruiting weekend at Auburn.

23. A battle for an inside linebacker position heats up at Georgia.

24. A spring football preview of the Ole Miss Rebels.

25. Jamie Graham will graduate from Vanderbilt and then transfer to play football for another school.

26. Plenty of competition at the running back spot for Kentucky this spring.

27. Middle linebacker John Propst wants to become a leader of Tennessee’s defense.

28. Bobby Bowden always wanted to coach at Alabama.

29. A grid of the 2011 SEC schedule.

When Florida’s season ended in the NCAA Tournament last year, its demise came at the hands of Brigham Young.  So facing the Cougars tonight in the Sweet Sixteen in New Orleans, is revenge on the Gators’ minds?

“No, there’s no revenge,” said Vernon Macklin.  “It’s just a regular game for us.  And for them, also.”

Chandler Parsons agrees.  “I think us going into the game, we’re just worried about their team this year.  We can’t be worried about what we did good last year, what we did bad last year.  We have a new team; they have  a new team, new personnel.  So it’s just going to be us against them.”

Billy Donovan must love having a veteran, savvy team for a change.  Indeed, this Florida bunch is an easy team to pull for.  Too bad tonight they’re facing one of the country’s top college heroes in Jimmer Fredette.  The BYU gunner averaged 28.8 points per game this year tallying 1,002 points… on the season.

“In every game that he’s played, everybody’s trying to stop him, everybody’s trying to slow him down, and he still gets 33 a game,” Billy Donovan said yesterday.  “He still averages 28 a game, he still does it regardless.  I’m not comparing him to Michael Jordan or Kobe Bryant, but I did make the comment a year ago that I thought Fredette had more of an impact in a college game than John Wall did. … When you’re dealing with a guy like that, there’s a lot of times that you are at his mercy because he’s got the ball in his hands.”

The Gators’ Kenny Boynton is expected to play following a sprained ankle in his last game against UCLA.  “We just practiced (he said yesterday), and I did everything fully.  I had no problems.  I can cut, I did everything good.”


Sidenote — ESPN’s Jay Bilas says Florida is “good enough to play in the Final Four.”  He also thinks “that Florida is the best team remaining (in its bracket), but it’s not by much.”

1.  The AP has announced its SEC honors and Billy Donovan, Chandler Parsons, and Terrence Jones won the same awards they picked up from the league’s coaches.

2.  Billy Donovan was not surprised his team grabbed a #2 seed.

3.  The Gators have a chance move back into the nation’s elite.

4.  Mark Fox says his team “jumped around like 7-year-olds that just won a Little League championship” when they learned they were in the NCAA tourney.

5.  Fox met his wife at Washington… the school his Dawgs will face in the first round.

6.  John Calipari doesn’t believe the selection committee was comfortable flipping Florida and Kentucky as #2 and #4 seeds.  (And they shouldn’t have as Florida won the SEC regular season title.)

7.  Kentucky wants to prove the committee’s seed was too low.

8.  Here are some reasons to believe (and to doubt) the Cats in the NCAAs.

9.  There are some formidable foes in UK’s bracket.

10.  South Carolina’s “one shining moment” came 40 years ago in another conference.

11.  Bruce Pearl will be looking for leadership and attention to detail when Tennessee faces Michigan on Friday.

12.  Point guard Melvin Goins says “the excitement and the mentality wasn’t the same” in some of UT’s late-season games as compared to their hot start.

13.  Pearl says it won’t take John Beilein long “to figure out what our strengths are, what our weaknesses are and how to go at them.”

14.  Kevin Stallings expects Richmond to be a Princeton-style tough out for Vanderbilt in the NCAAs.

15.  And as we mentioned above, VU’s John Jenkins once again lost out to Chandler Parsons for SEC Player of the Year honors.

John Pelphrey is a former Billy Donovan assistant.  That explains why Florida’s coach is questioning Arkansas’ decision to part with its fourth-year head coach.

“John’s situation, I feel bad for.  It’s an unfortunate situation because I’m not really sure, I mean (former UA coach) Stan Heath, I think took two teams to the NCAA Tournament.  And they make a change.

“Then John goes in there and goes to the NCAA Tournament with all of Stan’s players and does a good job coaching them.  He’s in his third year with his entire team returning with a top 5 recruiting class, that doesn’t makes sense to me.”

It makes sense in this respect — Arkansas has lost millions of dollars in ticket/merchandise/concession revenue as attendance has nosedived during the Pelphrey era.  UA AD Jeff Long said yesterday that that was not an “overriding” factor, but the loss of millions of dollars is always an overriding factor in an athletic department.

For that reason, we don’t believe Long’s assertion that money wasn’t a big issue.

“I think at Arkansas they’re going to have to make a decision,” Donovan said.  “Are they going to let somebody? — because every time you mkae that kind of decision, first of all you don’t know if any of the recruits are going to stay.  You don’t know if any of the older players are going to stay.  So if you have mass exodus there, they’re starting off worse than when John took over.

“The unfortunate part is they’re going to get a good coach, and it’s a good program, and it’s a good situation.  But at some point they’re going to have to let whoever is in there be able to do the job.”

Agreed.  As we’ve stated before, Pelphrey should have been given one more year to prove himself.  Instead, the Hogs are starting all over again.