In case you needed more proof that the television habits of Americans are changing, the NCAA Tournament’s Final Four could follow in the footsteps of college football’s BCS bowls and move to cable.

The move could come as early as next spring.

According to The Wall Street Journal, Turner and CBS — who partner to air the NCAA Tournament — are discussing an arrangement that would give Turner’s TNT, TBS, and TruTV properties the opportunity to air the late-round games.  Currently, the Turner outlets handle early-round games alongside CBS.

Turner wants to grab the Final Four quickly because its parent company — Time Warner — is about to enter into a new round of negotiations with cable and satellite providers.  Having the NCAA’s Final Four would give Turner and Time Warner quite a bit of leverage in those negotiations.

Jim Nantz has broadcast the Final Four for 28 years in a row now.  But if Turner takes over, Marv Albert — or someone else — could be handed the play-by-play duties.

This year’s NCAA Tournament ratings have been the highest in nearly two decades.

The Southeastern Conference is known for football.  Seven BCS titles in row.  Five different schools with BCS crowns since the system’s inception in 1998.  Big name coaches, famous stadiums, dominant recruiting.

Mention the words “college football” and the letters S-E-C will pop into most people’s minds.

But utter the words “SEC basketball” and a different three letters come to mind: B-A-D.

Spin it any way you like, Mike Slive’s league is struggling through an abysmal season.  Florida has been dominant.  Kentucky finally appears to be rounding into shape.  Missouri has been a little worse than expected; Ole Miss a little better.  After that, it’s unlikely any of the conference’s 10 remaining teams will receive at-large invitations to the NCAA Tournament.  Saddled with a #8 RPI ranking among conferences, four bids might be generous.

In an age when the NCAA Tournament has been expanding, the number of SEC tourney berths has been declining.  This is more than a down year… it’s a trend:

From afar, the SEC has continued to have success — in most years — in the NCAA Tournament regardless of its dwindling number of bids.  But in many of those seasons, the SEC was dominated by just one or two teams.  That’s a far cry from the top-to-bottom toughness produced by the very same schools on the gridiron.

Using mathematician/hoops guru Ken Pomeroy’s computer rankings as a guide, here’s a look at the SEC teams that finished in his top 20 over the past decade:

2012:  #1 Kentucky, #12 Florida, #16 Vanderbilt

2011:  #6 Kentucky, #16 Florida

2010:  #3 Kentucky

2009:  None

2008:  #14 Tennessee

2007:  #2 Florida, #14 Kentucky

2006:  #1 Florida, #10 LSU, #15 South Carolina, #17 Arkansas, #20 Kentucky

2005:  #6 Florida, #10 Kentucky, #18 Alabama

2004:  #9 Kentucky, #17 Mississippi State

2003:  #2 Kentucky, #12 Mississippi State, #14 Florida, #17 LSU, #18 Georgia

As you can see, the number of top 20-caliber teams from the SEC has fallen drastically.  There were 17 SEC teams in the final top 20 of Pomeroy’s rankings from 2003 to 2007.  From 2008 to 2012, there have been just seven teams in his final top 20 rankings.

Worse, of the 24 top 20 slots filled by SEC squads in the last decade, 14 were filled by two schools: Florida and Kentucky.  Compare that to the SEC’s football success where in the last five years Alabama, Auburn, Florida, LSU, Georgia, South Carolina, Arkansas and Texas A&M have all had top 10-type seasons.

(In case you’re wondering Pomeroy’s current hoops rankings have Florida #1 and Kentucky #18.  No other SEC schools rank in his top 20.  Same song, different verse.)

So why do 14 schools that recruit the same areas in both sports have such drastically different results when it comes to football and basketball?

Read the rest of this entry »

Take the best recruiter in college basketball.  Put him at the helm of the nation’s winningest all-time program.  Throw in a metric ton of media coverage and exposure.  And mix in a fanbase so rabid that they will camp out in order to get tickets… to a practice.

What do you get?  One top-ranked recruiting haul after another.

Yep, Kentucky is at it again and at least one anonymous director of scouting for an NBA franchise has told SNY-TV in New York that there’s nothing else like it.

Read the rest of this entry »

Last week the Kentucky-Indiana basketball rivalry died.  Next season, the Cats and Hoosiers won’t play in hoops for the first time since the 1969-70 season.  The reason?  IU wanted to continue to play UK in Bloomington and Lexington while the Wildcats wanted the game to be rotated between Louisville and Indianapolis.  Neither side would budge or compromise and basketball fans will pay the price.

But Kentucky’s love for neutral-site games is not limited to its rivalry with Indiana.  John Calipari wants his squad to become America’s Team, playing in made-for-TV matchups on neutral courts whenever and wherever possible.  Andy Katz of ESPN.com tackles Calipari’s scheduling plan today.

But Coach Cal’s desires aren’t new.  As far back as August of 2010 we wrote that UK fans in Lexington might have to put up with lesser-name schools coming to town.

In 2010-11, UK played nonconference games with Boston University, Indiana, Mississippi Valley State, Winthrop, Coppin State, and Pennsylvania at Rupp Arena.  Away from home, the Cats played Portland, Oklahoma, Washington, UConn, North Carolina, Notre Dame and Louisville.

In 2011-12, Kentucky fans at Rupp were able to see Marist, Radford, Portland, St. John’s, North Carolina, Chattanooga, Samford, Loyola (MD), Lamar and Louisville.  Either on the road or neutral courts, UK faced Kansas, Penn State, Old Dominion, Indiana and Arkansas-Little Rock.

You can now scratch Indiana from the list of teams that will be coming to Lexington.  North Carolina officials said last week that UK would not be playing them in the coming season, so that series might or might not return to Lexington in the future.

In the upcoming season, Calipari has Kentucky facing Maryland at the new Barclays Center in Brooklyn and Duke at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta.  Louisville will host this year’s rivalry game with the Wildcats, too.

Look, as long as Calpari is signing one-and-done NBA stars, reaching Final Fours, and hanging championship banners, Kentucky fans will be just fine with him scheduling games in the Kingdom of Tonga or at Newt Gingrich’s moon base.  And we at MrSEC.com fully understand UK’s push to brand itself nationally.  Still, with the price of tickets these days it would seem that Calipari or Kentucky AD Mitch Barnhart might want to reward their hometown ticket-buyers with a few more big-name games at Rupp Arena.

Then again, Calipari says he’s running a “nontraditional” program and he has to be able to schedule accordingly as one group of one-and-doners might be better or worse than another group:

“We’re not a traditional program.  We can’t have our games locked in for nine or 10 years.  We don’t know what our roster is going to look like.  We have to go year-to-year.

I told our people that we won’t do anything more than a two-year contract because of that.  Our league is hard, too.  We’re trying to prepare for the NCAA tournament and that tournament is played in domes.  Most people just play the home games and you win those, and then go on the road and you lose.  But for this program, it’s important to play in big football stadiums because that’s where the NCAA plays the Elite Eight and Final Four.  Our freshmen have to play in those kinds of buildings.  We’re a nontraditional program so it makes scheduling a little bit different for us.”

Fair enough.  But one must wonder if loyal, ticket-buying fans in Lexington are good with seeing one really good nonconference game at home each year… amidst a sea of Radfords, Samfords, and Marists.

In the end, there was just a smidge of suspense.  John Calipari sitting with his five prize underclassmen at a press conference last evening told the media: “Let me just say that Anthony (Davis) and Doron (Lamb) and Terrence (Jones) have decided to put their names in the NBA draft, so they will do that.”

And then a pause.  UK fans’ hopes rose.  Until Coach Cal spoke up again…

“And Michael (Kidd-Gilchrist) and Marquis Teague have also decided to put their names in the draft.  I was trying to scare some coaches out there, that’s all I was doing.”

Ha-ha. 

With a national title and Banner #8 captured and hung, Wildcat fans are probably in such a good move that Calipari could have said, “They’re all staying… psyche!” and they would forgive him.

So the five underclassmen expected to turn pro will now do just that.  Saying goodbye, they hit all the right notes of togetherness — “We wanted to do it together like we did everything together” — and family — “I’m going to miss playing with these guys… it’s a brotherhood we created.”

And the talk will now turn to two other things.  First, whether all five youngsters plus senior Darius Miller will somehow find their way into the NBA’s first round.  Two years ago Calipari said UK landing five first-rounders was the best day in the history of Kentucky basketball.  (Here’s guessing a few Cat fans disagreed with that sentiment.)  What will he say if a full one-fifth of the NBA’s first-round draft picks come from Lexington?

Second, what about next year?  Well, already Davis is saying that next year’s UK team could be as good as his squad.  But Calipari is downplaying such talk:


“On this team, we had Terrence Jones, Doron Lame and Darius Miller.  All players with Final Four experience coming back.  Next year, we have one guy (Kyle Wiltjer) with any experience.  That’s it.  Everybody else either hasn’t played or played very little.

For some reason, we’ll be ranked very high.”


For some reason.  Yeah, like an Elite Eight team, a Final Four team, and then a national title-winning team all built in the same general fashion.  Next year’s Cats should be dominant, high-flying, and fun to watch once more.

But what about this just-departing bunch that The Louisville Courier-Journal has tabbed “The Farewell Five.”  This team of so many underclassmen who’ve entered the UK scene, stayed there for less than a year, won a championship, and then bolted… how will they be remembered?

And that’s the downside to Calipari’s way of doing business.  If you happen to view it as a downside.

There are no long-term strings attached.  Yes, Cat fans got their crown back and they love the guys who brought it home, but how much love can you feel for players who come and go so quickly?  It’s the college basketball version of professional free agency.  It’s tough to connect to what amounts to a rent-a-player.

Let me be very clear, I’m not talking about right now in the immediate afterglow of a championship.  I’m talking about the year 2032, for example.  Will Kentucky fans be able to easily recite the names and numbers of the 2011-12 title Cats? 

Old-timers can tell you all you want to know about the ’96 and ’98 teams.  They watched those guys over the course of multiple years.  There were “The Unforgettables,” four mostly homegrown products who over the course of their careers led Kentucky basketball from the NCAA doghouse back to center stage.  Richie Farmer, Deron Feldhaus, John Pelphrey and Sean Woods were all seniors in ’91-92 by the way.

Ask the real Kentucky bluebloods and you’ll hear tales of Joe B. Hall’s squads and Adolph Rupp’s. 

But what of the Calipari era?  Kids are coming and going at a pretty brisk pace.  As the mists of time cloud memories over the next couple of decades — and trust me, those mists do make things a lot more cloudy — will folks in the Commonwealth remember that John Wall was on this team and Marquis Teague was on that team?

UK backers know Pelphrey’s exploits because they heard of him for four years and they literally watched him grow up.  Davis, Kidd-Gilchrist, Brandon Knight, DeMarcus Cousins… they all came and went quickly.

This is not an indictment of Calipari’s system, mind you.  The goal is to cut down nets and he’s already cut down quite a few nets in his three years at UK.  But I do wonder if all these guys won’t start running together in the collective memory of Kentucky hoops fans down the road.

That could be the give that goes along with all the recent taking in Lexington.


UPDATE — The national columnists are tackling UK’s long list of departees.  Gary Parrish of CBSSports.com writes that this bunch of one-and-doners have ended some myths and created a big legacy.  Meanwhile, Pat Forde of Yahoo! Sports says a new group of stars is ready to take their place.  Mike DeCourcy of The Sporting News says next year’s bunch will have a vastly different look.  And ESPN.com’s Dana O’Neil pens the obligatory “don’t blame UK for the one-and-done rule” piece.

When John Calipari was hired to lead Kentucky’s basketball program three years ago, many of us in the media believed the marriage made for a dangerous blend. 

Calipari had had a Final Four trip at UMass vacated.  His reputation ranked somewhere between the Prince of Darkness and scurvy in most circles, fair or not.  Within months of arriving at UK, that reputation took another hit when he had a second Final Four trip — this one while at Memphis — also vacated and stripped from the history books.  (In neither instance was Calipari found guilty of anything… other than being the captain of the boat that struck the iceberg.)

At Kentucky, Calipari would be taking over a program that had wound up in the NCAA hoosegow a number of times over a number of decades.  From a point-shaving scandal and impermissible financial aid troubles in the early-50s to an opened Emery Air Freight container — en route to a recruit — filled with cash in the late-80′s, UK had earned a reputation for often skirting the law.

For those reasons, many of us expected Cal + Cats to equal another “Kentucky’s Shame” Sports Illustrated cover at some point.

But not so fast.

Instead, UK has made the SI cover as national champions.  And in just three short years.  Calipari has turned Lexington back into the basketball capital of the world and despite the fact that everyone and his brother is dying to dig up dirt on the coach and his program, no one has.

Oh, there were questions about Eric Bledsoe’s grades in high school, but nothing came of them.  The Chicago Sun-Times ran with a rumor regarding Anthony Davis being paid by UK boosters, but again, nothing came of the speculation.

To date, there’s been a lot more diamond than dirt when it comes to UK and Calipari.  As far as dangerous blends go, a Maker’s Mark bottle bearing the coach’s name and likeness is about all that comes to mind.

Rival fans will taunt, heckle and, yes, pray that somebody in blue has broken some kind of rule somewhere.  But for now, Wildcat fans are reveling in their new Sports Illustrated cover.  And it sure beats the heck out of that cover from nearly 23 years ago.

Yesterday we told you that if Kentucky won the basketball national championship, the league would have its 12th national title out of a possible 20 in football, men’s basketball and baseball over the last seven years.

Done and done.

And currently the Southeastern Conference has the reigning champ in all three sports — Alabama in football, Kentucky in basketball, and South Carolina in baseball.  A new baseball champ will be crowned shortly and currently seven of the nation’s Top 25 in that sport reside in Mike Slive’s league… so there’s a good chance the SEC will make it 13 titles out of a possible 21.

Our point was that the SEC piles up titles like no other league.  In fact — as we also noted yesterday — no other conference has fielded more than two national title-winners during the SEC’s run of 12.  Come to think of it, it’s a good thing Kentucky didn’t beat another SEC rival in last night’s title game or Chuck Neinas and Jim Delany would be pushing for a change of the NCAA Tournament format this morning.

Naturally, whenever the SEC’s dominance is mentioned, we get a number of nasty emails from people who simply don’t want to hear it.  We got a doozy yesterday that was a shot at this site, our readers and the people of the South as whole.

I thought of including the writer’s full name so you could email him, but I decided against that.  Instead, enjoy the writings of David R. from Mississippi (obviously a transplant).  One must wonder what went wrong in someone’s life to make them this touchy over a blurb on a website and this ugly to and about people he doesn’t know:

“To: Mr…SEC? (Has anybody verified this? Is he, in fact, Mr. SEC?)

Small sample sizes make for terrible statistics. 6 years (not 7 when only football season is over, although I’m sure that’s your main focus) I realize you (you being the collective web-site) are appealing to your audience and are undoubtedly just like them and fall/fell into 1 of 2 categories:

1.      Entitled current/former Frat-boy who is really more concerned with somehow increasing his allowance allowed by the family’s accountant and whether to fill the keg up with Keystone or Natty for the tailgating party

2.      Overweight sleeveless-shirt wearing Alabama fan who doesn’t own a hat unless it’s camouflage, or a vehicle unless its 4WD.

Why does that matter you ask? Because those are the only people, like you, who believe no sports exist north of the Mason-Dixon line, or West of Texas. Also, I’m willing to bet truth is you watch a lot of football (doesn’t make you an expert at all), but have absolutely no authority to speak on college basketball. Quick test, none of the fancy googling allowed:

What city is Marquette located in?

What school originated the Princeton Offense?

Name two former head coaches of Army:

Your answers were probably something like:

Minneapolis (That’s in Montana right?)

Princeton

Kobe Bryant and Kevin Garnett

All good choices, by the way.

Please see attached for a 10 and 20 year statistical analysis of college basketball. Unfortunately I ran out of data for victories after year 9, but 9 years is good enough for that. Although I’m sure you would argue this is too many numbers, so just look at the last two boxes on each tab. SEC is the 5^th best conference in the nation before normalization and 6^th best afterward. (Normalization being if all conferences had the same number of schools in it). Just out of curiosity I ran another analysis (2^nd tab) of what happens when you take Kentucky out. Without Kentucky the SEC is the 6^thbest conference and when normalized still the 6^th. Not exactly dominant, actually pretty far from it.

Again, small statistics make for terrible statistics and even worse analysis. Also, let me preemptively say I’m sure that if you choose to retort, you will say something akin to “Well stats aren’t everything” I concur. However, you provided no context for your stats (Florida had 3 of the top 14 picks in the NBA draft after those two years) so I’m not providing any for mine. But thanks for your FoxNews analysis of college sports.

David R. (Mississippi)

P.S. Don’t get too excited, I’m 98.9% positive that after Kentucky wins tonight, this Final Four run by Calipari will meet the same fate as his last two (stop googling, I’ll tell you…they “never happened”).”

Nice, huh?  First, no one here calls himself “Mr. SEC.” It’s the name of the site and three of us write for it.  Second, this should give you a good idea of just how furious non-SEC’ers are that the SEC keeps gobbling up national title after national title.

As if a spreadsheet — what loser has time to doctor up a spreadsheet and send it to a website? — changes the fact that the SEC has indeed captured 12 of the past 20 “big 3″ crowns.

Enjoy it, SEC fans.  You’re hated for a reason.  Your teams win titles.  David R’s team apparently finished playing a while back… how else would he have so much time to spend on a spreadsheet?  (One that I didn’t read, by the way.)

And in case you’re wondering, I did reply to his email.  I think the term “Go to Hell,” made an appearance.

Tyler B.

“Isn’t it great that two teams from the same state are playing each other in a Final Four for the first time since 1961? It’s so great for the Commonwealth of Kentucky.”

I live in Louisville and the water cooler and elevator speeches this morning about the statement written above, temporarily replacing the early warm weather conversations, is garbage. Kentucky and Louisville don’t like each other, they hate each other. I went to the University of Alabama and nothing oozes more tree poison than the Alabama-Auburn rivalry – nothing comes close – but this one game tops it and is unlike anything we’ve seen in any sport in a very, very long time.

But…

In nearly every “historical” game played the pressure falls on the better team, but as a lifelong UK fan I strangely feel there isn’t any added pressure on UK because Louisville is just another team in the line of fire. The Louisville fan base is simply happy to be in this in this situation because it will go down as an unforgettable season, regardless of the outcome, so there’s no pressure.  If the Cardinals happen to beat Kentucky and lose the national title game, Louisville fans will take more pride in denying Kentucky the right to play in the title game than actually losing in the title game.

If there is any pressure for UK it’s not on the basketball court. To me the only pressure falls onto the shoulders of Coach Cal by proving he’s a great X and O guy, that nobody wants to give him credit for, and that he can win with his one and done philosophy. From a UK fan perspective there is no pressure because this UK team is one of the best basketball teams that has ever played.

I wrote on the very site a few months ago, before the season played out, that Alabama would go down as potentially the greatest college football teams to every play if they could beat LSU in the Super Dome. Bama did so in a dominating fashion and, even without winning the “SEC” football tournament, with some time and perspective I believe last year’s team will be viewed as just that.

In late February I compared this UK team to the 1996 UK team – many whom consider one of the greatest teams ever – and wrote the 1996 team was better. But if this team returns to Lexington with national title #8 for it will be on the short list as one of the greatest college basketball teams ever

Has winning a game just to land a spot in the national title game ever been so anti-climatic? (You mean Ohio State and Kansas are in the Final Four, too?)

———————————————————————————————————————————————————————

The outcome of this game will permanently alter the opinion of two coaching giants inside the Big Blue Nation forever. So, yes, there is pressure but if falls directly on the coaches and none of the players.

A Wildcat win recasts Rick Pitino as a mere footnote in the robust and biblical book of UK basketball, something that will eat at his ego for the rest of his coaching and personal life. He did tremendous job at UK and returned it from the dead, but for the greatest coaching job a HOF coach did to be a footnote at arguably the best collegiate program has to be painful. While his personal image has been destroyed in the past 24 months, an unforgettable loss to a former “protégé” at the empire he used to rule would be sting just as devastating.

But the real pressure is on Cal to win the next two games and bring back title #8 to Lexington for a variety of reasons:

1)      A national title moves his coaching resume past Pitino’s at UK after only his third year

2)      Cal gets the respect he deserves as a tremendous bench coach

3)      Softens the “guilty without evidence” charges at UMass and Memphis

4)      Moves up a few rungs on the ladder of greatest college coaches

5)      Coached potentially the greatest team in college basketball history

6)      Proof his one and done philosophy works and can no longer be questioned

UK is by far and away the best team in the country and will find itself on the short list of greatest college basketball teams ever if it wins two more games. Reminding me of the great Alabama football team from last year, this UK team is like group of mercenaries strictly following orders from a commander and then delivering a scorched earth approach to everything. A well-rounded unit doing its job with little flash or flamboyance, the emotionless faces on the UK players can’t hide their addiction to winning or inability to show no mercy. At the end of the day they simply want it more than any other team.

So… Assuming this team wins its next two games it moves ahead of the ’96 team and goes down as the greatest team UK ever let’s look at how this team ranks nationally in key categories:

-          W-L Percentage & Scoring Margin: #1

-          Scoring Offense (#20) & OFG percentage (#10)

-          Scoring Defense (#25) & DFG percentage (#1)

-          Rebounding Margin: #8

-          Blocked Shots: #1

-          Assist to Turnover Ratio: #35

Here are the players doing it, none averaging more than 10 shots per game:

Anthony Davis: 14.3

Doron Lamb   13.6

Terrence Jones: 12.6

Michael Kidd-Gilchrist: 12

Marquis Teague: 10

Darius Miller: 10

Returning to the main point of this article, never has a rivalry game had so much at stake for two coaches when it comes to perception. And as UK fan I’m giddy because in a few days Pitino becomes a UK footnote and I can look down on the Louisville program as the little brother forever. Louisville has absolutely no chance in this game and loses 73-63.

UK goes on to win the title and Cal becomes what everyone outside of Lexington doesn’t want him to be:  The best coach in college basketball right now.

Tyler B. works as a communications specialist for a Louisville, Kentucky company.  A lifetime SEC fan – long before it became “acceptable” to cheer for every team in the conference – he plans on writing several books about college football that have a fantastic chance of never being written. 

It’s liable to be the most hyped game in the history of the NCAA Tournament.  For that reason we’re dedicating a special headline section just to Saturday’s Final Four matchup between Kentucky and Louisville. 

Here’s the latest:


1.  John Calipari doesn’t expect the veterans on his team to be as wide-eyed at this Final Four as they were at last year’s.

2.  Still, last year’s experience has the Cats wary of potential “land mines.”

3.  Calipari makes things look a lot easier than they really are.

4.  For UK’s coach, now is the time to hurdle Rick Pitino once and for all.  (He’s 0-4 against him in postseason tournaments.)

5.  Police in Lexington and Louisville are getting ready for the game and its aftermath.  (But it’s just another game, right, Cal?)

6.  Blue and red crazies are already making news across the Commonwealth.  (But it’s just another game, right, Cal?)

7.  Like the two rival fans who broke into a fight at a dialysis center.  (But it’s just another game, right, Cal?)

8.  Just as we wrote yesterday… of course, it’s not just another game in just another rivalry.

9.  Finally, Tony Delk won a national title at UK playing for Pitino, but he’s also coached alongside Calipari.

With Kentucky and Louisville shaping up as the biggest story at the Final Four, we thought we’d give that game its own set of headlines today.  Here goes…


1.  Kentucky-Louisville is a dream matchup for Bluegrass State residents.

2.  CBS’ Clark Kellogg says: “When you talk about Louisville and Kentucky playing, that goes to the stratosphere of intensity and history and tradition… This is way off the charts.”

3.  Get ready for a week’s worth of pregame build-up.

4.  While the media fuels up the hype machine, UK’s players will continue to enjoy the ride.

5.  The roles have reversed for John Calipari and Rick Pitino (who faced each other in the 1996 Final Four with Pitino at UK and Calipari at UMass).

6.  The Wildcats set up the matchup with a blowout win over Baylor…

7.  And big-game Michael Kidd-Gilchrist came up large again for UK.