1.  Anthony Grant says his Alabama basketball team is playing with a sense of entitlement.

2.  Mike Anderson says Oklahoma State transfer Fred Gulley is now eligible to practice with the Arkansas hoops squad.

3.  Clutch free throw shooting has become an issue for the Razorbacks.

4.  LSU needs to get over its loss to Mississippi State with Kentucky coming to town.

5.  Arnett Moultrie and Dee Bost are still playing big minutes for MSU.

6.  By comparison, Ole Miss had to go deep into its bench in a 66-63 come-from-ahead loss to Florida last night.

Hate to see this one.  Arkansas coach Mike Anderson’s son was arrested and charged with a DWI in Fayetteville early Sunday morning.  The 26-year-old Anderson — Michael Jr. — is the Hogs’ video coordinator.

He was pulled over by an officer who says he was driving erratically in a car with expired tags.  His boss/father released a statement yesterday:


“All of our (staff) members are expected to make the right decision on and off the floor.  I expect that.  Unfortunately some individuals don’t always make the right decision.  But as a father, I will support Mike and hopefully help him learn from this situation.

It will be addressed, the situation will be addressed through the established channels that we have here on our campus.  Our sports administration will address that situation.”


Sadly, Anderson was convicted of driving while intoxicated while playing on his father’s Missouri team in 2007.  Maybe it’s time for dad to take some of his millions and loan Junior enough for cab fare.

Southeastern Conference teams were a perfect four for four on the hardwood last night, though that feat’s a bit less impressive when you consider the cupcake nature of the squads they faced.

Here’s your update…


Arkansas 71, Eastern Kentucky 57

The Razorbacks improved to 7-0 at home under Mike Anderson with last night’s victory.  Mardracus Wade scored 13 and BJ Young added 12 to lead the Hogs.


Georgia 72, Mercer 58

After struggling with their in-state visitors for a half, UGA pulled away with an early 16-3 second-half run.  Connor Nolte and Vincent Williams led the Dawgs with 11 points each.


Kentucky 82, Samford 50

Doron Lamb racked up 26 points on 8-of-12 shooting, leaving Samford coach Jimmy Tillette to joke, “I like fish better than Lamb.”  The Wildcats won in a laugher without Terrence Jones.  The sophomore All-America candidate was held out with a disclocated pinky finger.


Tennessee 72, UNC-Asheville 68

For much of the night, it looked like UT’s losing streak might be extended to five games.  But Renaldo Woolridge and Cameron Tatum came alive with 17 each to lead the Vols back from a 10-point second-half deficit.

The up-and-down career of Marshawn Powell is down again thanks to a knee injury that will serve as big blow to Mike Anderson’s first Arkansas basketball team.

Powell — the Razorbacks’ leading scorer — is out for the season with torn ligaments in his knee.  The injury occurred during practice on Thursday.  The Hogs are left with just nine scholarship players on their roster, just four in the frontcourt.

“This is a big blow to Marshawn and our basketball team,” Anderson said in a press release.  “He has been working hard on and off the court this year and was in the best shape of his career.  This is definitely a setback, but I told him that sometimes you have to have setbacks in order to have a great comeback.  He is in good spirits and looking forward to helping this team in any way that he can.”

Powell had averaged 19.5 points and 6 rebounds in Arkansas’ first two games.  Without the preseason All-SEC forward, the Hogs lost in Little Rock to Houston, 87-78.

1.  Note to Ole Miss: Alabama’s third-down defense is pretty salty.

2.  Note to Alabama: Houston Nutt has five wins all-time against Top 5 teams.

3.  Gene Chizik and Will Mushcamp traveled the same path to land their current jobs… and that path will have them facing each other tomorrow.

4.  Auburn’s NCAA clearance has created a wave of emotion in the state of Alabama.

5.  Here’s a midseason report card for Arkansas’ football team.

6.  Mike Anderson will hold his first practice with the basketball Hogs tonight.

7.  Tennessee’s Derek Dooley — a former LSU assistant — says this year’s Tigers aren’t that much different from the 2003 national championship team.

8.  Tiger hoops coach Trent Johnson hopes experience will aid his team this season.

9.  Tomorrow, Ole Miss will face a quarterback in AJ McCarron who’s taking care of the football.

10.  Rebel left tackle Bradley Sowell says his team will come out fighting tomorrow.

11.  Dan Mullen has two good choices at quarterback, but only one can start.

12.  Neither of MSU’s signal-callers will have much success tomorrow without a lot of help from his friends.

1.  Mike Anderson will need buy-in from his first Arkansas team.

2.  Here’s a look at LSU’s 2011 football chances… from an Auburn point of view.

3.  Kudos to Jon Solomon of The Birmingham News for compiling a list of the time-killing lists most often posted by websites in June and July.

4.  Gene Chizik says he hopes his new book gives folks encouragement because “everybody lives their 5-19.”  He wants them to know that their failures can be overcome… just as he grabbed a national title two years after posting his own 5-19 record at Iowa State.

5.  Here’s more on Chizik’s new book.

6.  AU freshman receiver Jaylon Denson is present and accounted for on The Plains.

It’s a lovefest in the SEC these days.  Andy Kennedy and Billy Donovan are praising Kentucky and John Calipari.  Mike Anderson is tossing verbal bouquets at Cuonzo Martin.

Arkansas’ new hoops coach got to know Tennessee’s new coach when they were both coaching in the Show Me State — Anderson at Missouri, Martin at Missouri State.  Anderson was impressed:


“He’s a quality young guy working hard.  He’ll do a great job at Tennessee.  I say that because he’s like me, a character guy.  His kids are going to do all the right things on and off the floor.  They’ll play as a team.

All you’ve got to do is look at his background, where he’s from, to find out a lot more about what Cuonzo Martin is all about.  Nothing’s been given to him.”


In addition to meeting each other on the court each season, Anderson and Martin will probably cross paths often while recruiting the talent-rich Memphis area as well.

Jim Harris of ArkansasSports360.com believes Rotnei Clarke’s transfer from Fayetteville might be the most disappointing transfer in UA sports history.  With the jabs and right-crosses he aims at Clarke’s family, the author certainly sounds disappointed:


“Clarke, or his daddy or uncle or somebody decided to take the supposedly denied transfer request to the national media to force Arkansas’ hand.  So, we read, ‘Poor Rotnei is being denied his transfer, while two other guys were granted theirs…’ and so forth.

Even the Mitch Mustain debacle and transfer from Houston Nutt’s program wasn’t handled this poorly by the parties (player and families?) involved.

Now, we wonder about all those whispers that Rotnei was being ignored by certain other Hogs the past three years, that those players were in it for themselves and not passing the ball to poor ol’ wide-open Rotnei.  When the Clarkes needed them, they used the local media and clued-in superfans who would spread the whispers.  When it was time to bolt, notice that they ignored the local media and went national.

A real classy departing, and one that’s disappointing in that new coach Mike Anderson didn’t deserve to be toyed with by the Clarkes in his efforts to restore Arkansas’ basketball program to the level it enjoyed more than a decade ago.”


Wow.  Scorned much?

1.  Records for kickoff return yardage don’t last long in the SEC.

2.  This writer believes Rotnei Clarke did Mike Anderson a favor by transferring

3.  Dismissed Florida cornerback has picked Terry Bowden’s North Alabama penal colony, er, football program.

4.  SI.com projects just three SEC players into the NBA draft’s first round.

5.  The NCAA wants to have more eyes looking over cases before charges of rules violations are made against schools.  Of course, that’s likely to just slow down the entire investigation process even further.

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