While we're talking about being inept....I give you SEC basketball.

[DawgatAuburn]

The season is young, but as a league we've already established a level of incompetence.

Against major conference competition, the league as a whole is 1-7 with losses to Michigan State, Baylor, Oklahoma, Wisconsin, Ga Tech, Xavier and Clemson. Add to that a loss to UMass, a mid-level A-10 team, and Northwestern State of the Southland Conference (thanks Auburn). The one win was Alabama over Tubby Smith and Texas Tech, who lost 20 games last year in the midst of the Gillespie fiasco and are picked at or toward the bottom of the Big 12.

Looking for good wins? Keep looking. We have none.

ETA Clemson this afternoon.

 

[KurtRambis4]

It's amazing

how far the league has fallen, and we're at the bottom.

 

[Hump4Hoops]

All I hear is good news.

Plenty of winnable games on the schedule.

 

[DawgatAuburn]

That's true. It's not inconceivable that we threaten 9-9 in the league. It's not likely, but not inconceivable.

 

[engie]

Couldn't agree more.

When does this turn around? I mean -- the league as a whole is recruiting very well every year -- and it's still falling further and further behind. Is the coaching just that bad down here? The fundamentals coming out of highschool? I honestly don't have the answer...

 

[57stratdawg]

Stansbury's window is closing because of the improving SEC..**

 

[esplanade91]

The south has football players, and the north has basketball players. The top players each year are coming out of Chicago and New York (in this year's case it's Canada). It's the difference in getting a 4* football player from Alabama versus a 4* player from Iowa as far as recruiting, imo. There are good players everywhere, obviously, but I don't think a school like MSU without a coach like Coach K, Calipari, or Izzo is going to consistently grab a contested kid from a large city other than maybe New Orleans or Memphis.

I think liking football so much hurts us there. Who knows. The top teams are still really good, but the teams right behind the top teams (Arkansas, Alabama, MSU, Vandy) have all fallen off. You've got to have a good base, and the SEC does not. The 2nd tier sucks.

 

[DawgatAuburn]

I honestly think that is a big part of it. I am convinced that you would win big in the SEC right now with high fundamental guys who don't have the off the charts athleticism but enough to not get abused. Teams like Bo Ryan or Tony Bennett have won with. Guys who can shoot, who are willing to defend, who block out rather than trying to outleap, who value the ball every possession.....I know....pipe dream.

 

[patdog]

Tennessee doing their part. Down 33-23 to some school called South Carolina Upstate right now.

 

[DawgatAuburn]

By "right now" do you mean on the replay of yesterday's game?

 

[MadDawg.sixpack]

No worries. We now have a coach that will benefit from a down SEC.

 

[patdog]

Yeah, I guess so.

 

[Dog of Tillo]

SCU has already beaten Virginia Tech this year...

 

[olblue.sixpack]

I honestly think that is a big part of it. I am convinced that you would win big in the SEC right now with high fundamental guys who don't have the off the charts athleticism but enough to not get abused. Teams like Bo Ryan or Tony Bennett have won with. Guys who can shoot, who are willing to defend, who block out rather than trying to outleap, who value the ball every possession.....I know....pipe dream.

You just described Vandy in most years.

 

[Maroon Eagle]

I honestly think that is a big part of it. I am convinced that you would win big in the SEC right now with high fundamental guys who don't have the off the charts athleticism but enough to not get abused. Teams like Bo Ryan or Tony Bennett have won with. Guys who can shoot, who are willing to defend, who block out rather than trying to outleap, who value the ball every possession.....I know....pipe dream.

I think you just described how Richard Williams coached the Bulldogs, which is kind of ironic.

 

[tenureplan]

Right because Dampier, Jones, and Bullard were all gym rats.

 

[DawgatAuburn]

Correct - and they have been to six NCAAs and two NITs in the last decade, with and SECT title and a pair of Sweet 16s to boot. Unfortunately for them, since they played in the grown up half of the previously split conference, they don't have any division titles to hang in Memorial.

 

[DawgatAuburn]

He did like fundamentals, at times in my opinion to the constraint of his athletes, but that was also a different era. The college game isn't the same now as it was then.

 

[Philly Dawg]

But Vandy has also started getting good players, i.e. NBA prospects and elite shooters. Vandy has as many players in the NBA right now as Arkansas, more than Alabama, and just one fewer than Missouri.