SEC Basketball: Dangerous teams on next to last SEC weekend

For several SEC basketball teams, there is much riding on the outcomes of Saturday’s games. Alabama Basketball has an important game with a tough Arkansas team revitalized by the return of Nick Smith Jr.  The Razorbacks are a much harder team to defend with Smith’s offensive skills.

Alabama needs a win on Saturday to remain ahead in the SEC Regular Season Championship race. Arkansas needs a resume-building win to boost it from a currently projected 8-seed in the NCAA Tournament.

Likewise, Texas A&M needs a win in Starkville to stay on pace with the Crimson Tide. Auburn and Kentucky both need wins to improve their likely NCAA Tournament seeds. As a currently projected 10-seed, Auburn is on the edge of becoming a bubble team. Auburn will as always play hard, but going to Rupp in late February needing a win is a predicament.

The two most dangerous SEC teams to play against on Saturday are Missouri and Mississippi State. Missouri has lost three of its last five games and, like Auburn, has dipped to an almost bubble team. The Tigers are on the road, but face Georgia, which has lost five of its last seven games; the most recent two being blowout wins by Alabama and Arkansas.

Mississippi State is a true NCAA Tournament bubble team. According to the latest Bracketology from Joe Lunardi, the Bulldogs are projected as the last team ‘in’ – in the 68-team Big Dance field. Alabama basketball fans are hoping the Bulldogs can prevail in Starkville, but picking a favorite to win is impossible.

SEC Basketball Down?

For most of this basketball season, much national chatter has defined SEC Basketball as having a down year. Maybe that is accurate, though, until the NCAA Tournament, it is impossible to know. Based on Joe Lunardi and other Bracketologists, the SEC is currently projected to have eight NCAA Tournament teams. That is the same number of projected teams as the Big 12 and only one less than the nine projected for the Big Ten. The conferences truly lagging behind are the ACC with five teams projected in the Big Dance and the Pac 12, with only three.

Lunardi has Alabama as the overall No. 1 seed; Tennessee as a 3-seed; Texas A&M as a 6-seed; Kentucky and Arkansas as 8-seeds; Auburn and Missouri as 10-seeds and Mississippi State as the last team in the tournament.

A recent, but unsurprising development in SEC Basketball, is Ole Miss will have a new head coach next season. Kermit Davis has been fired before the end of his fifth season in Oxford. Ole Miss assistant, Win Case will finish the season as an Interim Head Coach.