Mike Siroky’s SEC Report: The Openers Recaps

 

By Mike Siroky

The best conference in women’s basketball – the Southeastern – named its all-conference awards as voted by coaches. It started league play in the run-up to the Selection Committee’s decision on who is among the Top 64 programs in America.

 Odds are, the SEC has eight of those but one could easily fall away today.

Texas A&M won a double-bye to the quarterfinals then lost any edge when the nation’s top scorer, sophomore Chennedy Carter, was found to have fractured a finger with nine minutes left in the regular season.

She will skip the conference tournament. A&M has lost both games in which she did not play.

 It seems past performance will project future earnings and the Aggies will lose again. Which opens up a semifinal spot after the last game of the quarterfinals for the winner of the game in which Auburn is favored.

Amazingly, even ESPN which broadcast the game, did not report on the injury until it was announced by the university. Bad reporting again.

In fact, we were the only media outlet to report on it.

 This would never happen in the men’s game. The media still has a long way to go.

As far as NCAA placement, we refer to a way, way earlier tournament in which Stanford covered up a season-ending injury to a star forward. 

They were rewarded with a high seed then lost without her.

It remains an all-time NCAA upset, thought the record book only reports the score and not the reality.

Her loss might burst A&M’s bubble on hosting the first round. 

We’ll see if the Cremeologist even notices. 

Because it is not an East Coast injury, he probably won’t.

Carter is still all-conference, of course,  and likely a lower-level All-American except for those voters who go with statistics only.

We called Teiara McCowan as the conference Player of the Year in January. She also won Defensive Player of the Year in a repeat. 

She is a logical All-American. 

We are calling both for Carter next season, right now.

The coaches did the right thing and let her leader, Vince Schaefer, repeat as conference Coach of the Year.  We challenged them to do so last week, as he is the only league finalist for national Coach of the Year.

It diminishes the absolute joke of two seasons ago. Maybe the three coaches who have been dismissed can be blamed for that vote.

Schaefer shares the honor with Matthew Mitchell of Kentucky. The Kats could easily slide into the hosting slot being vacated by A&M, meaning the top three finishers all earned it.

We also called Rhyne Howard of Kentucky as the only real Rookie of the Year candidate. She and Carter will be the only returning All-SEC first-teamers.

The all-conference first team allows some lesser programs to issue press releases and fill charts in the next  team yearbook. After all, someone had to fill the slots.

The someone’s this season include McCowan teammate and repeat honoree Anriel Howard, Caliya Robinson of Georgia and Sophie Cunningham of Missouri, Ayana Mitchell of LSU , Maci Morris of Kentucky, all seniors, and  freshman Howard.

The All-SEC second team includes Te'a Cooper of South Carolina (she should have been first team) and teammates Alexis Jennings and Tyasha Harris, a nod to Tennessee’s youth in leading scorer and sophomore  Rennia Davis, Chelsea Dungee of Arkansas, Janiah McKay of Auburn,  unheralded Mariella Fasoula, if Vanderbilt and Crystal Allen of Mississippi, the latter two punished for being on woeful teams.

Joining McCowan on the All-SEC Defensive team is senior teammate Jazzmun Holmes, senior Taylor Murray of Kentucky, Robinson of Georgia and McKay of Auburn. 

Joining Howard on the All-Rookie team are the ones we will be writing about in seasons to come, including her teammate Blair Green, sometime starter Zaay Green of Tennessee, sometime starters Destanni Henderson  and Victaria Saxton, of South Carolina, Brinae Alexander of Vanderbilt, Akira Levy of Missouri and Robyn Benton of Auburn. 

As much as Tennessee used the “we’re so young” excuse and as much as opposing coaches joined that chorus, only Green proved enough to be rewarded while two other programs had multiple honorees.

Here’s the opening round (same four for three seasons):

No. 13 Florida 64, No. 12 Ole Miss 57

No. 11 Alabama 74, No. 14 Vanderbilt 57 

Thursday night

No. 9 LSU (16-12) vs. No. 8 Tennessee (18-11). Winner gets top seed Mississippi State (27-2)

Florida vs. No. 5 Missouri (21-9); winner gets fourth seed Kentucky (24-6)

No. 10 Arkansas (17-13) vs. No. 7 Georgia (18-11). Winner gets second seed South Carolina (21-8)

Alabama vs. No. 6 Auburn (21-8). Winner gets potential walkover against third seed Texas A&M (23-6)

The Recaps: No. 13 Florida vs. No. 12 Ole Miss  (each 3-13 in conference)

All this one leads to is several careers ending and there’s the door.

As expected, this was an even match, just single digits from each bench with a minute left in the first.

It was like a pickup game, streetball with plenty of freelancing and a “you take the ball’ after each shot, it seemed. The Rebels won the first encounter by 10 at home. Ole Miss shot 25 percent and Florida 31 percent.

With six minutes left before half, Ole Miss had as many turnovers as points. It was 18-16 at half. Each side had single-digit second quarters and it was not the defense. Nobody scored much; then again, there were not many fouls.

Florida  came out of the break hot and won the third, 25-14. It appeared the game was over. The difference was junior guard Delicia Washington off the bench with 11 points, eight rebounds, two assists and a steal.  

Was Australian graduate student Funda Nakkasoglu was not far behind.

She is such an interesting player, with more than 2,000 career points between the Gators and her start at Utah State, where she was the leading scorer as a rookie. 

Moreover, she has been recruited to play basketball for Turkey’s Senior National team, as she has dual citizenship. She already played for the Australian National team. 

She has a plan after college. She completed degree requirements more than a year ago. 

The SEC women have many such interesting characters. No doubt, on a better team, we would have heard much more about her.

The street ball style suits her. The others cannot handle her truth. She is so much better than her teammates and directs traffic as a forward.

It ended 64-57.  

Florida scored 12 in the final two minutes, more than they scored in either of the first two quarters, as Ole Miss fouled to stop the clock. Ole Miss scored 11 then, likewise more than either of the opening periods.

Washington and Nakkasoglu scored 17. 

Ole Miss guard Crystal Allen completed her college career with 20 points. She takes  four classmates from the previous regime with her.

 That leaves just three holdovers. No sophomores. Most all the remaining players are rookies.

Florida second-year coach Cameron Newbauer loses Nakkasoglu transferring in as a hired.

They now get Missouri whom they beat 58-56 at home, one of two 20-win teams not to earn the double-bye.

“He told me to go out there and be aggressive at all times,” said Washington. “He told me to get my teammates involved. It’s good to have the coach and team behind me; they got my back.”

She had hit the game-winning shot when the Gators ended Missouri’s pretentions at winning the SEC.

 “We have got to get good shots and take no bad shots,” Washington observed.

No. 14 Vanderbilt (2-14 SEC) vs. No. 11 Alabama  (5-11 SEC)

If the point here is the losing coach gets launched, it was a non-competitive challenge.

The Tide had a rare blowout win in the first game between these two, but Alabama scored five points in the first quarter of its previous game. 

This time, they held Vanderbilt to 25 percent from the floor in the opening quarter, and scored 15.

 Stephanie White has not solved this in three seasons.

They spread the love among four starters and did that all game. 

It pushed to the eventual game rhythm, an easy slide to a 10-point second-quarter lead.

 They scored 16 again, held Vandy to single digits again and led by a dozen at the break. Senior guard Shaquerra Wade, a homestater player from Huntsville, had 10 points. 

It grew to 14 as Alabama coasted through the third, Wade up to 19, one of four with 10 or more. They had 10 steals. But they evidently have no rebounders.

They won every quarter and thus the game, 74-57 Wade’s 26 was one of four in double figures, a career best and pushing past 1,000 for her career.

“I did whatever I could to help them,” Wade said. “I kept attacking. I was locked in. I talked to my mom before the game and she said stay locked in.”

Her coach, Kristy Curry, said, “We talked about survive and advance, it’s a brand-new season. We just want to win the next game.  It’s our focus.”

She also offered a prayer for those affected by the devastating tornadoes back home.

Vandy kicks out the last players from the previous leaders, two non-performers. 

Yes, White has five players from her first recruiting class coming back, but little evidence of success. It makes for an interesting off-season and likely double-secret school probation on the staff of the school with two bad basketball teams. 

The men’s team obviously is the foremost focus, but the AD hired neither of the coaches. He also had to clean up ramifications of a football mess first. His predecessor was the longest-serving one, at the SEC’s only private university. He only started last month.

Alabama celebrated for a minute but gets state big sister Auburn now, the other 20-game winner not to earn the double-bye. 

The War Eagles rolled them by almost 40 in the second win of the regular season, completing the sweep.

 Alabama shot 23 percent from the field. Only one player hit double figures. It is a daunting task.

As much as Alabama pretends it values its state competition, basketball does not hold up its end. The men were also swept. Wade, for example was 0-for-11 in the last game of the season. She was 0-for-5 in the blowout loss to Auburn.