The Guru’s SEC Tournament Report: South Carolina, LSU, Tennessee, Ole Miss Claim Top Four Seeds

By Mel Greenberg @womhoopsguru

Since this is the first of another multi-blog report day, the Guru interrupts himself to update the Ivy situation reported 24 hours ago involving the postponement of the Harvard-Princeton game this past weekend due to Covid protocol issues within the Princeton program.

The makeup date will be Sunday at noon at Harvard hosting Princeton and the Harvard game involving Dartmouth will now be played at Harvard on Friday night instead of Saturday at 7.

So going into the last weekend with the fourth and final berth for the Ivy Tourney to be played a week from Friday and Saturday at Harvard, at this hour, Penn is 7-6 league-wise and Harvard is 6-6.

The Quakers have the tough task of needing to beat the seemingly unbeatable Tigers on the road in Jadwin Gym to go to 8-6. Harvard would then need to sweep the Crimson’s final weekend and keep the tie-breaker that would be in their place of a split with Yale, while Penn got swept by the Bulldogs.

With Penn facing the Princeton hurdle, the other thing would be, and stranger things have happened, like Cornell beating the Crimson recently, for Harvard to lose to Princeton and Dartmouth to land 6-8, and knocked out of the Crimson’s own tournament.

We now return to the compilation of blogs covering Sunday’s daily competition and the setups of the front end of the 32 conference tournaments that will begin this week and last through a week from Sunday to crown 32 automatic qualifiers of NCAA bids, to whom the tournament committee will add 36 at-large invitations, an increase of four, and present the newly overall expanded field of 68, matching the men’s total.

But the reality is when it comes to jockeying for best position to get best position, the tournament to the tournament was well under way this weekend, across three days of thrilling competition as the regular season began coming to an end and conference members got their last chances to land premium seeds, especially in the Power 5 groups and a few others.

In the Southeastern Conference, several thrilling games saw Dawn Staley’s Associated Press top-ranked South Carolina squad, which had gotten blunted just once overall across the entire season, finish up with a 71-57 triumph on the road at Ole Miss in Oxford.

Destanni Henderson tied a career mark with 23 points and national player of the year candidate Aliyah Boston had 15 points and 14 rebounds for her 21st straight double double, one behind DePaul freshman sensation Aneesah Morrow, who Sunday got her 23rd straight in a narrow win over Creighton to earn the fourth seed in this week’s Big East tournament.

The Gamecocks (27-1, 15-1 SEC) already clinched the top seed for this week’s tournament in Nashville, Tenn.

SC pulled away with a 12-0 run near the end of the game.

Shakira Austin, whose career began at Maryland,  had 20 points and seven rebounds for the Rebels (22-7, 10-6), 

Then down in Knoxville, No. 8 LSU, continuing the magical work under first-year coach Kim Mulkey after hired away from her long-running Baylor powerhouse, built a 14-point halftime lead and held on through a stirring surge from No. 16 Tennessee and finally closed off the rally and attempt to tie the game in Thompson-Bolling Arena with a steal from Khayla Pointer in the final five seconds for a 57-54 win and will go into the SEC tournament as the No. 2 seed while the Lady Vols (25-4, 13-3 SEC) will be No. 3 ahead of Ole Miss.

The Tigers (22-7, 11-5) were picked No. 8 in the preseason and are in the top two for the first time in 14 seasons since 2008.

“This group, I’ll tell you — I don’t know when it’s going to end, but they just grind and they just find ways to win,” Mulkey said.

“Jailin Cherry (14 points, 10 rebounds) and Pointer (12 points, 14 rebounds) each had double doubles, while Autumn Newby had 10 of her 12 points in the first quarter launching LSU to its rocket start.

The Lady Vols got 12 points and nine rebounds from Tamari Key, who scored 11 in the second half, while Rae Burrell scored 11, and Alexus Dye scored 10.

“The most important thing is how we started the game,” Mulkey said. “Confident. Shot the ball good, but defended good as well. I thought the only way we could come in here and win under some circumstances out of our control was if we rebounded the ball.”

Said Tennessee coach Kellie Harper, “it’s not how you draw up the last game of the regular season. It’s not how you want your Senior Day to end. I thought to start the game we were a little bit on our heels.

“We gave up 22 points in that first quarter, and looking back, that’s where the difference of the game was. I’m proud of our team for continuing to fight. We played hard, gave ourselves a chance at the end, for sure.

“This is one of those games that you’ve got to be better for 40 minutes, and we just weren’t able to do that to start the game. Obviously, as a coach, you always want more, but I am proud of this team.”

Elsewhere on the SEC last day of the regular season, Missouri, the only team to beat South Carolina to date, ran another short-handed day to upset No. 15 Florida 78-73 on the road, while co-No. 25 Georgia held off Texas A&M for a 67-58 victory at home in Athens.

SEC Tournament Seeds Set

The schedule is all set for the mini-NCAA tournament that is always the SEC, this week running from Wednesday through Sunday’s championship for the automatic bid.

Here is the schedule for the week at Bridgestone Arena in Nashville.

Wednesday (Rounds 1-2-and-Quarterfinals on the SEC Network)

First Round

11 a.m. No. 13 Vanderbilt vs. No. 12 Texas A&M; 1:25 p.m.: No. 14 Auburn vs. No. 11 Alabama.

Thursday

Second Round

12 p.m. No. 9 Missouri vs No. 8 Arkansas; 2:25 p.m. No. 5 Florida vs. (13-12) Vanderbilt-Texas A&M winner; 6 p.m. No. 10 Mississippi State vs. No. 7 Kentucky; 8:25 p.m. No. 6 Georgia vs. (14-11) Auburn-Alabama winner.

Friday

Quarterfinals

12 p.m. No. 1 South Carolina vs. (9-8) Missouri-Arkansas winner; 2:25 p.m. No. 4 Ole Miss vs. (5-13-12) Florida-Vanderbilt-Texas A&M winner; 6 p.m. No. 2 LSU vs. (10-7) Mississippi State-Kentucky winner; 8:25 p.m. No. 3 Tennessee vs. (6-14-11) Georgia-Auburn-Alabama winner.

Saturday (ESPNU)

Semifinals

4 p.m. (1-9-8) South Carolina-Missouri-Arkansas winner vs. (4-5-13-12) Ole Miss-Florida-Vanderbilt-Texas A&M winner

6:25 p.m. (2–10-7) LSU-Mississippi State-Kentucky winner vs. (3-6-14-11) Tennessee-Georgia-Auburn-Alabama winner

Sunday (ESPN2)

Championship

(1-9-8-4-5-13-12) South Carolina-Missouri-Arkansas-Ole Miss-Florida-Vanderbilt-Texas A&M winner vs. (2-10-7-3-6-14-11)  LSU-Mississippi State-Kentucky-Tennessee-Georgia-Auburn-Alabama winner

And that’s the SEC report.