SEC 2019-2020 discussion | Page 14 | The Boneyard

SEC 2019-2020 discussion

MSUFan2003 said:
Tennessee could be leading by more is they didn't have so many self-inflicted wounds.
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I'm not sure UCONN missed that many shots in the last three games they played against South Carolina combined.

Irwin will probably hit 6 threes against us.

I told y'all I was worried about Tennessee's size and defense.
 
Gamecockfan77 said:
feels like UCONN will eventually start making shots and not sure Tennessee will.
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Tennessee is very good defensively and their size is a problem for any team.

Issue is Tennessee has been a team that misses a lot of layups/bunnies and turns it over a lot all year. Half these turnovers are just dumb unforced turnovers.

Key is putrid offensively. She can rebound and block but that is about it right now.
 
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Thank you for unlocking. My fault too. Won't mention UConn while they are playing again. Evidently I missed that rule over here. My bad.
 
cockhrnleghrn said:
It is weird, but we still have older fans that do the same. I'm not a fan of using a different nickname for each gender's sports unless it's somewhere with a human nickname like Centenary or Okie State. Even worse, our earliest teams were called the "Chicks".
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I get it though. Though nicknames are mascots today, players were were once viewed as the embodiment of the “Tiger”, “Tide”, or whatever. You see it in the old press reports from which many of the names originated. For obvious reasons, it had to be challenging to fit a women’s team of Gamecocks into that environment. Idk what they would have done. I’m surprised there wasn’t an experiment with “Gamehens”.

It would be really interesting to see if the shift in perspective on team names was accelerated by the rise of women’s sports, but I don’t see how you could conduct that study absent a time machine. Sports reporting had obviously shifted away from the more literary style that spawned (or reflected?) the thinking a generation before, but that doesn’t mean that fan outlook had caught up
 
With only 6 of the 16 Conference games played and schedule quirks (easy vs. harder teams) at this point, I am not sure the standings correctly represent the strength of the league. Tenn at 5-1 is overrated while Arkansas at 3-3 is probably underrated (although losing at home to Georgia last night????).
To me it's SC as #1, MSU as #2 and then anyone's guess for #3-7. LSU has been a surprise wit wins over Texas A&M and Kentucky dovetailed with losses to Mizzou (REALLY???) and the Dawgs. Their next game will be telling. I was hoping for a bad year for them as I am not a Nikki Caldwell fan and wanted her gone for my @SECbbfan24 friends sanity but if they are winning who am I to complain-can she maintain it? Doubtful but...
Like I said in my P5 thread, this conference will get 6 bids for sure but after SC and MSU, not sure any get past the 2nd round. A lot of competitiveness at a lower level of skill. Not like the old days of the SEC.
 
I have complained about Nikki and deservedly so but Nikki has done a good job this year. We still have holes like always have in the past offensively but we are closing games out better which is the biggest difference this year along with Pointer taking matters into her own hands. We will be a NCAAT this year but the question remains can she get out the first round? She has yet to do that in like 5 years which is completely unacceptable.

That said her recruiting still IMO is not good enough as a whole to compete for SEC or national titles. Until that changes we don't come close to that. I think her system will always field competitive teams that gives teams HA's with her teams defense but against the best of the best I don't believe we have the players or offensive system overall that can score at a high level. As a coach you have to adapt, LSU shot a lot of three's her first few years but has steadily went down dramatically, primarily because of personnel reasons and she doesn't seem to like the 3 point shot much anymore.


As for the SEC as a whole, SC and Miss St are your top 2 teams. Amazingly both teams have a lot of freshmen players playing big time minutes. Rest of us are going to have to deal with that the next 4 years.

I feel like Kentucky is a good gritty team but not a great team. Its a one man show with Howard. Morris and Murray were big losses and they don't have that great of a supporting cast. I think next year adding Hunt, getting Edwards eligible and their other injured freshmen back changes that team a lot.

A&M similarly, is extremely dependent on Carter. She is what makes that team a top 15 team. Without her they are just a decent team.

Tennessee, I feel like they still play Holly ball but with less play makers this year (No Westbrook, Collins, Jackson or Green). They cannot take care of the ball for crap but they play overall more sound defense. I thought they were pretty good against UCONN defensively but they are still stagnant on offense and they are careless as hell taking care of the ball. Harper's recruiting remains a big question (sounds familiar...)

A lot can happen the next 10 games so who knows where everyone ends up.
 
Tennessee 63 LSU 58 - I watched a decent amount of this one. I am very leery of Tennessee, but their offensive struggles in games like this just pretty much tell the story of where they are. It would have been nice for LSU to get that win.

South Carolina 88 Georgia 53. I thought South Carolina would have slightly more trouble than this one turned out to be. South Carolina buried them in the 1Q. UGA did a good job at not letting it get away from there, but I think the closest it got was 13 in the 2Q.

Alabama 98 Vandy 61 - I guess Bama took out some frustration here. Vandy seems to be fading now as we get into conference play.

TAMU 72 Mizzou 53 - The Aggies are trying to hold the line at 2 losses without Carter, but have losable games vs Georgia and LSU, with Miss State looming. They need her back soon to keep any conference hopes alive.

Arkansas 79 Florida 57 - Bounce back for the Hogs.

Miss State 80 Ole Miss 39 - mismatch in the rivalry game.
 
1. South Carolina
2. Miss State

3. Kentucky
4. Texas A&M (splitting baby between Carter injury and resume)
5. Tennessee
6. Arkansas

7. LSU
8. Georgia
9. Alabama

10. Vandy
11. Florida
12. Missouri

13. Auburn
14. Ole Miss
 
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If I may diverge with my fine SC colleague and say, I think there are only 4 tiers in the SEC 1/2, 3-6, 7-10 and 11-14. Based on all the rating services, I am not sure delineating that fourth of 5 tiers is warranted. They all stink, just different degrees of offensiveness. Even Arkansas has to prove over their last half of the schedule they belong-Alabama, SC, Kentucky, Tenn, MSU and LSU are all tough games they need to win 4 of them. This should be only a 5 or 6 team tournament conference.
 
SECbbfan24 said:
What is the status/time frame on carter?
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The commentator on one of their games said she had a grade 2 sprain or strain. I can't remember which one. Not sure what the time frame of recovery is on that injury.
 
MSUFan2003 said:
The commentator on one of their games said she had a grade 2 sprain or strain. I can't remember which one. Not sure what the time frame of recovery is on that injury.
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Announcer said Carter had a Grade 2 ankle sprain - recovery normally takes 4-6 weeks.
 
Few interesting ones tonight:

Arkansas @ Alabama - Arkansas needs this one pretty badly to stay in my good graces.

Georgia @ TAMU - not sure about Carter's availably.

Tennessee @ Vandy - Vandy seems to be fading, but they put up enough of a fight vs Miss State to still make this one worth watching.


Also

South Carolina @ Ole Miss
Auburn @ Miss State
LSU at Florida
Kentucky at Missouri
 
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TAMU 64 UGA 63.

Texas A&M is doing just enough to keep conference hopes alive. Just need someone to knock off South Carolina.

Miss State 78 Auburn 73.

Wasn't expecting that one to be interesting.

Tennessee 78 Vandy 69.

Vandy has about three quarters worth in these games.

Arkansas 66 Alabama 48.

Ugly box score.

South Carolina 87. Ole Miss 32

Obviously 2 pts in first half for ole miss is unfathomably bad. Amihere's 16 biggest news for South Carolina. Boston also hit another 18 footer which seems to be emerging part of her pre-existing game.

LSU 77 Florida 68.

Tigers doing what they are supposed to.

Kentucky 62 Mizzou 47

Mizzou spike in play seems to have leveled off. Kentucky never threatened in this one.
 
Amihere can shoot the three. Didn’t know that was in her bag of tricks.
 
Gamecockfan77 said:
TAMU 64 UGA 63.

Texas A&M is doing just enough to keep conference hopes alive. Just need someone to knock off South Carolina.
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A&M has zero chance of winning the SEC. There's no way they will win all those games on the road. Even if they had Carter healthy and available.
 
The SEC regular season is exactly halfway through now.

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There seems to be a fairly significant gap between the top half and bottom half, notwithstanding a couple upsets (Missouri over LSU, Georgia over Arkansas) and near-upsets (Mississippi State struggling to beat Vanderbilt and Auburn, Tennessee needing a miracle to beat Alabama).

It would also seem that the top half are the NCAA tournament teams. Arkansas still has yet to beat a top 50-caliber team, and Tennessee has only beaten LSU, but both will have ample opportunities in their backloaded SEC schedules. Arkansas has home games coming up against South Carolina, Kentucky, Tennessee and LSU, and each of Tennessee's next 5 games are against the upper half of the conference.
 
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Plebe said:
A&M has zero chance of winning the SEC. There's no way they will win all those games on the road. Even if they had Carter healthy and available.
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I don't think they will, but with Carter healthy they would hardly be out of any game left.
 
Plebe said:
A&M has zero chance of winning the SEC. There's no way they will win all those games on the road. Even if they had Carter healthy and available.
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I agree with your overall point. However, as an aside, with a healthy Carter they are capable of beating anybody if she gets hot. While there is no way they win the overall championship they could certainly play spoiler.
 
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South Carolina 69 Tennessee 48

This one played out about how I expected and better than I feared.

Tennessee does not have any half court offense and does not take care of the ball and that lead to a lot of transition points. They just didn't get a lot of clean looks at all.

But as I guessed, Tennessee zoned Carolina quite a bit and the length was a big problem and made it difficult for South Carolina score. I did not think that South Carolina was very comfortable in knowing what shots they were seeking, but Tennessee certainly influenced that by blocking or altering a lot of shots off initial penetration. That's a really good defensive team.

USC has played probably five or six games where the offense wasn't there. The only blemish (and close game) was the Indiana loss. I put that primarily on a bad night for Ty Harris and Boston being taken out of the game by the officials. When you look at Maryland, Baylor, Tennessee...for the most part the margins have been relatively comfortable in these outings. South Carolina isn't too bad at winning ugly.

.....

the major development for the SEC race is the injury to Boston.

South Carolina is a good team without her, but it's not an elite team in my view. With Amihere possibly being with Team Canada for another week, South Carolina might be quite short handed at Arkansas this week if Boston is out.

Does not sound like it is too serious as Staley suggested she could have put her back in the game.

Just looking at her on the bench, she did not appear to be particularly upset, though you could see she was not moving well. I wouldn't be shocked if she sat out the next game or two. That would be unfortunate timing, particularly if she were to miss UCONN.
 
LSU 59 TAMU 58

Big win for LSU. I don't think 3 losses will get a share of the SEC, so this probably all but puts the nail in TAMU's hopes.

Florida 70 Kentucky 62

Not sure Kentucky is a tourney team without Howard. The Carter and Howard injuries have really been unfortunate for the league.

Arkansas 85 Missouri 81

Seems like Arkansas has been playing poorly for 2-3 weeks now.

Auburn 70 Vandy 62

Probably a combination of Auburn getting a little better and Vandy fading badly, but this was a killer loss for the improved Commodores narrative.

Alabama 57 Ole Miss 56

This must have been an awful game to watch. Bama, what was your issue in this one?
 
1. South Carolina - the resume speaks. Tough week looming @ Arkansas and vs UCONN with Boston's health in question.

2. Miss State - We have the South Carolina result telling us that Miss State can play at a very high level, but they don't really have any big pelts and they've a pattern of struggling and pulling away late. Not a club that has especially tested itself this year and it's tough to get a read on them.

3. Tennessee
4. LSU
5. Arkansas
6. TAMU
7. Kentucky

TAMU and Kentucky are perhaps getting a disservice as their losses have all been without their best player. Arkansas isn't playing well and doesn't have a marquee win. the league hopes they get it vs South Carolina, perhaps. I hope it isn't. I am very afraid they come out on fire.

8. Georgia
9. Alabama

I feel like this is the NIT level of the SEC. I'm not sure that breaking them out from the bottom is really all that useful. It's probably one big tier. I say that without having a real grasp of where the NIT parameters usually shake out.


10. Florida
11. Auburn
12. Vanderbilt
13. Missouri
14. Ole Miss

I feel like these are all not good teams. Ole Miss probably deserves a tier of its own. Auburn seems to be rising and Vandy falling.
 
I would hold Boston out for Arkansas. I think (keyword, "think") we can beat them without her. UConn on the other hand... we need her.
 
SCGamecock said:
I would hold Boston out for Arkansas. I think (keyword, "think") we can beat them without her. UConn on the other hand... we need her.
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Honestly, the Arkansas game is more important than UCONN.

Arkansas could cost the team the SEC title.

UCONN loss would not even affect NCAA seeding.

I think South Carolina could potentially beat either team without Boston, but UCONN would be more difficult.
 
Gamecockfan77 said:
Honestly, the Arkansas game is more important than UCONN.

Arkansas could cost the team the SEC title.

UCONN loss would not even affect NCAA seeding.

I think South Carolina could potentially beat either team without Boston, but UCONN would be more difficult.
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Huh? No way is your team losing the SEC title. Despite the Herculean effort that MSU showed in Colony Life Arena, they are not as consistent as the Gamecocks and frankly, no other team is capable of mounting a charge. The SEC is not great this year with any other elite teams. All yours and not a sweat needs to be broken the rest of the year. Buy your Greenville seats now...
 
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