LSU Tiger Blog

New Season, New Faces, New Hope

Thursday, October 22nd, 2009      Email Print

By: Paul Boron, CST reporter

In Birmingham, Alabama at SEC Media Day

 

It’s that time of year, when hope springs eternal across the hardwood in SEC country.  Everyone is 0-0 and dreaming of cutting down the nets in Indianapolis.  But, after a sub par year in the league, just getting more teams into the big dance may be a more realistic expectation.

 

Last season just 3 teams made it to the N.C.A.A. tournament and none made it to the second weekend.  But the common theme here in Birmingham is that everyone was young last year and so every team will be better this year.  Vanderbilt coach Kevin Stallings said his team will be better this year but could have a worse record because of the maturing depth around the league.

 

Then there are the new faces on the coaching front.  Former Florida assistant and Virginia Commonwealth Head Coach Anthony Grant takes the reins in Tuscaloosa.  Mark Fox, followed L.S.U. Coach Trent Johnson at Nevada and now he has followed him to the S.E.C. as the new head man at Georgia.  But no new face has made quite the splash that John Calipari has at Kentucky.  He was the talk of S.E.C. media day and was the loudest talker in Birmingham.   And if you think he’s big here you should see him on campus.  Junior forward Patrick Patterson says he was amused to watch his new coach take a jog on campus and watch the reaction of fans and students, pointing and whispering at their new basketball savior.  And if preseason picks mean anything, Calipari’s Wildcats are predicted to win the conference.

 

L.S.U. won the regular season title a year ago without much preseason fanfare, and they aren’t getting any this year either.  The Tigers are picked to finish fourth in the west with Rick Stansbury’s Mississippi St. Bulldogs expected  to win the division.

 

Calipari says as many as seven or eight teams could make the tournament this year.  But four or five is probably a more likely number.  Kentucky, Tennessee and Mississippi State seem to be locks with a pool of Ole Miss, South Carolina, and Vanderbilt likely to be contenders

 

But it’s all just a guessing game right now.  When the regular season starts November 13th we will see who is a pretender and who is a contender, but one thing is for sure, the S.E.C. should be much improved this season.


Notes from around media day


---Presason media poll:

SEC West 1. Mississippi St. 2. Ole Miss 3. Alabama  4. LSU 5. Arkansas 6. Auburn

SEC East 1. Kentucky 2. Tennessee 3. Vanderbilt  4. South Carolina 5. Florida 6. Georgia

 

 

---Preseason All –SEC Devan Downey (USC), Patrick Patterson (UK), Tyler Smith (UT), Jarvis Venardo(MSU), Terricho White (UM)

 

---LSU’s Tasmin Mitchell was voted to the All-SEC second team.  He is also among 50 players on the preseason Wooden award list

 

---This year’s postseason conference tournament is in Nashville, then moves to Atlanta next year, before coming to New Orleans in 2012.

By: Paul Boron

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