SEC Basketball Power Rankings: Florida, Arkansas take over top spots, while Vanderbilt, Texas A&M fall in latest – Busting Brackets

Just a couple of weeks ago, there was considerable uncertainty at the top of these rankings. Texas A&M had taken the lead, Vanderbilt was in the midst of its first losses of the season, and Florida wasn’t playing like the defending champ. Since then, the Gators have taken up the mantle of the favorite to win the conference, and rightfully so. The rest of the conference, while still playing some solid ball, hasn’t quite looked like teams capable of knocking off the favorites. And the bottom of the league, outside of Oklahoma’s stunning road win at Vanderbilt, has started to fall even further behind. It’s wild to think that just one year ago, the SEC was on the verge of sending a record 14 teams to the NCAA Tournament. Now, the conference will be lucky to get 10 teams in the mix. The depth of the conference has started to fade, but with how great the top of the league is, the SEC is still one of the premier conferences in the country. Following a week with some shocking results, I’m looking at you, Vanderbilt and Alabama, here are the latest SEC basketball power rankings.
Other than Meechie Johnson scoring 35 points against Texas, it's hard to find anything positive to say about South Carolina’s games this week. The Gamecocks went 0-2 and extended their losing streak to five games, with their most recent loss being by 19 against Missouri. South Carolina has seven games remaining in the regular season, and unless the Gamecocks can magically find someone to complement Johnson on offense, I have a hard time imagining any more wins this season for this team. I wouldn’t blame Lamont Paris and the athletic department if they started to look towards the offseason.
We got fooled a little into believing this MSU team had figured things out when league play started, but the Bulldogs have done little since then to provide any hope to the fans in Starkville. Mississippi State currently has seven losses in SEC play – five of them have been by at least 15 points, with three of its last four defeats being by 20 or more points. Even a mid-week bye couldn’t help the Bulldogs avoid getting blown out at Arkansas on Saturday. This can’t be how Josh Hubbard imagined the season going when he decided to return for his junior season.
The win over Ole Miss to open SEC play feels like it happened a lifetime ago. Since then, the only thing Oklahoma has done consistently is lose. With the 16-point defeat to Kentucky earlier in the week, the Sooners' losing streak ballooned to nine games. Shockingly, Oklahoma avoided a tenth straight loss, upsetting Vanderbilt in Nashville, grinding out a one-point win. OU led by as many as 21 late in the game before letting the Commodores back into it. Obviously, this doesn’t fix the Sooners’ issues, but it should take some of the sting out of this disastrous season.
LSU likely missed out on its best opportunity to win back-to-back games for the rest of the season, with a 12-point loss to Georgia. The Tigers have one of the toughest remaining SEC schedules in the conference, so there aren’t more than one or two truly winnable games left – though if the offense can find its rhythm, I would expect LSU to give some teams a scare. I referred to this team as “mid-major all stars” in the preseason, and that’s what this team looks like in SEC play. There are some exciting pieces, but Matt McMahon hasn’t been able to parlay them into many wins.
The last time Ole Miss scored at least 68 points in a game was January 14th, when the Rebels scored 97 points in an overtime win against Georgia. Since then, Ole Miss has gone 1-5 and lost five straight – granted, the Rebels have played their last four games on the road, which certainly hasn’t helped things. Double-digit losses this week to Tennessee and Texas have put Ole Miss in an even bigger hole. If the Rebels can find some offense, they might make things interesting, but with how poorly they’ve been shooting, that’s not very likely.
Two straight losses against Tennessee and Alabama have undone all the ground the Tigers gained over their four-game winning streak over the past couple of weeks. Auburn’s time spent in the top half of these rankings was short-lived. The Tigers, at times this season, have looked like a team on the verge of a breakthrough, especially when Keyshawn Hall is going off. If Tahaad Pettiford could continue matching Hall’s production, I’d like this team a lot more. Maybe there isn’t room for two volume scorers in this offense, and if that’s the case, I don’t like Auburn's odds of making a postseason run.
Much of Georgia’s early-season success was due to its ability to put up huge offensive numbers. Since the start of SEC play, the Bulldogs haven’t been nearly as unstoppable on that end of the court. Without its high-powered offense, Georgia has struggled to pick up wins, which in turn led to its first losing streak of the season. Luckily for the Bulldogs, their skid ended at three games, otherwise this team could have been in serious trouble. A 12-point win at LSU was a great bounce-back; Georgia needs to build on that momentum.
Three straight wins have Texas back in the mix of things, even if those wins were against the likes of Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Ole Miss. However, after some early struggles, the Longhorns have finally found some stability on the defensive end – holding four of their last five opponents to 75 points or fewer. Sean Miller has done a solid job in his first year at Texas, and with a handful of very winnable games remaining on the schedule, it wouldn’t be a surprise to see this team in the NCAA Tournament again this year.
Considering Dennis Gates is still tinkering with his starting lineup, the fact that Missouri currently sits at 6-4 in SEC play is somewhat surprising. The Tigers haven’t been very consistent lately, especially when they hit the road. Before beating South Carolina on its home court by 19 points on Saturday, Mizzou had lost its last three road games, including an embarrassing performance at Alabama. The Tigers have done just enough this season to keep within striking distance of the top of the conference. The schedule doesn’t get much easier moving forward, so Dennis Gates has to find a way to keep his team locked in.
We’ve come to expect that Tennessee’s offense isn’t going to blow teams out of the water, but the defense, struggling as it has since the start of SEC play, compared to recent years, has made this team even more vulnerable. The Vols rattled off four consecutive wins to get back into the mix, though with Kentucky losses bookending those wins, Tennessee fans are rightly frustrated. I’m not counting the Vols out, especially with Rick Barnes leading the way. I don’t know how feared this team should be with how they’ve played for most of the season.
There’s no doubt that this Alabama team is still really good, but after three terrible defensive performances this week, there is now an even more pronounced ceiling on this team's success. The Tide gave up 100 points in a 23-point loss to Florida and allowed Texas A&M and Auburn to score more than 90 points in those wins. With how bad the defense has been in SEC play, hitting triple figures is likely the best game plan for Alabama to win games. I’m just not sure how sustainable that is in the long run.
Getting down by 20 points to the last-place team in the conference is a bad place to be, especially at home following a week off. Vanderbilt rarely looks unprepared, but that’s what it looked like against Oklahoma. The Commodores trailed by 19 points with three minutes to play, so climbing back to only lose by one is borderline insane. Lost in this game is Tyler Tanner’s 37 points. Vandy still has a path to win the SEC, but after the poor performance against OU, they no longer feel like a title contender.
Kentucky has won eight of its last nine games, and its last three games, while also dealing with significant injuries. Most teams would fold without multiple key pieces, but not the Wildcats. They seem to thrive with a limited rotation. And it's not like Kentucky has played a soft schedule either – this week the Wildcats dispatched a scrappy Oklahoma team by 16 points before taking down Tennessee in a defensive duel. Otega Oweh continues to shine, with five straight games with at least 20 points. Kentucky has proved its capability of winning in multiple ways, which should scare any future opponents.
Was A&M’s hot start to league play because of an easy conference schedule? Possibly, though that doesn’t take away from how well the Aggies were playing through those games. This week, A&M ran into the top two offenses in the conference and ended up on the losing end of both of its matchups. Needing more than 100 points to take down Alabama was always going to be a tall task, and trying to get past Florida’ SEC leading defense wasn’t going to be much easier. The Aggies have plenty of time to get back on track. We’ll see if this team is up to it.
The only blemish on Arkansas’s record over the past five games is a close loss to Kentucky last week, though it appears that defeat is going to age well. The Razorbacks took care of business this week, trouncing Mississippi State by 20 points. The only concern with this team through the rest of the season is its defense. Arkansas’s interior defense is virtually non-existent, but that hasn’t negatively impacted the Hogs all that much this season. Putting the team on Darius Acuff’s back has worked out quite well. I wouldn’t be surprised to see him lead this team on a long tournament run.
Florida’s last three games are about as dominant a stretch of wins that we’ve seen all season. The Gators have won their past three games by an average of 29.7 points, which would be incredible in a non-con slate, let alone in conference play. The crazy thing about how dominant Florida has been lately is that the Gators are still one of the worse three point shooting teams in the conference. If this is how impressive they’ve been without a consistent deep ball, what chance will other teams have if Florida gets hot from the perimeter?
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