How will Kentucky stack up in the SEC? A closer look as league play tips off Saturday.
Seven teams rated among the nation’s top 35. A whopping nine teams projected to make the 2024 NCAA Tournament. That’s the outlook for the SEC with another league basketball schedule set to tip off this weekend, and this should be one of the conference’s most competitive campaigns in its final season before another round of expansion.
The last iteration of the 14-team league — before Oklahoma and Texas join next season — begins Saturday, a seven-game slate with some interesting matchups that should set the stage for a thrilling two months of conference play.
Kentucky goes into the weekend with a No. 6 national ranking, but preseason SEC favorite Tennessee is one spot above the Wildcats at No. 5, and a slew of others look capable of making a run at the conference title.
Before UK takes on Florida — 35th in the KenPom ratings, good enough for seventh in the league — in its opener Saturday afternoon, here’s a look at how the SEC has fared this college basketball season, and what might be next for the league’s top teams.
The SEC hierarchy
League play begins with four teams ranked in the AP Top 25: No. 5 Tennessee, No. 6 Kentucky, No. 22 Ole Miss and No. 25 Auburn, which cracked the national rankings for the first time this week.
The Volunteers were the preseason pick to win the conference, and they remain its highest-ranked team heading into league play, but Tennessee is certainly no clear choice to take the crown in 2024. The Vols are stacked with college basketball veterans, but Kentucky’s young bunch has plenty of upside — a talented group of mostly freshmen who have already adapted well to the next level. Ole Miss is undefeated, Auburn is deep and talented, unranked Alabama is actually the highest-rated SEC team according to the predictive sites, and Texas A&M looms as a dangerous threat after its 15-3 showing in the conference last season.
According to one set of odds, Tennessee remains the team to beat.
This week’s SEC futures from DraftKings have the Vols at +260 — a little longer than 5-2 odds — to come out on top in the conference. High-flying transfer guard Dalton Knecht is Tennessee’s leading scorer at 15.6 points per game, and Rick Barnes’ squad is once again balanced. To illustrate the Vols’ depth, preseason All-SEC selection Santiago Vescovi — the team’s leading scorer last season — is sixth in that category at 8.0 points per game, the Vols playing at a high level despite his relatively slow start.
Auburn is No. 2 on the DraftKings board at +400 (4-1 odds) to win the SEC title. Bruce Pearl’s team is incredibly deep, with 10 players averaging more than 15 minutes per game and no one getting more than 23 minutes on the court. Former Morehead State star Johni Broome leads the Tigers with 15.8 points, 8.7 rebounds and 2.0 blocked shots per game.
Kentucky is next at +500 odds — perhaps a steal, given the Wildcats’ immense upside — and Texas A&M follows at +700, with reigning SEC champs Alabama after that at +750 and Florida sixth at +1000 (10-1 odds).
Alabama is No. 6 nationally in the KenPom ratings and No. 5 in the NCAA’s NET ratings, but the Crimson Tide have just an 8-5 record going into their SEC title defense. They’ve played a tough schedule, but the best win is a neutral-site victory over Oregon, and the Tide are 0-5 in games against Quad 1 competition. Alabama is ranked No. 1 nationally in offensive efficiency, according to KenPom, and it leads the country with 92.8 points per game.
Rounding up the rest of the league on the DraftKings board: Mississippi State (+1300), Arkansas (+1500), Ole Miss (+3500), Missouri (+5000), South Carolina (+8000), LSU (+10000), Georgia (+13000) and Vanderbilt (+30000).
SEC surprises
Compared to preseason expectations, Ole Miss has been the surprise of the SEC.
The Rebels — in their first season under Chris Beard, the SEC’s only new head coach — enter conference play as the league’s third-ranked team and one of only three undefeated programs nationally, joining Houston and James Madison on that list.
Ole Miss (13-0) has been led by senior guard Matthew Murrell (17.0 points), Auburn transfer Allen Flanigan (16.7 points, 7.5 rebounds and 3.3 assists) and Saint Peter’s transfer Jaylen Murray (14.7 points and 3.7 assists), with senior forward Jaemyn Brakefield adding 10.8 points per game and Western Kentucky transfer Jamarion Sharp blocking an SEC-best 2.5 shots per game. The Rebels are also shooting 40.3% from 3-point range — second in the SEC only to Kentucky (41.6%).
In the preseason SEC media vote, Ole Miss was picked to finish 10th. The Rebels still have much to prove, however, with a win over Memphis counting as their only victory against a KenPom top 50 team. Nine of their 13 wins have come against competition ranked outside the top 150 in those ratings.
The biggest disappointment has been Arkansas, which heads into league play with a 9-4 record and No. 58 KenPom rating (No. 8 in the SEC) after being picked to finish third in the preseason vote. There’s still lots of talent on the Razorbacks’ team, however, and reigning SEC player of the week Keyon Menifield Jr. — a transfer guard from Washington — scored 32 points in a win over UNC Wilmington last week, just his third game with the Hogs after missing the first 10 games of the season. Three of Arkansas’ losses have come to Memphis, North Carolina and Oklahoma — all ranked in the top 15 in the latest AP poll.
It’s worth noting that Arkansas started 1-5 in the SEC last season, then lost their final three league games to finish with an 8-10 conference mark before advancing to the Sweet 16 for the third consecutive NCAA Tournament.
How UK players rank in the SEC
A scan of the league’s statistical leaders includes a few Kentucky players.
Fifth-year guard Antonio Reeves leads the Wildcats with 19.0 points per game, second in the SEC only to Alabama senior Mark Sears, who leads the Tide’s high-octane offense with 19.3 points per game. Reeves is second in the league with 34 3-pointers and sixth with a 45.9% hit rate from 3-point range.
Fellow fifth-year player Tre Mitchell is eighth in the SEC with 7.1 rebounds per game and seventh with 1.3 blocks per game. Freshman guard Rob Dillingham is fourth in the league with 4.5 assists per game, and fellow super sub Reed Sheppard is sixth in that category with 4.3 assists per game.
Sheppard leads the SEC with 2.8 steals per game, and he has an amazing 2.2 steals-to-fouls ratio. The next-best number in that stat among players in the top 25 in steals is Mississippi State’s Dashawn Davis (1.4). Sheppard is also second in the SEC in 3-point percentage with a 56.0% mark — behind only Missouri’s Sean East II (56.8%).
The SEC leaders in each major statistical category:
Points: Mark Sears, Alabama (19.3), Antonio Reeves, Kentucky (19.0), Meechie Johnson, South Carolina (17.7), Wade Taylor IV, Texas A&M (17.6) and Sean East II, Missouri (17.0).
Rebounds: Jimmy Bell Jr., Mississippi State (9.2), Henry Coleman III, Texas A&M (9.1), Tyrese Samuel, Florida (8.8), Johni Broome, Auburn (8.7) and Andersson Garcia, Texas A&M (8.6).
Assists: Zyon Pullin, Florida (5.0), Wade Taylor IV, Texas A&M (4.5), Zakai Zeigler, Tennessee (4.5), Rob Dillingham, Kentucky (4.5), Ta’Lon Cooper, South Carolina (4.5).
Blocks: Jamarion Sharp, Ole Miss (2.5), Johni Broome, Auburn (2.0) and Aidan Shaw, Missouri (1.8).
Steals: Reed Sheppard, Kentucky (2.8), Cameron Matthews, Mississippi State (2.5) and Jordan Wright, LSU (2.3).
Reed Sheppard tops the SEC
The college basketball analytics website EvanMiya.com features player evaluation ratings for every team in the country, and Kentucky freshman Reed Sheppard is regarded as the SEC’s most effective player, by that measure.
Sheppard has a Bayesian Performance Rating (BPR) of 7.83, which is tops in the SEC, eighth in the country and first nationally among freshmen in college basketball. (Purdue’s Zach Edey, the odds-on favorite to repeat as national player of the year, has the highest BPR at 10.89.)
The top five players in the SEC, according to that metric, are Sheppard, Tennessee’s Josiah Jordan-James, Texas A&M’s Wade Taylor IV, Alabama’s Mark Sears and Alabama’s Aaron Estrada. (Taylor was picked as the SEC’s preseason player of the year.)
Sears is regarded as the league’s top offensive player, and Jordan-James is No. 1 on defense. Sheppard is sixth offensively and third defensively, according to those BPR metrics — the only SEC player to rank in the top 10 in both categories.
Other UK players in the top 50 in BPR in the SEC are Rob Dillingham (10th), Tre Mitchell (14th), Antonio Reeves (39th) and Justin Edwards (48th).
Bracketology
This week’s update to the ESPN Bracketology projections had nine SEC teams making the 2024 NCAA Tournament, which would be a record for the league if it actually pans out.
Tennessee leads the way as a 2 seed, and Kentucky is listed as a 3 seed (with Memphis as the opening site and Dallas as the Cats’ regional). The other SEC teams in the mock bracket are Auburn (5 seed), Alabama (6 seed), Texas A&M (6 seed), Ole Miss (8 seed), Florida (10 seed), Mississippi State (10 seed) and South Carolina (11 seed).
South Carolina is another surprise. The Gamecocks were picked to finish last in the league for the second consecutive season but are off to a 12-1 start, their only loss a five-point defeat at No. 16-ranked Clemson. South Carolina has zero victories over KenPom top 50 teams, however, and just two wins (Grand Canyon and Virginia Tech) over teams in the top 100.
The only five SEC teams left out of the latest Bracketology are Arkansas (58th in the KenPom ratings as of Wednesday), Georgia (86th), Missouri (90th), LSU (103rd) and Vanderbilt (208th).
Kentucky’s SEC outlook
The Wildcats take a 10-2 record into conference play. Where will the season go from there?
The KenPom game-by-game projections have Kentucky going 14-4 in the league, with all of those losses coming on the road to Texas A&M, Auburn, Mississippi State and Tennessee. (KenPom is also projecting that the Cats will beat No. 24 Gonzaga 85-80 on Feb. 10, the team’s only remaining non-conference game).
Such a finish would give Kentucky a 25-6 record heading into the postseason. UK had the same mark at the end of the 2021-22 regular season before earning a 2 seed in the NCAA Tournament but losing to Saint Peter’s in the first round.
The KenPom game-by-game projections have both Tennessee and Auburn going 16-2 in the SEC, with the Volunteers winning the only head-to-head matchup between the two teams (in Knoxville on Feb. 28).
Vanderbilt, by far the lowest-rated SEC team, is the projected loser in all 18 of its league games, according to KenPom, which gives the Dores a better than 20% chance at victory in just three matchups, all at home: Missouri (34%), Georgia (32%) and LSU (38%).
Final Four odds
No SEC team has advanced to the Final Four since Auburn beat Kentucky in overtime in the Elite Eight to make the 2019 edition. Will that drought end this season?
DraftKings is giving Kentucky the best shot to do it, placing the Cats seventh in Final Four odds at +450 (a 9-2 shot) to make it to the final week of the college basketball season in Phoenix.
Tennessee, which has never advanced past the Elite Eight, is tied for ninth with Duke at +600, with Alabama tied for 17th at +800 and Auburn in 18th at +900. Texas A&M (+1200) and Arkansas (+1300) are also in the top 25.
Kentucky is also seventh in the betting to win the national title at +1800, just ahead of Tennessee at +2200.
No. 1-ranked Purdue leads both lists, a +220 bet to make the Final Four and the +900 favorite to win the 2024 national title. Arizona (+1000), Houston (+1100), UConn (+1300), Marquette (+1400) and Kansas (+1400) are also listed above UK in the championship odds.
Saturday’s SEC schedule
Noon: Mississippi State at South Carolina (CBS-27)
12:30 p.m.: No. 6 Kentucky at Florida (ESPN)
1 p.m.: Georgia at Missouri (SEC Network)
2 p.m.: No. 25 Auburn at Arkansas (ESPN2)
3:30 p.m.: Alabama at Vanderbilt (SEC Network)
6 p.m.: No. 22 Ole Miss at No. 5 Tennessee (SEC Network)
8:30 p.m.: LSU at Texas A&M (SEC Network)
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