Now that the NCAA Regionals are over, the Southeastern Conference men's basketball league has so far compiled a scintillating 11-1 NCAA playoff record with member schools claiming half of the final four teams.
Though barely getting into the tournament as a play-in team, Tennessee ripped off three victories before losing by 2 to Michigan when their last second shot didn't fall. Kentucky and Florida won their respective regionals though in completely different fashion.
Florida won all their games by comparatively safe margins while Kentucky won three down to the wire nail-biting, barn-burning, last-second victories. Florida beat Albany 67-55, Pittsburgh 61-45, and UCLA 79-68, before taking down the Cinderella team Dayton Flyers 62-52. They will play Connecticut in the first NCAA semifinal game on April 5 in Texas.
Kentucky, which started the year as the No. 1-ranked team in the country before suffering a number of losses including a pair of defeats at the hands of the Razorbacks, had a much tougher row to hoe to get to the Final Four. They received a rather unbelievable No. 8 seed in the Midwest Region and pulled out a close 56-49 win over a good Kansas State team in the first round. They then had to play the second ranked and only undefeated team in the country in round two in Wichita State. Kentucky prevailed 78-76 when the Shockers last shot didn't fall. In the third round, the Wildcats took on the defending national champion Louisville and won another hard fought contest, this time 74-69. Finally, they met Michigan for the Regional Championship and won it when they hit a 3-pointer with less than 3 seconds left for as 75-72 win. They will play Wisconsin April 5 in the second semifinal matchup.
There is a good chance that this year's NCAA final may be an all-SEC affair. Although Kentucky hasn't beaten Florida in the three times they have played this season, if they meet a fourth time who knows. They have lost to the Gators by 10 and by 19 during the season but only by 1 at the SEC tournament.
If the two SEC reps make it to the final game, then the league will have had put together a 13-1 record not counting that final game where, of course, there would be no other non-league foe to vanquish. The lone loss handed to an SEC team was avenged by another SEC team so that even that one almost doesn't hardly count. That may be homer but it is homer logical.
The SEC -- a super conference?
Lots of folks, especially those of the Big 12 persuasion (you know, our neighbors to the west and northwest), hate to hear folks refer to the SEC as the biggest or best collegiate athletic conference in the country, but shucks, evidence keeps piling up.
Of course, I wonder if Big 12 people have ever stopped to count their teams. There are only 10 teams in it. But hey, the Affordable Care Act is doubling everyone's health costs, the Patriot Act is undermining the U.S. Constitution, up is down, right is left, so maybe it is just the sign of the times.
Football has long been dominated by the SEC with the long streak of national football championships not broken until the final seconds of this year's game. But, as always, a SEC team was in it. The SEC has been and will likely only be the only league that got two schools into the title game for the football championship.
This past winter, the SEC had the top three ranked indoor men's track teams with the SEC also having six of the top eight women's teams. In gymnastics, SEC teams occupied four of the best six positions in America, and in baseball, eight to 10 baseball teams are usually somewhere in the rankings with the SEC far and away the nation's leader in baseball attendance.
When most folks stop and ponder questions like these and who has the best conference, etc, and so on, most will say "who cares" and rightly so. But sports are fun to talk about, especially when your team is winning.
Former Hog/Wildcat/Cowboy and Shiloh coach and ESPN analyst back to Arkansas
Current and popular basketball analyst Jimmy Dykes has been hired to take over the University of Arkansas women's basketball program.
He played for Eddie Sutton at Arkansas in the 1980s, then served as an assistant coach for him at the University of Kentucky and Oklahoma State University. He also had stints as an assistant coach at Arkansas State, Appalachian State and the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. For a time, he even worked as an NBA scout for Seattle.
Coming back closer to home in the '90s, he got a job as an athletic director at Shiloh School in Springdale, also coaching cross country to a state championship. While there he left to work for ABC and ESPN as a color commentator and game analyst for college basketball broadcasts. From an almost unnoticed beginning, he became one of the most respected and knowledgeable men in the broadcasting business.
Though highly successful as a sportscaster, nominated for an Emmy last season by his network, Dykes shied away from residing in metro areas and has lived in Johnson for the past several years. Dykes was born in Tulsa but grew up in the Ozarks, attending Fayetteville High School where he graduated in 1985.
Though never having coached women basketball players before, Dykes has one of the sharpest, most analytical minds around. The UA has had bad luck with women's basketball, hiring several coaches who didn't work out and running one off who did (Gary Blair who won a national title at Texas A&M later) and decided to do something out of the box in hiring Dykes.
Dykes remarked that he wasn't looking to leave his job with ABC as he still had two years left on a very good contract but that he did have a great love for the University. Ironically, while most coaches retire from their job to spend more time with their family, Dykes got the job to spend more time with his family. His ESPN job had him traveling all over the United States covering games from coast to coast. With most Razorback games at home, he will actually be home more now. With a 9-year-old daughter, that's a good thing.
I have been around Mr. Dykes a few times, never met him, but he seems to be supremely classy. I think he may be just the guy to get the women's program going. Every year a ton of talent leaves the state for other programs as they don't see this team going anywhere. He has the personality, the intelligence and the dedication to get the Lady 'Backs in the hunt. Not many men, maybe no man, would have traded jobs the way he did, and I hope the athletes that he inherits realize how blessed they are.
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Editor's note: John McGee is an award-winning columnist and sports writer. He is the art teacher at Pea Ridge elementary schools, coaches elementary track and writes a regular sports column for The Times. He can be contacted through The Times at [email protected].
Editorial on 04/02/2014