Kentucky Leads SEC's Return From Woe

When John Calipari told an interviewer at the SEC's basketball media day last month, "These fans -- I'm saying this lovingly -- are nuts,'' he was being very narrow-minded. In the SEC, this season and the last few, why single out the fans?

The idea has been thrown around that the arrival of Calipari (and his history) at Kentucky (and its history) is going to suck all the attention toward them and away from the rest of the conference. Truth be told, this might not be a bad thing. The SEC might not lead Division I conferences in dysfunction, but it's near the top. Only three seasons ago, it was celebrating one of its programs, Florida, completing the rare feat of repeating as national champion. But literally from the moment the Gators made that official by winning the 2007 title in Atlanta -- remember, coach Billy Donovan spent much of the postgame interviews fending off speculation that he was going to take over at, yes, Kentucky -- the SEC has been the home of constant chaos.

Half of the league's 12 schools have changed coaches since then, three this season; two newcomers, at Alabama and Georgia, follow coaches who departed in midseason, making Kentucky, which fired Billy Gillispie and hired Calipari, an isle of calm by comparison.

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Two of the SEC's highest-profile recruits -- John Wall at Kentucky (again?) and Renardo Sidney at Mississippi State -- have been entangled in eligibility disputes. Arkansas is suddenly dealing with sexual-assault allegations involving its players that it thought had been resolved earlier this summer. Bruce Pearl at Tennessee blurted out a comment that invoked the Ku Klux Klan and had to apologize.

As for Donovan and Florida, both appear to still be victims of the "Curse of the Magic'': the Gators have not made the NCAA tournament since Donovan, in the summer of 2007, apologetically bailed on an NBA head-coaching job in Orlando after five days. Chances are slim that the curse will lift this season; in fact, his team likely won't even match the record of Alabama, led by new head coach and former Donovan assistant Anthony Grant, whose chance to coach at Florida was torpedoed by Donovan's flip-flop.

Of course, the bottom line on the recent madness was that the SEC was shut out, relatively speaking, from the field of 65: three got in, including Mississippi State, whose conference tournament win knocked at least one of its brethren off the bubble. (Jeff Lebo at Auburn made it clear that he's still not crazy about his 22-win team, with 10 conference victories, being left out.) None of the three survived the first weekend.

No wonder there is such a hunger for change and yearning for fresh starts. And there is very little griping about the diminished reputation of the SEC -- there is a lot more reason to see a bounce-back, despite the turmoil still enveloping some programs. Ole Miss's Andy Kennedy predicted that the SEC would have "three, four, five top-25 teams every week.''

"I think that this year, we can go back to teams in the conference competing for the No. 1 national seed,'' said Arkansas coach John Pelphrey, whose own team, which free-fell into the West basement last season, will be one of the more improved teams in the league.

The team most likely to re-emerge on the national radar is, no surprise, Kentucky. Calipari's baggage aside, there simply is too much talent returning (Patrick Patterson is the consensus best player in the league, and had fans breathing a sigh of relief when he decided not to go pro), too much coming in (Wall leads a group that stampeded to Lexington after Calipari was hired) and a coach that's already affecting a culture shift.

"Everything is different -- practices, coaching style, day in and day out,'' Patterson said. "There is a lot more enthusiasm, anticipation and competitiveness this year. It is a drastic change.''

Not exactly a ringing endorsement for the Gillispie regime, but everybody concerned is working overtime to distance themselves from the past. The same is going on at Georgia with Mark Fox on board and with Grant at Alabama, also working with a deluge of new players. The rest of the expected powers -- primarily Tennessee, Mississippi State and South Carolina -- have much more returning talent. Pearl was talking about his own team and the competition when he said: "The league is going to beat up on each other, and I think the team that handles adversity and handles success the best is the team that is going to win the championship.''

The reason for all the buoyant outlooks is directly related to the recent nosedive: there was a talent void in the seasons since the Florida two-peat that took a while to be replenished. This year, the league not only has a wave of talented freshmen, eight of the 16 players picked for the two preseason all-SEC teams are seniors and four others are juniors; several, such as Patterson, Devan Downey and Dominique Archie of South Carolina, Tyler Smith of Tennessee and Jarvis Varnado of Mississippi State, bypassed the NBA draft to come back.

And for what it's worth, Wall will miss only one regular-season game. Sidney's status, though, remains up in the air.

The depth of the conference itself is in dispute -- Georgia and Florida could be particularly gruesome -- but it would be a major upset if the best of the SEC cannot go head-to-head with the elite of the other conferences this year. The seismic shakeups all over the league will, ironically, end up returning it to normal.

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Predictions

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

West
1. Mississippi State
2. Mississippi
3. LSU
4. Arkansas
5. Alabama
6. Auburn

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All-SEC

Patrick Patterson, Kentucky; Tyler Smith, Tennessee; Tasmin Mitchell, LSU; Devan Downey, South Carolina; John Wall, Kentucky. Player of the Year: Patterson.

Top 5 TV Games: Arkansas vs. Louisville at St. Louis, Nov. 17; North Carolina at Kentucky, Dec. 5; Kentucky vs. Connecticut at New York, Dec. 9; Louisville at Kentucky, Jan. 2; Kentucky at Tennessee, Feb. 11.

Most Likely to Surprise: Arkansas. As long as the Hogs avoid any more trouble with the law. They're deeper, more experienced, just better than they were last year (they can't be worse).

Most Likely to Disappoint: Tennessee. Only because during Pearl's tenure, the Vols have underachieved more often than they should have. They're loaded this year.

Most Important to His Team: Jarvis Varnado, Mississippi State. There simply isn't anyone who can do what the 6-9 shot-blocking machine does, or change a game the way he does. If the Sidney drama is ongoing all season, his return will mean success or failure for the Bulldogs.

Best Shooter: Tay Waller, Auburn. Beats out a wide field of mid-sized players who like to hoist it up.

Top Rebounder: Patterson. All that talent around him will probably enhance his numbers and impact. A 20-10 player waiting to happen.

Mot Underrated: Rotnei Clarke, Arkansas. If his team fulfills the biggest-surprise prediction, this sophomore guard will be a big reason.

Biggest Shoes to Fill: Kenny Boynton, Florida. Entrusted with replacing Nick Calathes, the Gators' only real marquee player, and with matching the hype of his own arrival.

Best Newcomer: Wall. Or haven't you seen the YouTube dunk on Jerry Stackhouse from last summer?

Hottest Coaching Seat: Kentucky. Too easy.