Michael Cohen
College Football and College Basketball Writer
What began as a record-setting week for the SEC, which sent 14 teams to this year’s Big Dance, the most in NCAA Tournament history, continued to slip toward disappointment on Friday afternoon when No. 8 Mississippi State fell short against No. 9 Baylor in the first game of Day 2. The Bulldogs’ 75-72 loss dropped the SEC to 4-4 in March Madness and invited questions about the true strength of the league relative to the rest of college basketball. That No. 2 Alabama barely survived against No. 15 Robert Morris shortly thereafter — with the Crimson Tide only pulling away in the final minutes for a 90-81 victory — provided even more fuel to critics.
While there’s nothing inherently catastrophic about losing an 8 vs. 9 matchup, the nature of Mississippi State’s defeat to Baylor sounded a few alarm bells. The Bulldogs surrendered 15 offensive rebounds, which led to 22 second-chance points for the Bears, with each extra possession further deflating Mississippi State’s cause. Such a glaring difference in physicality between a middle-of-the-pack Big 12 squad in Baylor and Mississippi State, winners of five games against fellow SEC teams in the NCAA Tournament, is something to watch in the coming days.
On Thursday, the SEC teams produced a relatively disappointing showing that began to raise concerns. The league scored wins over Alabama State, Kansas, Wofford and Yale — three of which are from outside the power conferences — but suffered losses to Gonzaga, Xavier and Drake, a team that starts four former Division II players under first-year head coach Ben McCollum. The relative ease with which Drake pulled away from No. 6 Missouri for a controlled 67-57 victory was eye-catching in the wake of the Tigers’ wins over Florida and Alabama during the regular season.
There could be several more losses on the horizon for the SEC throughout the remainder of Friday’s action. Ninth-seeded Oklahoma, which takes on eighth-seeded UConn; 10th-seeded Vanderbilt, which will play seventh-seeded Saint Mary’s; and sixth-seeded Ole Miss, which faces 11th-seeded North Carolina, are all betting underdogs in their respective matchups.
Michael Cohen covers college football and college basketball for FOX Sports. Follow him on Twitter @Michael_Cohen13.
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