SEC snub doesn’t end season

The conference basketball tournaments ended on Sunday, giving those of us who love this time of year just enough time to catch our breath before the NCAA, NIT and CBI affairs begin.

Much of the buzz in this part of the country has been the NCAA selection committee’s decision to invite just three teams from the Southeastern Conference. Regular-season champ LSU got in, as did conference tourney winner Mississippi State, with Tennessee garnering an at-large bid thanks mainly to its difficult non-league schedule. Left to NIT status were NCAA hopefuls Auburn, South Carolina, Florida and Kentucky.

To be honest, the level of play in the conference was indeed down a bit this year. But the thing that hurt the SEC so badly this season as opposed to others was the national media actually picked up on it. Despite Florida’s back-to-back titles earlier this decade, the SEC, when you get right down to it, has always been perceived as Kentucky and the rest of us. And for many years, that notion was correct.

But the conference evolved down through the decades. No, you’re not going to confuse an Auburn-Alabama game with Kansas-North Carolina, but the Tide and Tigers, like their SEC brethren, have been respectable because they recruit athletes than can run fast and jump high. That doesn’t mean they understand what a back-door cut is or how to execute a pick-and-roll (I haven’t seen one of those in the SEC in years).

Still, without question, the conference deserved at least one more bid to the Big Dance. I thought it should have belonged to Auburn. The Tigers were playing better at the end of the season than anyone in the country. Says who? No less an authority than Bob Knight, who expressed just such sentiments Sunday before the brackets were announced.

Instead, the Tigers host a first-round NIT matchup Wednesday night against Tennessee-Martin. Don’t laugh. The visitors are the Ohio Valley Conference regular-season champions and boast the nation’s second-leading scorer in Lester Hudson, who puts up 28.6 points per game. Get by that one, and as one of four No. 1 seeds, the Tigers could host three games before potentially ending up in New York City for the Final Four. It won’t be easy, for in their bracket are Georgetown, Virginia Tech and Tulsa, some big names in the sport.

Hey, it isn’t Detroit, site of the NCAA’s national semifinals, but at least the Tigers are still playing.

So is Troy. The Trojans were good enough at one stretch this year to be in the NCAA field of 65 themselves, but instead landed in the new College Basketball Invitational. Don Maestri’s crew will host the College of Charleston Wednesday evening as well. With only 16 teams earning a bid, the Trojans would get the winner of Richmond-St. John’s in round two. Also in the field are Stanford, Wichita State, Oregon State, Houston and UTEP — fairly tall cotton.

Alabama, at 18-14, was left out entirely, leaving the Tide to concentrate on finding a new coach to replace Mark Gottfried. That search is expected to intensify in the next few days and weeks.

Phil Paramore’s column appears Tuesday and Friday in The Dothan Eagle. He can be heard weekday mornings from 7-9 on AM 560 WOOF or at http://www.woofradio.com. He can be reached at the same website.