Basketball prestige isn’t a problem for Kentucky
NASHVILLE, Tenn. - Trying to keep up with Kentucky and boost the Southeastern Conference’s prestige by improving his program led Frank Martin nearly to 300 pounds.
The South Carolina coach stayed up late talking with assistants last season as the Gamecocks worked to reach the NCAA tournament.
He watched game film over and over. He made phone calls. He stopped working out. He ate junk food. He grew to 296 pounds.
All in the pursuit, “to bring fans back in the building, to recruit a better player, to be a better coach to help your present players,” he said at Wednesday’s Southeastern Conference media day in Bridgestone Arena.
The means were (somewhat) justified by the end – the Gamecocks set a school record with 24 wins and tied for third in the SEC. But South Carolina still didn’t make the NCAA tournament.
Only three teams from the SEC did. And that’s become the 300-ton burden the coaches of the league carry.
How can the SEC gain respect with so few NCAA tournament appearances? And how can teams advance to the NCAAs if nobody respects the SEC?
And does any of this matter to Kentucky, picked to finish first in the league and a consensus preseason top-five team.
“A lot of this is the perception of it, and I don’t know how you fight that,” Kentucky coach John Calipari said. “And to be honest with you, I’m so focused my program, I’m not here to give ideas. Somebody should be paid. How do we change this perception? But it’s not me.”
The Wildcats have rolled through the conference schedule undefeated before, most recently in 2014-15. Do stretches like that help Kentucky or hurt the league?
That’s up for debate, but the conference’s reputation hurt last season, when Kentucky shared the regular season title, won the conference tournament and was selected as a No. 4 seed in the Big Dance.
“We’re trying to get to where we can be in the same paragraph as Kentucky. It’s not my job to bring them down,” said Martin, who dropped 35 of those pounds this summer.
This season there appear to be landmines in the lower tier of the league.
Missouri has won only six SEC games in two seasons, but the program has tradition dating back to the Big 8. Rick Barnes at Tennessee, Ben Howland at Mississippi State and Bruce Pearl at Auburn (and LSU has talent, but yeah, you know, also the Johnny Jones Effect) have created teams that are tough outs while still projected to finish near the bottom of the conference.
“For all the so-called experts that think this league stinks, we’ve got a lot of coaches in this league that’s been to Final Fours, Elite Eights and so forth,” Martin said, ”and they get to this league and they don’t finish in the upper half of the league.”
Martin is right, the SEC is deeper. But that doesn’t mean it is better off.
“The league is better now than when I was at Tennessee, but it’s not better at the top of the league,” Pearl said. “And that’s how leagues are always judged: How good you are at the top.”
An inconsistent Arkansas and Billy Donovan leaving Florida has created instability at the top.
In terms of respect, there’s Kentucky and a major gap to everybody else.
“Kentucky is always going to be Kentucky,” Pearl said. “But when Billy was at Florida, they were always there. When I was at Tennessee we were always there. Then those three teams in the East helped bring Georgia up and Vanderbilt . . . ”