South Carolina is in the middle of a long break, but in honor of Aliyah Boston's birthday, we'll take a look around the rest of the SEC and the country.
The Gamecocks have company
South Carolina’s loss to NC State looks less and less troublesome as time goes on. Not only has the Wolfpack followed it up with a pair of blowout wins to reinforce it was no fluke, but the Gamecocks are in good company. Eleven teams in this week’s AP top 25 already have at least one loss (two have yet to play at all). Baylor, UCLA, and Maryland all have one loss. In the SEC alone, Arkansas (which beat Baylor), Mississippi State, and Tennessee join South Carolina with a loss.
Between the increased parity, lack of home-court advantage, and the general chaos of playing during a pandemic, it looks like there will be no sure things this season. That makes the Gamecocks’ tough non-conference slate more valuable, even though they won’t get a clean sweep. Few teams are going to be able to claim two top 25 wins without a bad loss.
So far, UConn seems to have the best strategy: the Huskies remain #3 and picked up two new first place votes despite not having played a single game due to COVID.
You get a waiver!
Texas A&M had a great weekend. Not only did the Aggies beat Texas, but the NCAA granted transfer point guard Alexis Morris’ waiver request. Morris, who transferred from Baylor to Rutgers to Texas A&M, gives the Aggies backcourt depth as they restock following Chennendy Carter’s departure. Morris scored six points against Texas and 12 in a midweek win over Arkansas-Little Rock. It’s a big pickup for Gary Blair, who has reshaped the Aggies with transfers and they look significantly improved from last year’s disappointing squad.
The NCAA has approved nearly 95% of the transfer waiver requests this year, which makes the handful of denials even more suspect than usual.
Rough waters
The hope was that Vanderbilt was ready to turn the corner in Stephanie White’s fifth season. Despite key injuries, the Commodores doubled their win total last season, and this season they were expecting to get Brinae Alexander back from injury and add Akira Levy, the freshman all-SEC point guard who sat out last season after transferring from MIssouri. Instead, Levy transferred again without ever playing a game, Alexander is playing but still working her way back, and Vanderbilt had to cancel its first three games due to COVID issues. Then sophomore guard Demi Washington, a former top-100 recruit who started 11 games last season, announced she was out for the season after developing myocarditis, an inflammation of the heart muscle that can be caused by COVID-19. It’s looking like it will be a long year in Nashville.
Who’s hot, who’s not?
Georgia is 5-0 and Alabama is 4-0, although neither team has played a ranked opponent. Kentucky is also 5-0 and has climbed into the top ten after a win over #13 Indiana. South Carolina and #10 Texas A&M are the only teams with two top 25 wins. #13 Arkansas lost to #12 Maryland, but has the best win of anybody, the 83-78 upset of #4 Baylor. The most impressive thing about the win was that the Razorbacks did it without shooting well from three. Instead it was defense and a steady procession to the free throw line that put them over the top.
We’ll call #12 Mississippi State room temperature. Nikki McCray has had to piece together a schedule on the fly, and as a result has played a couple of overmatched opponents. They lost to their only quality opponent though, falling in overtime at South Florida.
On the cold side, obviously, is Vanderbilt at 1-1. LSU is the SEC’s only winless team at 0-3. This was always going to be a down year for LSU after losing so much from last season’s team, and they have played a tough schedule (BYU, West Virginia, and UCF) to start the season.
Still no NCAA tournament announcement
It’s been almost a month since the NCAA announced its intention to hold the entire men’s tournament in Indianapolis so it could enact a sort of bubble. On the women’s side, the NCAA still has not announced a decision on how the tournament will look. The Final Four is scheduled for San Antonio, and the expectation is that the NCAA will try to hold the entire tournament there, but nothing has been said officially.
Waiting…
South Carolina has just one game over a 25-day span between the Iowa State game last weekend and the Ole Miss game to open SEC play on New Year’s Eve. That’s next Thursday’s game against Temple. That leaves plenty of time to work on flow.
As I understand it, there is no chance of adding a game either, even though the Gamecocks had the game against the Sooners canceled. The NCAA allowed teams to schedule five nonconference games plus a multi-team event. The Gamecocks still have their five games (College of Charleston, NC State, Iowa State, Temple, and UConn) and they played in their multi-team event, so they are set.
