Three weeks into the exciting Southeastern Conference schedule and the standings, as usual, are flopping back and forth like a beached whale.
Auburn (15-4, 4-2 SEC) sits atop the West standings with Ole Miss and Mississippi State on its heels. The battle for supremacy in the Magnolia State highlights this week’s SEC games.
The Rebels (12-4, 3-2) host in-state rival Mississippi State Wednesday in the first of two games against the Bulldogs (12-4, 2-3), who barely escaped with a victory against LSU Saturday after holding a 65-53 lead with less than a minute remaining in the contest.
Ole Miss ranks first in the league allowing only 56.1 points per game, and Mississippi State ranks first in outrebounding opponents by nearly nine rebounds per game.
Previously unbeaten and top-ranked Alabama (12-5, 2-4) has fallen victim to a three-game losing streak as it plummets in the national rankings.
Kentucky ended the Crimson Tide’s school-record 28-game home winning streak Saturday with a 63-46 victory in Tuscaloosa, Ala.
Kentucky (15-3, 5-0) on the other hand is in the midst of a nine-game win streak, the longest for the Wildcats since their 13-game streak that began at the end of their 1998 national title run and lasted four games into the next season. The Wildcats are reaping the benefits of Keith Bogans’ decision to return for his senior campaign. He averages 16.8 points per game.
But the longest winning streak in the conference belongs to Florida. And the Gators (16-2, 5-0) — the only other undefeated team in the league — take their 12-game winning streak into Baton Rouge tonight, where the Tigers are 11-1 this year.
Florida and LSU (12-5, 1-4) are first and second in the conference in scoring margin respectively, but the Tigers are slumping and have dropped their last three.
Florida and Kentucky each are one game ahead of Georgia in the East Division. The Bulldogs (12-4, 4-1) lead the league in points per game with 81.8 and have two of the top five scorers in the conference in Jarvis Hayes — 18.1 points per game — and Ezra Williams –18 points per game. Guard Rashad Wallace leads the league with 5.75 assists per game.
Georgia tries its luck at Vanderbilt Wednesday. The Commodores (8-8, 1-4) are on a three-game losing streak and hope to turn things around so they do not get buried in the depths of the SEC cellar.
Down the road from Nashville, Tenn., Wednesday, the University of Tennessee (9-6, 2-3) welcomes South Carolina (7-8, 1-4) into Knoxville in a battle for the right to stay above Vanderbilt in the standings. Ron Slay dominates opposing teams, averaging 21.5 points and 7.8 rebounds per game, but the rest of the Volunteers have not followed his example.