SEC Talk

I wonder if Kentucky hoops coach John Calipari has been whistling “Everything Old is New Again” around the Commonwealth lately. Because the news from the NCAA regarding his tenure at Memphis must surely be leading him down Memory Lane.

Why? Seems Calipari’s former team, the University of Memphis has been served a “Notice of Allegations” by the NCAA, which prominently mention violations while Calipari was coach. Specifically, the charge reads that a student-athlete committed:

“knowing fraudulence or misconduct in connection with his entrance examination. Specifically, on (date redacted) an unknown individual completed (name redacted)’s SAT, with (name redacted)’s knowledge, which was used to obtain his admission into the institution” for the 2007-08 season.

In other words, (name redacted) had someone take his SAT exam in his place.

(Speculation has run amok that the offending player is Derrick Rose, who played only one season at Memphis.)

Now, if the charges are proved true, Memphis will be forced to forfeit the 38 wins they recorded that season (an NCAA record), and vacate the team’s NCAA Final Four appearance from that season.

Calipari has been down this path before. At UMass, his program was forced to forfeit wins as a result of NCAA violations. And, get this, UMass had to vacate the team’s Final Four appearance!

That’s right, folks. John Calipari is one of a precious few who have managed to take two schools to the NCAA Final Four, but he may become the first coach to have both of his team’s Final Four appearances vacated!

Now, lest you think the Bluegrass State is all tied up in knots over this news, fear not. Every blue-blooded Cats fan has rushed to the defense of Coach Cal. As they point out, he was never tied to the mess at UMass, nor has he been specifically named in the charges at Memphis. But coaches rarely are. They insulate themselves to the degree that they are borderline bullet-proof.

But if it happens on their watch, how can they claim to be that out of touch with the goings on of the program.

I’m not saying Calipari is guilty of anything, or of knowing anything. But at two coaching stops, his programs have been hit with major charges. Now he is in the pressure cooker known as Kentucky basketball. Winning isn’t enough. You have to win big. You have to win titles.

I hope that UK isn’t picking up the remnants of the Calipari years down the road.

Ok, I realize that just the other day I wrote about how things were slowing down in the SEC (Winding Down). After today’s events, I humbly take back that statement. In fact, if today’s news is any indicator, the off-season may be more interesting than anticipated.

Today let’s start with the goings on at the SEC coaches meetings, being held this week in Destin, Fla. Commissioner Mike Slive is none too happy with a few of the coaches. We all knew that Slive was unhappy, and was going to address the situation. But I think we underestimated just how unhappy the big guy was.

“I had all 5-foot-9, 175 pounds of me into every word I said. I can tell you that,” Slive said.

Reports say that Slive made eye contact with everyone in the room, forgoing the podium to walk around and make sure everyone was paying attention. And according to witnesses, Slive got the attention he wanted.

Perhaps the final nail in the coffin came just the day before, when South Carolina’s Steve Spurrier was told by a reporter, jokingly, that Lane Kiffin of Tennessee said he had never gotten an apology from the Old Ball Coach after Spurrier appeared to accuse Kiffin of illegally calling recruits prior to being hired at UT.

According to reports, Spurrier wheeled around and looked at Kiffin, who was waiting for an elevator, and said, “I didn’t accuse you of cheating. What I said was, ‘Was it permissible to call recruits before you were announced head coach and had taken the [recruiting] test?’ Now, you took the test online, and I didn’t even know you could do that. I thought you had to take the test on campus … and then start calling [recruits].”

Kiffin didn’t respond, although witnesses said he was red as a beet. Then the elevator doors opened and Kiffin, Spurrier, Kentucky’s Rich Brooks and Auburn’s Gene Chizik all piled in. As the doors closed, Spurrier again reiterated than he never said that Kiffin cheated.

Now let’s jump back to December. Here are Spurrier’s exact words:

“You’re supposed to have passed the NCAA test and be on board, I think. But maybe he was just calling him as an interested observer. I don’t know. But technically to be able to recruit you’re supposed to pass the NCAA test.

“I know when I was hired, after the press conference I took the test to qualify you to be a recruiter. I hadn’t taken it in three or four years. At that time I could start making calls. I don’t know if he was permitted to make that call or not. You’ll have to ask somebody else.”

Spurrier might not have come right out and screamed “CHEATER” at Kiffin, but I think the inference is pretty plain.

And, isn’t Steve Spurrier the same coach who enjoyed taking shots at other coaches while he was winning all those titles at Florida? Seems like age has thinned the Ole Ball Coach’s skin a bit.

At any rate, Spurrier marked his territory and attempted to reclaim alpha coach status in the SEC by allowing the media to goad him into confronting Kiffin.

The NCAA baseball tournament field was announced Monday, and eight teams from the SEC heard their names called.

Florida, LSU and Ole Miss all received top regional seeds, and will host. Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia and South Carolina earned #2 seeds, while Vanderbilt notched a #3 seed.

LSU earned the #3 seed overall nationally, while Florida is the 8th seed.

The NCAA baseball tournament field is made up of 64 teams. The top seeds are: #1 Texas (41-13-1), #2 Cal State Fullerton (42-14), #3 LSU (46-16), #4 North Carolina (42-16), #5 Arizona St. (44-12), #6 UC Irvine (43-13), #7 Oklahoma (41-18) and #8 Florida (39-20).

Listed below is the list of SEC teams in the tournament, the location of the regional and other teams in that regional:

Alabama (#2 Seed at Clemson Regional)
[#1 Clemson, #3 Oklahoma State, #4 Tennessee Tech]

Arkansas (#2 Seed at Oklahoma Regional)
[#1 Oklahoma, #3 Washington State, #4 Wichita State]

Florida (#1 Seed [No. 8 National Seed] in Gainesville Regional)
[#2 Miami (Fla.), #3 Jacksonville, #4 Bethune-Cookman]

Georgia (#2 Seed at Florida State Regional)
[#1Florida State, #3 Ohio State, #4 Marist]

LSU (#1 Seed [No. 3 National Seed] in Baton Rouge Regional)
[#2 Minnesota, #3 Baylor, #4 Southern University]

Ole Miss (#1 Seed in Oxford Regional)
[#2 Missouri, #3 Western Kentucky, #4 Monmouth]

South Carolina (#2 Seed at East Carolina Regional)
[#1 East Carolina, #3 George Mason, #4 Binghamton]

Vanderbilt (#3 Seed at Louisville Regional)
[#1 Louisville, #2 Middle Tennessee State, #4 Indiana]

Schedule for NCAA Regionals • 5/29-6/1

Friday, May 29
Game 1* No. 2 Seed vs. No. 3 Seed
Game 2* No. 1 Seed vs. No. 4 Seed

Saturday, May 30
Game 3 Loser Game 1 vs. Loser Game 2
Game 4 Winner Game 1 vs. Winner Game 2

Sunday, May 31
Game 5 Winner game 3 vs. Loser Game 4
Game 6 Winner Game 4 vs. Winner Game 5

Monday, June 1
Game 7 Winner Game 4 vs. Winner Game 6 (If necessary)

I’ve been inundated by many of you asking which coaches are on Twitter, and what their addresses are, so your wish is my command.

First, however, you will need to set up a Twitter account. It’s free, it’s easy. Then you just do a search using Find People to add friends, relatives or NBA stars (Everyone in the NBA has a Twitter page. Everybody. Not sure how they find the time to play.)

Anyway, here are the Twitter acounts for SEC football and basketball coaches. You can add them to your “follow” list on Twitter, and get updates on your cell phone (your carrier’s standard text message fees apply). Or, you can just get the updates when you log into Twitter and save yourself from getting all those texts.

As you see, not all coaches are on Twitter (yet). To the best of my ability, I verified the Twitterer listed is actually the coach, not some imposter. And at South Carolina, Head Coach Steve Spurrier doesn’t twitter… he has turned those duties over to his son, Steve Jr., and I have listed his account.

I’ve also listed the number of “followers” for each coach, which is the number of people signed up to get each and ever tweet a coach puts out. John Calipari of UK outdistances his fellow coaches by a mile, with 93,279 followers. UK football coach Rich Brooks is second overall and leads all football coaches with 7,273 followers.

ALABAMA
Football: NickSabanALA (1,561 followers)
Basketball: Anthony Grant isn’t on Twitter

ARKANSAS
Football: bobbypetrino (358 followers)
Basketball: johnpelphrey (111 followers)

AUBURN
Football: Gene Chizik isn’t on Twitter
Basketball: Jeff Lebo isn’t on Twitter

FLORIDA
Football: CoachUrbanMeyer (3,864 followers)
Basketball: Billy Donovan isn’t on Twitter

GEORGIA
Football: MarkRicht (4,917 followers)
Basketball: Mark Fox isn’t on Twitter

KENTUCKY
Football: UKCoachBrooks (7,273 followers)
Basketball: UKCoachCalipari (93,279 followers)

LSU
Football: LSUCoachMiles (3,971 followers)
Basketball: Trent Johnson isn’t on Twitter

MISSISSIPPI
Football: HoustonNuttOM (155 followers)
Basketball: Andy Kennedy isn’t on Twitter

MISSISSIPPI STATE
Football: CoachDanMullen (1,035 followers)
Basketball: Rick Stansbury isn’t on Twitter

SOUTH CAROLINA
Football: coachspurrier (136 followers) *NOTE: This is not Head Coach Steve Spurrier, but his son Steve, also on the coaching staff at USC.
Basketball: Darrin Horn isn’t on Twitter

TENNESSEE
Football: LaneKiffinUT (6,615 followers)
Basketball: CoachBrucePearl (2,471 followers)

VANDERBILT
Football: Bobby Johnson isn’t on Twitter
Basketball: Kevin Stallings isn’t on Twitter

Things are starting to slow down in SEC-land these days. Spring sports are in their final days, campuses are emptying out, students are heading for the beach, most sports are in the “off” season… meaning they only work out six days a week instead of seven.

Catching up with what’s going on:

BASEBALL:
Second-ranked LSU (46-16) took the SEC baseball crown on Sunday, beating Vandy 6-2. Their reward? Hosting one of the NCAA’s 16 regionals this week. Other SEC schools hosting regionals are Florida and Ole Miss. The only conference hosting more regionals is the ACC, with four.

LSU’s Mikie Mahtook, freshman centerfielder, took MVP honors. Mahtook hit .454 with three rbi’s, two runs and 17 put outs.

The remainder of the NCAA tournament field will be announced Monday.

SOFTBALL:
The top-ranked Florida women’s softball team continues to cruise in the NCAA tournament. The Gators beat Cal in the Gainesville Super-Regional to advance to Oklahoma City, host of the Women’s College World Series. The Gators will take on 9th-seed Arizona on Thursday, May 28.

MEN’S TENNIS:
Tennessee’s 2nd-ranked doubles tennis team of John-Patrick Smith and Davey Sandgren have advanced to Monday’s NCAA title match, after defeating Auburn’s Tim Puetz and Alexey Tsyrenov, 6-4 6-2, in a match marked by a two hour rain delay midway through the contest. Smith and Sandgren will take on Virginia’s Dominic Inglot and Michael Shabaz Monday at 11 a.m. in the title match.

The duo is seeking to become Tennessee’s first national championship doubles team since 1980, when Rodney Harmon and Mel Purcell brought the title back to Knoxville.

Say one thing for Lane Kiffin, the Univ. of Tennessee’s new football coach. He sure has livened things up in Knoxville.

First, he went after the ole’ ball coach Steve Spurrier, then accused Florida’s Urban Meyer of cheating. Then he took things up a notch and insulted an entire town, Pahokee, Fla., resulting in Kiffin and his assistants being banned from recruiting there (they have all since kissed and made up).

And now he has twittered his way into a minor NCAA infraction.

Twitter is a social messaging utility that allows users to “tweet” a sentence or two about what they are doing. Additionally, it allows others to follow each other by subscribing to get updates when they are posted. Twitter has become incredibly popular in the sports world. In fact, Shaq has more than one million followers.

Coaches have latched onto the service as a way to stay in touch with recruits as well as fans. Being the dutiful blogger I am, I have subscribed to every SEC coach that twitters (and that is most of them). Lest you think there is anything exciting being posted, I assure you there isn’t. Lots of weather reports (it’s a gorgeous day here in Oxford/Tuscaloosa/Gainesville/Athens/etc.) and booster club reports (ya’ll come on out!).

Nothing exactly newsworthy coming out of those posts… that is until Lane Kiffin signed on.

As I was in my car the other day, my phone beeped. I checked and had a “tweet” from Kiffin. It said:

“It’s a beautiful day in Knoxville, Tennessee today. I was so exited to hear that J.C. Copeland committed to play for the Vols today!”

My first thought? I’ve just witnessed an NCAA violation.

You see, coaches and representatives of a university cannot comment on an athlete by name until he or she has signed the national letter of intent. Kiffin had a similar run-in last February, when he commented on prospect Bryce Brown on a radio broadcast. He had been reprimanded. So we know that he knows the rule.

Yet here he was again, commenting on a recruit.

AD Mike Hamilton immediately backtracked on behalf of his coach. He released a statement claiming that the post had been “made by a newly hired assistant to Kiffin who didn’t consult UT’s compliance office before making the post.”

Ok, that alone is troubling. What I’m hearing is that a grad assistant in his first day or two on the job was allowed to send a message that went to thousands of fans, media and recruits, in the name of the head coach.

The infraction, which Tennessee self-reported, is secondary, and no punitive action is expected. But it leaves me to wonder: with all that has occurred in Knoxville since Phillip Fulmer was unceremoniously shown the door, what’s next?

One thing is for sure… Life with Lane won’t be boring

Hi folks, welcome to the new SEC Talk Online blog!

The site has been on hiatus for awhile… a long while… but we are back and hope to be better than ever!

I am the new writer here. My name is Linda, and yes, I am a woman. But don’t let my gender scare you off! I have worked in athletics at several major universities, and cut my teeth on SEC football as a child. Just within my own family, we cover more than half of the SEC, which makes for some interesting talk over Thanksgiving turkey.

My husband, God bless him, comes out of the Big 10. To his credit, after only one season, um, I mean year of marriage, he discovered what we here in the south know:

The Southeastern Conference Rules!

So as we get going with this blog, we’ll cover wins and losses of course. We’ll keep up with stats, and who leads what category. But we’ll also stay on top of what’s happening, from coaches who twitter (are you listening, Lane Kiffin?) to recruiting to players off the field.

Leave your comments, tell me what you want to read about, or a topic you want to know more about. We’re here… all SEC, all the time!