Thursday, March 04, 1999
SEC coaches agree: tourney wide open
But Auburn, UK draw attention
The Associated Press
ATLANTA — If expectations are met, this year's Southeastern Conference tournament will be an upset-filled affair in which two of as many as eight teams could reach Sunday's finals.
“It's wide-open,” Arkansas Coach Nolan Richardson said. “It's so wide open there's probably never been as wide-open a (SEC) tournament. By far it's the most "wide-openest.' “
If form holds, either Kentucky or Auburn will win the tournament in rather routine fashion.
Dominance of the SEC tournament this decade makes Kentucky an obvious choice. Similar dominance of the SEC regular-season race makes Auburn an equally solid pick.
Kentucky has won 20 of 21 SEC tournament games in the 1990s. UK's average margin of victory in those games is 20.5 points.
“Auburn has got to have an edge,” Richardson said. “And because Kentucky has won so many of them, they should also have an edge.”
Perhaps proving the unpredictabilty of tournament play, Kentucky's best team of the 1990s suffered the lone SEC tournament loss. A spectacular individual performance by Mississippi State's Dontae' Jones beat the Cats 84-73 in the 1996 finals. Three weekends later, UK won the national championship.
The upset nature of tournament play gives Auburn coach Cliff Ellis pause. With the addition of Player of the Year Chris Porter, Auburn ruled the regular season. The Tigers led the league in victory margin (plus 14.8), and that counts two losses. Only two of Auburn's 14 SEC victories came by less than 11 points. Eleven came by 15 or more points.
“Personally, I think Auburn is the prohibitive favorite,” South Carolina coach Eddie Fogler said. “They've proven they are the best. It will take a great effort for somebody to knock them out.”
Ellis expects such a a great effort to be expended.
“It's not you attacking one team,” he said. “You're attacking 11 teams.”
AWARDS: Chris Porter and Cliff Ellis led a remarkable turnaround at Auburn. And they were rewarded for their achievements.
The Associated Press named Porter as its player and newcomer of the year in the Southeastern Conference, while Ellis was a unanimous choice for coach of the year after the Tigers won their first league championship in 39 seasons.
Kentucky's Scott Padgett earned second-team all-SEC honors. The senior forward, who leads UK in scoring at 11.9 points per game, was UK's only SEC all-star.
Porter, a 6-foot-7 junior-college transfer, was the only major addition to a team that went 16-14 the previous season, including a 7-9 mark in the SEC.
Porter ranked sixth in the conference in scoring with an average of 16.48 points per game and fourth in rebounding at 8.8.
Sports Stories
Play ball! Reds open spring schedule today
Time to step it up
Reds hope Cepeda boosts Perez
REDS NOTEBOOK
Bearcats' woes solved or masked?
C-USA ROUNDUP
Huggins repeats as Coach of Year
XU's last-second heroes? Uh, zero
A-10 ROUNDUP
Lumpkin vows to make new start
Bengals: Ball is in Ball's court
