SEC basketball: Texas A&M crashes and Florida soars
Return of the Pearl
Before beating Kentucky, Tennessee lost to Auburn at home 94 – 84 in the always anticipated return of Bruce Pearl to Knoxville. The Tigers turned the rebounding tables on Tennessee, out rebounding the Volunteers 46 – 38. It was the Tiger’s 11th straight win.
Auburn then came home to defeat number 22 ranked Arkansas for a 12th straight win.
Arkansas also lost to Mississippi State on the road in week nine, 75 – 78. The Hawgs are 1 – 2 in conference, but both losses were on the road. As far as conference business is concerned, that’s not worrisome. On a more personal level, one of the losses was to arch-rival and hated in-state entity, Ole Miss.
The Rebels employed a 1-3-1 zone and 16 second half points from Breein Tyree to outscore Mississippi State 20 – 5 in the final eight minutes to secure the 64 – 58 win in Oxford.
To make things even better for the Rebels, and terrible for State. Ole Miss head coach Andy Kennedy became the 23rd head coach in SEC history to record 100 wins in SEC regular season games.