Coaches say conference will bounce back

BIRMINGHAM, Ala.—Tennessee coach Bruce Pearl figures the Southeastern Conference was a little young and a little weaker than usual last season, so teams opted to lighten up their nonconference schedules.

“You combine those two things and all of a sudden the league’s RPI was what it was and it was sort of a double-edged sword that hurt us,” Pearl said. “We overreacted a little bit as a league last year. I think this year we’ll get more teams in (the NCAA tournament) than we’ve ever gotten in before.”

That was the consensus among coaches at SEC media day on Thursday, with many predicting the league would send seven or eight teams to the tournament.

The SEC had only three make the field last season, and Tennessee, LSU and Mississippi State combined for one win. Before that, the league had sent either five or six teams to the NCAA tournament 12 years running.

The SEC’s offseason mandate: Play tougher nonconference slates.

“If everybody did what the league said, which is improve your nonconference schedule, when we start playing each other we’re just going to make each other stronger and we’re going to get seven or eight teams in the NCAA tournament,” Kentucky coach John Calipari said.

Vanderbilt’s Kevin Stallings predicted that down year will be “a soon-forgotten memory.”

Part of the blame was on players leaving early for the NBA. This season, players like Kentucky’s Patrick Patterson, Tennessee’s Tyler Smith, Mississippi State’s Jarvis Varnado and South Carolina’s Devan Downey opted to return.

Pearl said he believes five SEC East teams are NCAA-worthy: South Carolina, Vanderbilt, Florida, Vanderbilt and Tennessee.

— PEARL & CALIPARI: Pearl and Calipari are now rivals for East Division titles, not just recruits.

Calipari felt territorial about his home city’s prospects when he was coaching at Memphis.

“He was trying to take over the state and I wasn’t going to let him,” the Kentucky coach said. “I conceded the rest of the state other than Memphis. But I publicly conceded. ‘You can have the rest of the state. You can have it all, but you’re not having anything to do in Memphis.’”

It’s why he didn’t want Memphis and Tennessee to have a home-and-home series. “Why would I let him come to Memphis?” Calipari asked.

Pearl, meanwhile, praised Calipari as “a superstar” but was hardly apologetic for getting players like J.P. Prince out of Memphis.

Calipari said he wouldn’t engage in some of Pearl’s attention-getting behavior.

“I’m never going to paint my body,” he said. “I’m not going to wear a white suit.”

Pearl had a lengthy pause when asked if there was anything Calipari had done that he wouldn’t.

“I don’t know all the things that he’s doing,” he said.

— OUTFOXED: Georgia coach Mark Fox found a way to get his players to take care of the little things - one sweaty, agonizing step at a time.

He got their attention in early September by making the Bulldogs run steps at Sanford Stadium.

“We had to touch every single step at Sanford Stadium, from the escalator to the nosebleed seats,” forward Albert Jackson recalled. “It took about 3 hours. When we finished, we haven’t had any trouble since. The guys will carry that story around a long time.”

Jackson said the problems weren’t anything major.

“Just a lot of small mishaps,” he said. “Guys being late for things. Guys missing appointments, being late for class, things that you can’t do to be successful. After that, we were issue-free.”

Fox also has rules about hair length, making Jackson cut his dread locks.

He replaced Felton after leading Nevada to three consecutive NCAA tournaments. Fox used to work for LSU coach Trent Johnson at Nevada.

Johnson won the SEC in his first year last season, and expects Fox to have success at Georgia, and the friendship to thrive.

“No matter how nasty we may get when we compete, we will still be the best of friends,” he said.

— SERIOUS GRANT: Alabama guard Mikhail Torrance sees plenty of similarities between new hoops coach Anthony Grant and football’s Nick Saban, from their manner to their winning backgrounds.

“Both of them are very serious,” the Crimson Tide guard said. “We joke all the time with coach Grant about how he never smiles. He didn’t crack a smile for the first two weeks after he got on campus. We got on him about that, and he finally did smile. But then he was right back to his serious face.”

Grant, a former VCU coach and Florida assistant, is switching Alabama to a more fast-paced style and pressure defense.

He said every player received a clean slate, even the four returning starters.

“We’ve got 12 freshmen,” Grant said. “It’s a competition every day we step on the court. You can’t really take any days for granted.”

He said the reception from players was positive from the start.

“The day I walked on campus, you got a feel from those guys that they were committed to what we were asking them to do,” Grant said. “I’m very fortunate we had inherited a group of guys that are great people, high character guys that want to do what’s being asked of them to do.”

— MSU WAITS: Rick Stansbury is focusing on the five starters he returns, not whether highly recruited freshman Renardo Sidney will be eligible.

The NCAA declared the 6-foot-10 Sidney “non-certified” in September and won’t revisit his eligibility case unless Sidney’s family makes available documents for a review of his amateur status.

“We don’t worry about, don’t plan on and don’t talk about nothing we don’t have,” said Stansbury, whose team won the SEC tournament last season. “Right now, we don’t have him, so that’s the way we prepare.”

The Bulldogs also won’t have 7-1 freshman John Riek from Sudan for the first nine games after the NCAA found he received unspecified benefits before enrolling in college.