Bulldogs get late start

The Georgia Bulldogs again will be playing opposite Jay Leno and David Letterman at the Southeastern Conference men's basketball tournament.

Georgia finished sixth in the SEC East for a fifth time in six years and for a third straight time in an even-numbered year, which results in a Thursday night tip at 9:45 EST. The Bulldogs (13-16, 5-11) will face Arkansas (14-17, 7-9) in the final opening-round game in Nashville.

"It is a late start," Georgia coach Mark Fox said Monday. "We'll be spending some time watching some of those earlier games on television, and obviously we'll get some film work in and a light shoot-around somewhere. You have to have some maturity in managing your mental approach in order to peak at the right time.

"It's a later start than I think we've had all year."

The league flips its tournament starting times each year, as Georgia finished sixth in the East last year but lost in the afternoon to Mississippi State.

In 2006, the sixth-seeded Bulldogs played Arkansas in Nashville and were bounced out 80-67. Two years ago in Atlanta, however, the Bulldogs upset Ole Miss 97-95 in overtime in what became the first step to an amazing run to the SEC tournament title.

The Bulldogs did not play the Friday after defeating the Rebels because of a tornado that damaged the Georgia Dome. They upset Kentucky and Mississippi State on Saturday at Georgia Tech's Alexander Coliseum before topping Arkansas on Sunday.

Georgia was saddled with the sixth seed this past Saturday, when South Carolina clinched the fifth spot with an upset at Vanderbilt. The Bulldogs lost at LSU, which entered with a 1-14 league mark.

"Our team has had some real peaks, and I think what we have battled is just being consistent," Fox said.

East beasts, indeed

Kentucky, Vanderbilt, Tennessee and Florida are the top four seeds out of the East and likely are the only SEC teams that would receive NCAA tournament invitations if the bids went out today. That quartet went 24-0 against teams from the West.

"I think there's an explanation for it, and I think the explanation is that those were probably the four best teams," Vandy coach Kevin Stallings. "I don't think it holds any weight as it pertains to this tournament, because, as is proven every day in college basketball, the best team doesn't always win."

Mississippi State is the top seed in the West but fell behind Tennessee 17-0 last Saturday in Starkville.

"You can go back and maybe break that down as far as the amount of home and away games and where they were played, but you can't hide the fact they were 24-0," MSU coach Rick Stansbury said. "There were some close games involved in some of those situations, but that's where it is."

Towering Cousins

Arkansas coach John Pelphrey on why he would vote Kentucky freshman forward DeMarcus Cousins over UK freshman guard John Wall as SEC player of the year: "He's dominating. Somebody compared him to Shaq, and I don't know if that's fair to anybody, but he's the next closest thing. Physically one man can't play him, and that's a problem."