The Southeastern Conference has one men’s basketball team – Kentucky, who else? – ranked in this week’s Associated Press Top 25, but the league is quite active on the projected NCAA tournament bubble.
ESPN analyst Joe Lunardi has six SEC teams pegged in his latest 68-team field, with Vanderbilt projected as a No. 11 seed and having to play in one of the four early games in Dayton, Ohio. Alabama is listed as Lunardi’s first team outside the NCAA tournament, so the SEC has a chance of sending seven representatives for the first time in its history.
“We don’t talk about that too much, because we can’t control what that bubble looks like,” Vandy coach Kevin Stallings said Monday. “I know it’s a thing of great interest to fans, but it’s not something we can control. We try to deal as much as we can in things we can control, and that’s how well we prepare today to play a good game tomorrow.”
Three weeks remain in the SEC’s regular season, with each team having to play six more times before the conference tournament at Nashville’s Bridgestone Arena.
Stallings’ Commodores improved to 15-10 overall and 7-5 in SEC play with Saturday’s 86-57 road shellacking of Auburn, which continued their rebounding from an 0-3 league start. Vanderbilt is not the hottest league team in NCAA bubble territory, however, with that distinction going to Alabama.