Within the Southeastern Conference men’s basketball standings, 14 teams headed into Tuesday night’s games residing in three separate but far from equally important groups as they pertain to potential NCAA tournament invitations.
There were the four teams currently best positioned for SEC tourney byes into the quarterfinals, that quartet answering to top-ranked Tennessee, No. 19 LSU, No. 7 Kentucky and South Carolina.
There were the six teams somewhat beneath them: suddenly pedestrian Ole Miss, rebounding Mississippi State, Alabama, Florida, perplexing Auburn and Arkansas.
Then there were the four flops, three of them owning one league win apiece prior to Tuesday (Missouri, Georgia and Texas A&M) with Vanderbilt a winless 0-6 in SEC play before Tuesday night’s visit from UK.
But with a dozen conference games still to be played by each, including Tuesday’s contests (which were completed too late to consider in this column), which teams would appear to have a scheduling advantage moving forward?