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College basketball rankings: Alabama and Tennessee separating themselves from rest of SEC pack – CBS Sports
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Alabama beat Mississippi State 66-63 on Wednesday while Tennessee blasted Georgia 70-41. That means the Crimson Tide and Volunteers remain alone in first and second, respectively, in the SEC standings and seem to be separating from the rest of the league — at least as it pertains to national relevance and NCAA Tournament seeding.
Both Alabama and Tennessee are projected top-two seeds for the NCAA Tournament, according to CBS Sports Bracketology expert Jerry Palm. I would agree with that sentiment — evidence being that I have Alabama No. 2 and Tennessee No. 8 in Thursday morning’s updated CBS Sports Top 25 And 1 daily college basketball rankings. No other SEC school is in my top 20, however, nor better than a 6-seed in Palm’s latest projected bracket, all of which suggests there’s a sizable gap between Alabama/Tennessee and everybody else in the conference.
Does that mean the SEC is a two-team race? Not necessarily.
Texas A&M won at Auburn 79-63 late Wednesday — which dropped the Tigers to 22nd in the Top 25 And 1 — to improve to 6-1 in the league and remain tied in the loss column with Tennessee (7-1) and just one game back in the loss column of Alabama (8-0). So the Aggies could be a factor — especially if they continue playing the way they’ve been playing during this nine-game stretch in which they’re 8-1 and performing like a top-10 team, according to BartTorvik.com. That acknowledged, KenPom.com still projects Alabama and Tennessee to ultimately finish at least three games ahead of everybody else in the SEC.
As for additional movement in Thursday’s Top 25 And 1, Xavier advanced three spots to No. 11 following Wednesday’s 82-79 win at UConn, which caused Virginia, TCU and Baylor to drop one spot each, no fault of their own. UConn is down to No. 26 after losing for the sixth time in eight outings. That’s obviously not good — but the Huskies are still 7-5 in the first two quadrants with four Q1 wins and only one loss outside of Q1. In other words, UConn’s body of work remains better than, or at least comparable to, any other team I could put at No. 26 — among them candidates like Rutgers, New Mexico and Nevada.
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