Greetings, BBN!

The Kentucky Wildcats scored a sweet win over Tennessee on Tuesday to not only give them a season sweep of the Vols, who have been ranked as a top-10 team almost all season, but also improve them to 6-5 in the league and 17-7 overall.

Think about it: With these two underdog wins, Kentucky, instead of sitting at 4-7 and 15-9 and hanging around the bracket outskirts (though with other good wins to be sure), they are a top-15 team with confidence, five wins against top-10 opponents, and perhaps most importantly…don’t have the exact same record as 4-7 and 15-9 Arkansas!

The Cats’ next game is at Texas inside the Moody Center in Austin. Every one of these last seven games will be big if UK wants to get an SEC Tournament bye.

Here are your SEC standings as of February 14th:

SEC Basketball Standings

Notes:

• Arkansas was 0-5 in league play after a loss to Missouri on January 18th but has gone 4-2 since to start to climb back out of the hole. Their next two games are at #8 Texas A&M and at #1 Auburn. All they need is to go 1-1 in that stretch, and they’re seriously back in the tournament picture. Easier said than done.
• Oklahoma is 3-8 in the league, which is pretty lousy, but is still projected inside the bracket. Why? Because they entered league play undefeated with wins over Michigan, Louisville, and Arizona. They might be able to make the tournament as an at-large with one of the worst league records ever.
• We really might have 14 SEC teams make the bracket on Selection Sunday. The key things that’ll need to happen down the stretch for that are LSU and South Carolina losing out to everyone and Auburn/Alabama/Florida/Tennessee, and other top teams losing to bubble teams.
• #1 vs #2 on Saturday: Auburn at Alabama in the rare in-conference #1 vs #2 battle. The winner will have sole possession of first place.

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