UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Wednesday, March 20, 1996
5B
SEC's tournament success a surprise
By Paul Newberry
The Associated Press
Some basketball pundits question whether the Southeastern Conference — a.k.a. Kentucky and the 11 Dwarfs — deserved four teams in the NCAA tournament
Funny how eight consecute ive victories can change perceptions.
Obscured by the glare of Kentucky's brilliance most of the season, Mississippi State, Arkansas and Georgia have kept pace with the Wildcats in the postseason, giving the SEC four teams in the round of 16.
No other conference has done as well. The Big East, generally conceded to be the best basketball
league in the country, has three teams left in the field. The Atlantic Coast Conference, where the sport is a second religion along Tobacco Road, has only two.
And the Big Ten has been the Big Flop for the second year in a row, losing all five of its teams in the first two rounds.
"It would be great to see us all advance (to the Final Four)," Arkansas coach Nolan Richardson said. "Then maybe some of the East Coast writers, some of the East Coast announcers, would say, 'Hey, basketball is pretty good in the Southeastern Conference.'"
Richardson, whose 12th-seeded team advanced to the East Regional semifinals with a pair of upsets, said
"The Big Ten is great, the Big East is just the greatest conference, that's all you hear," he said. "They hardly ever say anything about the Southeastern Conference. Why? Because we're (supposedly) way down, Florida is playing football, Alabama is playing football."
television played a big role in how conferences were perceived.
SEC coaches, after complaining all year that there was more to their league than Kentucky, are loving every minute of the postseason prosperity.
"I guess we just had some lucky bounces in this tournament," said sarcastic Mississippi State coach Richard Williams, whose Bulldogs advanced to the Southeast Regional
semifinals. "Our league is so weak with Kentucky and the 11 dwarfs."
Kentucky, top seed in the Midwest, was expected to make it this far after becoming the first SEC team in 40 years to go perfect in league play (16-0). The Wildcats were so dominating, in fact, that people assumed the other conference teams were pushovers.
"You guys who haven't seen Kentucky play just can't realize how good they are," Williams said. "But the coaches in our league have known all along how good Kentucky is and how good our league is."
Stewart reflects on end of lackluster season
The Associated Press
TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — Alabama moved on to the third round of the National Invitation Tournament and ended one of Norm Steart's most disappointing seasons at Missouri
Stewart looked exasperated after the Crimson Tide's 72-49 second-round victory Monday night.
"Alabama completely outplayed us," he said. "Anybody got any questions?"
When no one spoke up, Stewart said, "That's good, nice to see you
guys," and got up.
"You're as slow reacting as my ballclub," he added.
Then the questions came, but there were too many to answer in one sitting. Missouri (18-15) had its worst season under Stewart since 1983-84, when the Tigers went 16-14.
Alabama (18-11) plays South Carolina in the tournament quarterfinals today. The winner goes to the semifinals in New York City.
The second-round game began ominously for Missouri with word
that one of the Tigers' towering twins, 7-foot-1 Simeon Haley, had been suspended. His twin brother, 7-foot Sammie Haley, was thoroughly outplayed by Alabama's Roy Rogers.
The 6-foot-10 center had 20 points, 13 rebounds and nine blocks. Haley had only 2 points.
Simeon Haley was suspended because he was arrested on St. Patrick's Day in Columbia, Mo., for disturbing the peace and damaging a car outside a bar, The Kansas City Star reported yesterday.
"We had a player who wanted to get his headlines for the last ball-game some other way than on the basketball court," Stewart said. "It's not anything of any great magnitude; not anything that you guys haven't done, in all probability. But we say if you want to get your headlines there, well then that's it for the day."
Missouri had four starters returning this season from a team that went 20-9 and made it to the second round of the NCAA tournament last year.
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