It's Monday morning, so it's time for me to let you all know what's been on my mind the past few days.
It's almost all going to be basketball stuff today.
BASKETBALL THOUGHTS
1. The SEC is very, very good.
We've talked about that a lot, as has everyone else. But man, that game against Auburn and looking through the rest of Saturday's conference openers really made it clear. And winning any games on the road is going to be really tough. (There will be an Around the SEC story coming tomorrow. I think I'm going to do two a week for basketball so they can just be one game per team. But I find it really helps me keep up with everything going on).
Home teams went 7-1 Saturday with Vanderbilt beating LSU as the only road victory.
In the home wins, the average margin of victory was 20.14 points, including Mississippi State winning by 35, Alabama beating previously-unbeaten and No. 12 Oklahoma by 28, Tennessee beating No. 23 Arkansas by 24 and Texas A&M beating Texas by 20.
I do think there's some separation between Auburn/Tennessee and the teams after them, but Florida, Alabama, Kentucky and Mississippi State are close behind.
Saturday was just more and more proof that the next couple of months are going to be a gauntlet for Mizzou and the Tigers are going to have to do everything they can to get the job done at home, because opportunities to pick up a road win are going to be few and far between.
2. A key to getting the job done at home though will be the best players not all slumping at the same time.
Saturday was about as poor a performance from the Tiger Starting 5 as possible. ...
