Florida guard Scottie Wilbekin hugs his coach Florida head coach Billy Donovan after receiving the MVP trophy from DEC Commissioner Mike Slive as SEC after the second half of an NCAA college basketball game against Kentucky in the Championship round of the Southeastern Conference men's tournament, Sunday, March 16, 2014, in Atlanta. Florida won 61-60. THRICE AS NICE
The SEC announced Thursday that each SEC men's basketball program would go from having one to three permanent twice-a-year foes. A list of the rivals: Alabama: LSU, Auburn, Mississippi State Arkansas: LSU, Texas A&M, Missouri Auburn: Alabama, Ole Miss, Georgia Florida: Kentucky, Georgia, Vanderbilt Georgia: South Carolina, Florida, Auburn Kentucky: Florida, Tennessee, Vanderbilt LSU: Texas A&M, Alabama, Arkansas Ole Miss: Mississippi State, Auburn, Missouri Mississippi State: Ole Miss, Alabama, South Carolina Missouri: Arkansas, Texas A&M, Ole Miss South Carolina: Georgia, Tennessee, Mississippi State Tennessee: Vanderbilt, Kentucky, South Carolina Texas A&M: LSU, Arkansas, Missouri Vanderbilt: Tennessee, Kentucky, Florida
The Southeastern Conference jumped up Thursday afternoon and grabbed a rebound filled with tradition.
After football topics dominated the first two days of the SEC spring meetings in Destin, Fla., basketball came to the forefront when the league announced it was increasing the number of permanent opponents in conference play from one to three. The SEC will continue to employ an 18-game league schedule, but matchups such as Kentucky-Tennessee, Alabama-LSU and Florida-Georgia are now guaranteed to take place twice every winter, beginning with the upcoming season.
"We felt like this would be something, based on the feedback we've heard particularly from the ADs and the head coaches, that would get some of these traditional opponents in everybody's arena on a more consistent basis," SEC associate commissioner Mark Whitworth said in a news conference. "It's always an interesting and lively discussion on how permanent opponents might be assigned and finalized in any sport, and I would say the same was true in men's basketball."
The additions of Missouri and Texas A&M to the conference in the summer of 2012 resulted in the SEC going to an 18-game schedule in which each team had one permanent rival and four rotating foes for home-and-home series. The success Florida enjoyed under former coach Billy Donovan enabled the Gators to get the coveted annual partnership with Kentucky, which left Tennessee and Vanderbilt playing the Wildcats twice annually just once every three years.
Tennessee played Kentucky twice during the 2012-13 season but only once in 2013-14, with that matchup occurring inside Lexington's Rupp Arena. That resulted in Kentucky not traveling to Knoxville for the first time since 1953.
The Volunteers are 67-151 lifetime against the Wildcats, but Kentucky has lost more times to Tennessee than to any other school. Tennessee and Vanderbilt became permanent annual partners three years ago, but the Volunteers now will play the Commodores, Kentucky and South Carolina twice each season.
Vanderbilt may have been the biggest winner Thursday, with the Commodores adding Kentucky and Florida to Tennessee as its permanent foes. The desire of Vandy coach Kevin Stallings to compete against the Wildcats was evident this past winter when he was asked whether Kentucky's quest for a 40-0 season would result in better atmospheres around the various SEC arenas.
"Gyms are more electric when they walk in anyway," Stallings said. "It wouldn't take an undefeated season for that to be any different."
The partnering three years ago maintained the twice-a-year matchups of Florida-Kentucky, Tennessee-Vanderbilt, Alabama-Auburn and Ole Miss-Mississippi State, but it resulted in Georgia pairing with South Carolina in a coupling that had no historical substance. Georgia's 2013-14 schedule contained only one meeting against Florida, Kentucky and Tennessee, with none of them in Athens.
With three twice-a-year rivals, Georgia will now face Auburn and Florida home and away each season in addition to South Carolina.
"I'm excited about each of our permanent SEC opponents," Bulldogs coach Mark Fox said. "We are assured of having some of our traditional rivals come to Stegeman Coliseum every year. I think our fans will be excited about knowing that we'll face those three teams in Athens each season."
The Auburn-Georgia basketball series is nearly as tight as the Deep South's oldest football rivalry between those schools, which is deadlocked at 55-55-8. The two were tied 90-90 in basketball meetings until the Bulldogs won in early March.
Whitworth said the 2015-16 men's basketball schedule will be revealed in August.
Eight-man crews
It wasn't all about basketball Thursday, as the SEC announced there would be eight-man officiating crews this football season. The league experimented last year with eight-man crews that included a center judge, who is stationed opposite the referee in the offensive backfield.
SEC coordinator of officials Steve Shaw said in a news conference that pushing or pulling a player off a pile will result in an unsportsmanlike-conduct penalty and that, in the wake of the NFL's "Deflategate," there will be a heightened awareness in the air pressure of the footballs.
Contact David Paschall at dpaschall@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6524.