SEC Player of the Week – Mississippi State’s Quinndary Weatherspoon, a 6-foot-4, 205-pound sophomore guard from Canton, Miss., averaged 19 points, 3.5 rebounds, 1.5 assists and 1.5 steals in wins at Arkansas and against Texas A&M. Weatherspoon scored a game-high 25 point to give Mississippi State its first win at Arkansas since 2011. He was 8-11 shooting, 6-7 from 3-point range. He then scored all 13 of his points in the second half to rally the Bulldogs past Texas A&M, draining three key 3-pointers in the frame. He’s totaled 20-plus points six times this season, all MSU victories.
SEC Freshman of the Week – Kentucky’s Malik Monk, a 6-foot-3, 200-pound guard from Lepanto, Ark., Monk averaged 21 points and 3.5 assists in wins at Vanderbilt and over Auburn. He had 18 points against the Commodores and a game-high 24 vs. Auburn He’s reached double-figure scoring in every game this season, and topped 20 or more points 10 times He clinched the win at Vanderbilt by scoring UK’s final six points – including four free throws in the final 17 seconds to seal the win.
· Six SEC teams are in the top 50 of the Jan. 16 NCAA RPI with Florida leading the way at No. 3 while Kentucky is 7th, South Carolina 26th, Arkansas 41st, Georgia 42nd and Ole Miss 45th.
· Eleven SEC schools rank in the top 100 of the NCAA’s RPI (as of Jan. 16). It is the third-highest total of Top 100 teams of any conference.
· Kentucky is ranked No. 5 in this week’s Associated Press poll while Florida is 19th and South Carolina is 24th.
· Road teams are 19-15 (55.9 percent) in league play this season.
· South Carolina is 4-0 since senior guard Sindarius Thornwell returned from suspension and is 10-0 on the season with him in the lineup. The Gamecocks are averaging 73.1 ppg with him in the lineup while they managed just 65.0 ppg vs. Division I teams without him.
· UK’s Malik Monk is leading the SEC in scoring at 21.8 ppg. He is attempting to become just the fourth freshman to lead the league in scoring and the first since LSU’s Chris Jackson averaged 30.2 ppg in 1989.
· Vanderbilt’s Riley LaChance is shooting 55.6 percent (35-63) from 3-point range.
· Auburn head coach Bruce Pearl needs one win for 500 in his career. He enters the week with a 499-191 record in 22 years.
· Ole Miss’s Sebastian Saiz ranks sixth in the NCAA statistics with 11.7 rebounds per game and sixth with 11 double-doubles on the season.
· Kentucky ranks second nationally with 93.6 ppg and a scoring margin of 21.9 ppg.
· Florida is 4-0 at the newly renovated Florida Exactech Arena/O’Connell Center. The Gators opened the season by playing their first 11 games at eight different locations before playing their first home game on December 21.
· UK’s Isaiah Briscoe and De’Aaron Fox are the first teammates to record triple-doubles in the same season in SEC history. Fox recorded just the second triple-double in school history when he had 14 points, 11 rebounds and 10 assists against Arizona St. on Nov. 28. Briscoe had 19 points, 10 rebounds and 11 assists at Ole Miss on Dec. 29.
· According to KenPom.com, seven SEC teams rank among the 60 most inexperienced teams in the nation. Mississippi State ranks 350 out of 351 teams in terms of experience while Kentucky is 347th, Missouri 338th, Tennessee 334th, LSU 333rd, Auburn 325th and Texas A&M 293rd (as of Jan. 16).