South Carolina

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. - South Carolina's Devan Downey was named the SEC Player of the Week after averaging 20.5 points, 4.0 assists and 3.5 steals in leading the Gamecocks to wins over Vanderbilt and at Kentucky in league play last week. Downey tallied 18 points, while adding four assists and a team-best three steals in the Gamecock victory over Vanderbilt on Wednesday. Downey backed that up with one of his top performances of the season in Carolina's upset of then-No. 24 Kentucky at Rupp Arena on Saturday when he tallied 23 points, four assists and four steals in the victory.

Thank goodness for Tim Tebow.

 

The legend-in-the-making Florida QB led the Gators to the national championship last Thursday, their second in three years and the third straight title for an SEC school. Tebow’s performance erased much of a mediocre SEC season in most people’s minds, and gave the conference bragging rights once again. The only bad thing is…Tebow doesn’t play basketball as well.

 

Cheerleader of the Day

Thanks to our friends over at Icon Sports Media, CHN has access to thousands of great college & NBA basketball photos.  Each day, along with our daily Big Picture, we'll be featuring a Cheerleader (or Dancer) of the Day.

 

SOUTH CAROLINA

Happy New Year! The first day of 2009 offers up some intriguing matchups on the gridiron, but given the recent phenomena of spreading out bowl games over an entire month New Year's Day can seem a bit barren to some. Bragging rights for conferences are on the line as well, most notably in a couple of matchups between the Big Ten and SEC along with a traditional showdown in Pasadena. The league/team with the most to lose: Virginia Tech, champions of the ACC.

I'll admit it - I'm biased toward the SEC. I grew up rooting for Florida, thanks to my Dad, who is a Gator alum. I myself went to UK, and I have friends who attended Georgia, Auburn, Tennessee, Alabama, Vanderbilt and South Carolina. It's been embedded into me my entire life that the SEC is simply the greatest conference in the country, and no one else measures up.

That's why it's so painful for me to admit that maybe, just maybe, if I take a step back and look objectively, if I just allow myself to say it, if I want to be truthful....

Nick Calathes (Florida)

Devan Downey (South Carolina)

Jodie Meeks (Kentucky)

AJ Ogilvy (Vanderbilt)

Patrick Patterson (Kentucky)

Tyler Smith (Tennessee)

Other (Marcus Thornton, Chris Warren, etc)

With a plethora of talented players no longer in the league (Marreese Speights, Joe Crawford, Chris Lofton, Shan Foster, Richard Hendrix, Anthony Randolph), some new talented players to get excited about (Scotty Hopson, JaMychal Green, Darius Miller), some familiar faces returning to action (Ronald Steele, Tasmin Mitchell) and two fresh faces on the sidelines (Trent Johnson and Darrin Horn), the SEC is going to be mighty interesting this season.

SEC Player Grades

 

 

This is the last of six annual fantasy stats projections of BCS conference starters. The lineups are based on the Starting Fives series of articles released two weeks ago, along with a couple of changes due to recent developments.