Men’s basketball SEC Power Rankings for Jan. 8: Vols in top half

The Mississippi State Bulldogs have only played two conference games so far. Also, despite their 13-2 record, they are No. 66 in the RPI thanks to their horrendous No. 226 ranked strength of schedule. That’s a problem and worthy of criticism.

However, Ben Howland’s team still beat the Arkansas Razorbacks, which is enough for us right now to put this team ahead of them in our SEC Power Rankings. Still, they followed that up with a close loss to the Ole Miss Rebels on the road.

Simply put, we don’t know anything about this team yet. Like many teams in the conference, they like to go 10-deep and don’t have anybody averaging 30 minutes a game. That includes leading scorer Quinndary Weatherspoon and dominant forward Aric Holman, who isn’t nearly as aggressive as he should be.

But the real question is this: Has Mississippi State been going so deep because of its easy schedule, or do they really plan to run that many guys throughout the grueling stretch of the SEC season?

They have clearly shortened the rotation significantly in their first two conference games. So now we find out if that’s they’re real plan.

The real tests for the Bulldogs begin this week. They face the Florida Gators on the road and then host the red-hot Auburn Tigers. Even a split garners them a ton more respect. Until then, we’re keeping them here. They are just barely in the bottom half of our SEC Power Rankings, edged out by a rival who just beat them.