ESPN's Dana O'Neil has an excellent article on the College Basketball Nation blog about the Connecticut Huskies trying to get out of their NCAA mandated punishment for low APR scores. Here are the details:

UConn has presented the NCAA with a plan that it thinks should mitigate its academic failings and allow the Huskies to overturn their 2013 NCAA tournament ban.

The plan includes cutting the number of games UConn will participate in, including exhibitions -- but not that boondoggle trip to the Paradise Jam tournament in the Virgin Islands -- forfeiting money earned at the 2013 Big East Tournament, and suggesting Jim Calhoun would bring current or former NBA players to inner-city schools to discuss the importance of academics.

There is more to it as well, but this is the main substance. UConn proposes these self-inflicted penalties replace the NCAA mandated ineligibility for the NCAA tournament in 2013. UConn's president, Susan Herbst, explained the justification for their request thus:

"On a personal level, and as an educator, I would be very sorry to see such harsh punishment of the outstanding young men on our current basketball team. I believe that it would be wrong to punish these students, caught in the fallout from a sudden passage of new rules -- rules that did not exist when they enrolled at UConn. That would be a fundamental injustice to our team and to our university.

More after the jump.

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Today's SEC Power Poll has some changes, but not at the top. The Kentucky Wildcats are still at the pinnacle of the conference, and Alabama, who had been second on my ballot for the last couple of weeks, drops significantly due to a couple of tough losses.

Meanwhile Florida, Vanderbilt, and Mississippi St. all improve due to either winning or a combination of winning enough while others a head of them lost. Two SEC teams had impressive wins over ranked non-conference foes, Arkansas at home over the Michigan Wolverines, and Tennessee at home over the Connecticut Huskies. Those rare non-conference wins in the middle of conference season really helped the SEC's profile, and has placed at least one of the two, Arkansas, near the bubble for consideration for an at-large bid.

To have any real chance, though, the Razorbacks much find a way to win away from Fayetteville, which they have yet to do this season. There are at least five more winnable games on Arkansas schedule, and if they can pull an upset or two, the Michigan win gives them the kind of credibility they need to sneak into the tournament.

My complete ballot follows the jump.

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It's time for the SEC Power Poll again, which is always published, once it's compiled, over at Garnet and Black Attack. This week's Power Poll features a few changes from last week. The biggest movers on my ballot are Tennessee, Mississippi, Auburn and Georgia.

Here's how the SEC fared against one another last week:

Join me past the jump for more.

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This is an awesome compilation of dunks, some pros, some high school, some college. A couple of current UK recruits are in here, like Shabazz Muhammad and Anthony Bennett. John Wall has several appearances as well.

Lots of fun, and some of them are just wild. Enjoy.

Of course, it's no real surprise to see UK on top of the first SEC Power Poll. After all, they are second in all the land in both polls, so who can gainsay this position?

For the rest of the league, as usual, we have some good teams, some bad teams, and some teams that have not been tested. Florida definitely has been tested, and they are more than worthy of #2. Alabama has also faced several quality opponents and have shown that they are worthy of a top tier spot in the SEC.

But so far, for my money, Mississippi St. has been a bit more convincing, so i'm sticking them at three and putting the Tide at #4. After that, it is pretty much a scrum for leavings and scrapings. I still can't buy into Auburn, because they haven't beaten a soul.

For the rest of the ballot, follow me past the jump.

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Yesterday's AP and Coaches polls had few surprises, but that's to be expected at this time of year when teams are cleaning up the last of their out-of-conference schedule. By now, most teams have played their marquee games for their non-con and are preparing for the grind of league play.

Two notable, but by no means exclusive, exceptions are the Louisville Cardinals and Kentucky Wildcats. Louisville has two very challenging games this week, one Big East contest at home in the Chicken Ranch and then, of course, the annual clash with Kentucky in Rupp Arena. No wonder Traitor Rick is so snappish these days.

After the jump, I have consolidated the AP and Coaches poll, and prepared an analysis for your edification.

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The newest AP Poll is out, and as you might expect, there was relatively little change at the top. The one major exception in the top ten is the Xavier Musketeers, who were drilled by visiting Oral Roberts at home. Xavier did have three major players suspended, including star point guard Tu Holloway.

But unlike the Ohio St. Buckeys, who lost to the Kansas Jayhawks on the road with star center Jared Sullinger out with an ailing back, the poll voters were not nearly as forgiving of Xavier's miscue. The Musketeers were pummeled by the poll voters, dropping 6 spots from #8 to #14.

Truth be told, Xavier was almost unquestionably over-valued from the beginning. Ken Pomeroy had them at #19 before the loss, and even though this is early in the season to over-rely on Kenmpom's ratings, the disparity can't be ignored. Pomeroy now has Xavier at 32, which probably understates them quite a bit. Realistically, they are probably overrated at 14 but definitely deserve to be in the top 25. Xavier is offensively challenged, but they defend pretty well.

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The SEC was expected to be significantly stronger this year than for the last several, and to some extent, we have seen that happen. But many, including me, expected the SEC to be among the top three conferences this year, maybe even among the top two. That hasn't happened.

At this point, Ken Pomeroy has the SEC at 4th among the Big Six Division I conferences, to wit:

This is kind of a mixed bag, overall. SEC teams have had some notable success, like the Kentucky Wildcats, Florida Gators, and Mississippi St. Bulldogs. With that said, the Vanderbilt Commodores and Alabama Crimson Tide have been slight disappointments with Vanderbilt trending toward the "major disappointment" level.

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