Kentucky still very much in the race in wide open SEC

Just two games separate first place from tenth place in the SEC, making it a wide open race for the top of the regular season standings.

John Calipari and the Kentucky Wildcats stumbled this week on the road against South Carolina, falling 79-62 and dropping to 4-2 in conference play. The loss exposed Kentucky's troubling defense, and was a reminder that - while this team is clearly talented enough to play with anyone in college basketball - they are still very young and have work to do, particularly on the defensive end of the floor.

However, after Auburn fell on the road at Alabama on Wednesday, the standings in the SEC prove this conference is as wide open as ever and Kentucky - like many other teams - is right in the thick of it.

Auburn and Alabama are now tied at 5-1 in SEC play, with Tennessee a half game behind them at 4-1. Kentucky, South Carolina, and Georgia are all one game back from first with 4-2 records, while four teams are behind them at 3-3: Ole Miss, Florida, Texas A&M, and LSU.

While Mississippi State and Arkansas are 2-4 and 1-5, respectively, they are still teams capable of at least playing spoiler and potentially moving up in the standings, leaving winless Vanderbilt and Missouri in the cellar.

The depth of this conference is perhaps as good as it has ever been, which will almost certainly result in more losses for the top tier teams as they aren't able to coast into victories as often as they might have done in previous years.

For Kentucky, that means losses like the one they took this week in Columbia may not be as detrimental to their hopes of winning the regular season as some feel - although they can't exactly make it a trend. 

The path forward remains a difficult one for the 'Cats, with two games left against Tennessee, one at Auburn, one vs. Ole Miss, and one each at LSU and Mississippi State. However, even if they finish the regular season with four or five losses that may still be enough to finish in first place - and the experience this young team will gain from those battles is incredibly valuable in March.