SEC Releases Basketball Schedule

The SEC released the conference basketball schedule for the 2021-22 season on Thursday. Vanderbilt will open conference play on January 4 with a road trip to Bud Walton Arena in Fayetteville, Arkansas, a place where nothing bad has ever happened.

That is the one game that Vanderbilt will play against Arkansas this season. (Is it me or does it feel like we always play them in Fayetteville?) Here’s the remainder of the Commodores’ conference schedule:

• January 8 vs. South Carolina
• January 11 vs. Kentucky
• January 15 at Georgia
• January 18 vs. Tennessee
• January 22 at Florida
• January 26 at South Carolina
• January 29 vs. Georgia
• February 2 at Kentucky
• February 5 vs. LSU
• February 8 vs. Missouri
• February 12 at Tennessee
• February 16 at Auburn
• February 19 vs. Texas A&M
• February 22 vs. Alabama
• February 26 at Mississippi State
• March 1 vs. Florida
• March 5 at Ole Miss

The opening to the conference schedule... well, it could be better. Arkansas is probably one of the better teams in the SEC, and Kentucky and Tennessee will be preseason Top 25 teams. The good news is that Vanderbilt faces Georgia and South Carolina — probably two of the league’s worst teams (I haven’t even started the legwork for my preseason preview series, but I do know that Georgia has had a rough offseason and South Carolina’s head coach surprisingly was not fired after last season) — twice each in January.

Going into February, road trips to Kentucky and Tennessee are sandwiched around home games against LSU and Missouri — two teams I can’t really get much of a read on (thanks, transfer portal!) A road trip to Auburn will be difficult; Texas A&M, like Georgia, had a bunch of players enter the transfer portal including their leading scorer. And then the closing kick is pretty rough, with Alabama probably being the preseason SEC favorite, Mississippi State quite likely an NCAA Tournament team, and Florida being Florida. The season ends with a road trip to Ole Miss.