SEC coach? Don't get comfy...

The Southeastern Conference is fed up with this basketball bashing. It's time for some new blood!

Mark Gottfried and Alabama parted ways Monday. Georgia and Dennis Felton did the same Thursday (an SEC tourney title bought Felton an extra half-season). At this rate, Auburn's Jeff Lebo may need to get his résumé ready. As expected, SEC coaches expressed concern about the moves.

With Felton and Gottfried gone, that leaves the SEC with two first-year coaches (LSU's Trent Johnson and South Carolina's Darrin Horn) and two second-year coaches (Kentucky's Billy Gillispie and Arkansas' John Pelphrey) patrolling the sidelines.

Yes, half the conference's schools have turned to new coaches in the last two years. That's some turnover. Sure, it still has some long-time coaches in Billy Donovan (now in his 13^th season), Rick Stansbury (11^th at Miss State) and Kevin Stallings (in his 10^th at Vandy), but that's it.

If it results in better basketball remains to be seen.

The Big 12 did the same thing recently, with Colorado, K-State, Oklahoma State, Texas A&M and Texas Tech all hiring coaches in the last two years. (For good measure, Iowa State, Missouri, Nebraska and Oklahoma all have coaches now in their third season.) Only the Wildcats got an instant boost, but that was because of Michael Beasley, not Frank Martin's coaching.

If Georgia and 'Bama are smart, they'll seek out a hungry young assistant who can recruit and surround himself with an experienced assistant or two to handle the in-game duties.

The Bulldogs are already eyeing VCU coach Anthony Grant, who was Donovan's top assistant at Florida for several years. 'Bama would be smart to do the same. (Especially since Tubby Smith says he's not a candidate.)

More news and notes from Thursday

• The fallout from last night's Wake Forest-Duke thriller is pretty simple, says our guy, Ken Davis: The Deacs are headed toward a No. 1 seed in the Big Dance.
• Also, Jeff Teague is the league's best player.
• Houston's Tom Penders says ESPN doctored the footage of Aubrey Coleman stepping on Chase Budinger's face. He's more than a little miffed. "I feel it was intentionally done to harm Aubrey, to make him look like he is a real villain. In other words, he was tried and convicted without a jury, without a defense," he said.
• Oklahoma's Blake Griffin is pulling away as the Player of the Year favorite. At least according to this.
• You can't give Stephen Curry that shot.
• John Gasaway gives us 10 names to know (complete with a pithy graf on the guys you already do know).
• None of those names included freshmen. This year's class ain't much. Yeah. We've been spoiled by the recent classes.
• SI.com's Seth Davis details 12 teams and what's missing in their quest to be an NCAA champ.
• Great story from ESPN's Dana O'Neil (my fave college hoops feature writer) on Pittsburgh's DeJuan Blair. Seems like everyone's been using Obama as a backdrop in stories right now, but this one works well.
• Finally, this story's a kick. Wake Forest forward James Johnson (hometown shout-out to Cheyenne East!) is not a man to mess with. Sure, he's 6-foot-8 and 235 pounds, but that's not as imposing as his seven world karate titles and nine national titles. Yeah, go read it, courtesy of Luke Winn.