The basketball season is not over, yet. I know that most of us we're ready to pack it up, except for whatever interest we might be able to generate in an NIT run. We got our hopes up watching the Florida and Ole Miss games, only to have them dashed by poor play and SEC-style home cookin'.

Well bless my stars and rattle my bones, the dance chatter around this team hasn't died, yet. Unbelievably, the prognosticators still have us in the picture after UK lost at UGA tonight. StatSheet.com actually has us in as a 12 seed. They emphasize that we have not suffered a single blowout loss this year and that 6 of our losses were by less than 6 points.

Perhaps even more astonishing is that Joe Lunardi has us in his first four out. Lunardi has ranked us relatively low for most of the season but now has us staunchly in the picture along with Ole Miss (also first four out) and Tennessee (in his last four in). This means that in Lunardi's mind (insert joke), one or more of these teams could clearly play their way in based on the quality of their conference tourney appearance.

Don't abandon ship, yet. Basketball is a strange sport that rewards teams that can play well in the last handful of games in the season.