As South Carolina basketball fights for SEC title, conference suspends 1st place rival's player for fighting

South Carolina basketball fans are hoping that their team's fight for the SEC championship can receive new life with a bounce-back win this Saturday on the road against the Ole Miss Rebels. The team currently in 1st place in the conference is worried about a different type of fight.

Late in the week, the SEC announced that it was suspending Alabama forward Mohamed Wague for one game after an incident in the Crimson Tide's game against the Florida Gators.

Wague appeared to throw a punch or two at Florida big man Alex Condon as the two were going to the floor after a rebound. He was not assessed a foul on the play. In fact, Condon was the only player called for an infraction. Wague, an athletic forward who transferred in from West Virginia and has been in and out of the rotation this season, did not play after the incident and will be out this weekend, as well.

In the league rules for disciplining confrontational behavior, a minor "fighting act" results in a 1-game suspension, and that is exactly the punishment the league handed down on Wague. He will miss the Tide's Saturday game against the Kentucky Wildcats as Nate Oats' team tries to hold on to their 1st place spot in the conference.

Rick Barnes and the Tennessee Volunteers are 1 game back of the Crimson Tide, and the Auburn Tigers and South Carolina Gamecocks are 2 games behind Alabama in the SEC standings. The Kentucky Wildcats are 3 games back, but with the opportunity to play a short-handed Alabama squad on Saturday and another game against Tennessee remaining, the 'Cats still feel like they have a chance to sneak into the 1st spot.

The top-4 teams in the regular-season SEC standings receive a double-bye at the SEC Tournament in Nashville in March.