Recently I’ve developed a friendship and a rapport with an unapolgetic SEC zealot. He attended two of the conference’s institutions as a student and was under consideration to play football for a third. And considering how successful they’ve been in that sport, it’s understandable that he’s more than a bit defensive about them. And he does have facts on his side. More than half of this century’s national champions did so when they were part of the conference, and with its recent annexing of longtime powers Texas and Oklahoma you can technically tack two more onto to that total.
But I’m someone who tries to live in the moment, and as I’m quick to remind, the last two titles have been won by members of the Big Ten. And no, not recently annexed ones, either.
To be sure, its fans are acutely aware of that reality and will grudgingly concede there’s some work to do to reclaim that mantle. But they all can take some solace–and, trust me, my zealotic friend is regiment in doing so–that they’re actually now an even more dominant basketball conference, and may be on the verge of something historic.
As Andrew Hammond wrote on AL.com yesterday:
The school with the highest amount of Quad I wins picked up another in an amazing atmosphere inside Coleman Coliseum on Saturday. The Auburn Tigers victory over Alabama is a significant step in what the Tigers journey of potentially locking up the No. 1 overall seed in next month’s NCAA tournament.
While the Tide and Tigers were both getting set to tip off, the NCAA tournament selection committee announced their “Top 16 team reveal” earlier in the afternoon.
Auburn, Alabama, and Florida were all announced as No. 1 seeds, Auburn being named the top overall seed. If the season ended today, Auburn would be the top seed in the South (Atlanta), Alabama to the Midwest (Indianapolis), and Florida (San Francisco).
In total, six schools reached the Top 16, with Tennessee, Texas A&M and Kentucky rounding out the group. The selection committee has sent a clear message to the SEC that their success on the floor from start to finish this season, has been rewarded.
And lest one think that’s mere hometown bravado with commensurate grammar skills, some more learned and national voices are echoing those sentiments. Per
SEC basketball baptized another believer.
Jay Bilas, ESPN’s erudite college hoops voice, abandoned his east coast allegiance and saluted the SEC’s fiefdom.
“This is the most powerful basketball league, top to bottom, that there has ever been,” Bilas said Tuesday on the SEC Network. “I have never seen anything remotely like what we’re seeing in the Southeastern Conference this year.
Toppemeyer’s attempt at objectivity took a biased turn when he began to rattle off the accomplishments of the more compact Big East of 1985:
No. 8 seed Villanova became the O.G. Cinderella and won the national championship. Six of the Big East’s nine teams made the NCAA Tournament. Georgetown and St. John’s joined Villanova in a Final Four resembling a Big East Invitational that Memphis stumbled into. The Big East’s six qualifiers combined for an 18-5 March Madness record. Five Big East teams won at least one tournament game. Four reached the Sweet 16, including 11th-seeded Boston College, which upset No. 3 Duke along the way.
But in his quest to find a supportive voice, his quest ran into an unexpected and even more auspiced snag:
But, did Bilas suffer from recency bias anointing the SEC? I knew I needed to consult with Mike Tranghese, the former Big East commissioner who spent three decades in a conference synonymous with basketball. Tranghese later joined the SEC to help galvanize its hoops.
So, what about this idea of the SEC enjoying the best season ever for a conference? Well, Tranghese won’t refute it. He sides with Bilas. “I’ve never seen anything like it,” Tranghese said.
Which led to this dredging up of an even more impressive and more recent accomplishment of a much larger Big East, and perspective for how this year’s Sweet SEC-Teen might eclipse even that:
Fourteen of the league’s 16 teams assemble résumés worthy of tournament consideration.
Even if the SEC finishes a bid or two short of 14 qualifiers, it threatens to break the record of 11 NCAA bids, set by the 2011 Big East. That’s the only time any league reached double figures.
The SEC’s 14-2 record in the SEC/ACC challenge highlighted its evisceration of non-conference opponents. That interconference dominance formed the linchpin of Bilas’ argument. Case in point: SEC cellar dweller South Carolina beat Clemson, one of the ACC’s best teams.
And as CBS SPORTS Cameron Salerno & David Cobb collaboratively added:
The league got five of the top six spots in the bracket preview, with Tennessee and Texas A&M landing on the No. 2 seed line behind projected No. 1 seeds Auburn, Alabama and Florida. No other conference had more than one representative among the top eight. With Kentucky’s spot as a projected No. 3 seed, the SEC ended up with six of the 16.
And tonight, while exactly zero major professional league games will vie for attention, those projected top-seeded Gators will host Oklahoma in a first-ever conference game featuring these two former 21st century NCAA football champions. I know my friend will be watching, and you know I will be, too. I suspect a lot of other Big East loyalists will follow suit. Consider it a warmup for next month.
Courage…