“Put up again thy sword into his place; for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword.”
You’ll find that line in the King James Version of the Gospel of Matthew. You might know it better in its more colloquial form: “live by the sword, die by the sword.” And when it comes to the SEC’s two revenue sports, you can change the word “sword” to “reputation.”
With the SEC landing just three NCAA Tournament bids this year, there are plenty of league coaches talking about what went wrong:
Tennessee’s Cuonzo Martin: “It’s almost like a mid-major mentality in this league, when you’ve got your second-place team that doesn’t get in the NCAA Tournament. This is a BCS league. It’s one of the best leagues in America. That shouldn’t happen.”
Kentucky’s John Calipari: “(One of the) things that hurt us was the impression the league’s down. Everyone seems to say it. That’s why I tell the coaches we’ve got to brag about each other. We’ve got to set that straight.”
Florida’s Billy Donovan: “When you have coaching changes, when you have player turnover, when you have departures of really good players, it’s going to take some time. The unfortunate part with all those transitions going on is you really pay the price in November. … What happens is your league gets labeled in November and December.”
But as the Associated Press points out, five SEC teams ranked lower than #230 in non-conference strength of schedule. Those teams that did play tough non-conference competition lost twice as many games as they won. SEC members went a combined 15-33 against the other five major conferences this year.
Coaches can try to spin it, but the Southeastern Conference was down this year and everyone knows it. Its reputation was deserved this year, but Martin, Calipari and Donovan are still correct in suggesting that reputation matters on Selection Sunday.
We just find it ironic that the SEC is the league moaning about reputation.
Every fall, fans and coaches and commissioners from other conferences try to convince the world that the SEC is overrated in football. The league’s teams just beat up on one another and they fail to schedule games up North or out West with any kind of regularity. Blah, blah, blah. But because most knowledgeable football people believe the SEC is great, the SEC indeed winds up with a team in the BCS title game every single year. Heck, sometimes both combatants come from Mike Slive’s league.
Just as the SEC has earned its recent reputation as a so-so hoops league, it’s earned its reputation as the best football conference in America. Winning six, no wait, make that seven BCS titles in a row will do that for you.
And as the SEC’s reputation cost it NCAA tourney bids this year, the league’s solid reputation enabled a two-loss LSU football squad to reach the BCS Championship Game in January of 2008 (a game it won, thank you very much).
The fact that the SEC benefits from its reputation in the fall makes it all the sillier for SEC’ers to moan about the league’s reputation hurting it in the spring. If SEC basketball coaches want to build a better reputation for their conference the process is remarkably simple:
1. Schedule tougher games.
2. Win those games.
An advanced degree isn’t necessary to figure that one out.
But until the hoops side of the league improves its reputation, please, fellas, no more whining. Your conference lives by the same sword every autumn that it dies by every spring. Want a better reputation? Go earn it.
As far as football. Again, UK is a tag along in the SEC.
Its only been 35 years since they won more SEC games in a season than they have loss.
Suprisingly, they aren't every SEC schools 'homecoming' game.
But as long as you all want to keep paying us to be a 'sure win'. we'll take it!
Since Kentucky made a deal with the devil and hired Calipari, shouldn't we expect to see the so called 'flag bearer' of SEC Basketball be taken with some scorn?
I'm a Kentucky fan and think he is a cancer on college basketball. This one and done stuff, recently admitted to be his actually doing as a path to success, isn't what college sports should be about.
Let him run an AAU Super Program instead of turning the UK program in to NBA-U.
Maybe the Men's Basketball coaches should just go see what the SEC Women's Basketball coaches are doing. 7 SEC women's basketball teams got into the NCAA tournement.
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How can you compare this to football? Last time I checked there wasn't a basketball league that has ran off a string of national championships. I'm almost willing to put the SEC's basketball resume over the last decade in the NCAA tournament versus in other conference in America. I think they are taking a hit for their football success and its becoming a backlash in basketball. Everytime people spit out numbers they do it to curve their argument. They never mention the second most teams in the ncaa as far as top 100 RPI. As a matter of fact when is the last time the Big 10 won a championship? But they are supposed to be the best conference!! Please!!!!
@ice2cold This point is moot. What makes the SEC good in football is not the seven straight championships. Rather it is the depth that makes the SEC good. Teams 3-9 are better than any other conference. The conference should not be judged by the best team, but by depth. This year, the SEC is terrible in depth. This is why the SEC is not good this year, regardless of even if Florida makes a deep run. Was Memphis in the best conference when they won it all a few years ago?
@ice2cold Nailed it! Our basketball programs are historically discounted in the basketball press circles which are predominantly Northeastern and Midwestern. The NCAA has allowed the bias to help ease some of the disparity in earnings that the SEC runs away with in football. The NCAA basketball tournament is the instrument they use to make up for that disparity. Hence the SEC teams are discounted in entry numbers thereby limiting their penetration in the tournament and decreasing their revenue. In my household we call the NCAA basketball tournament Yankee welfare!
I just did a little history search on SEC basketball....only three different schools have held the title ...Kentucky, Florida, and Arkansas - that's it. There have been 5 different B1G teams that have held the title and they have a bigger history of going to the Final 4. Kentucky and Florida are SEC basketball (Coach Donavan is a Legend in my book - HOF no doubt). The rest of the SEC programs need to steal a page from their playbooks. There's a reason why they are the cream of the SEC (basically Florida is the Cream of the SEC - Kentucky is very different with the one and done thing going on).
Here is a breakdown of teams by conference who have won the NCAA championship in the past 20 years:
SEC (3 teams, 6 titles) - UK (3), UF (2) and Ark.
ACC (3 teams, 6 titles) - UNC (3), Duke (2) and Maryland.
Big East (2 teams, 4 titles) - UConn (3) and Syracuse.
PAC 12 (2 teams, 2 titles) - UCLA, Arizona
Big 12 (1 title) - KU
Big 10 (1 title) - Mich. State
As you can see, your championships/team argument holds little water. The SEC is at the top when it comes to spreading the championship titles.
I only go back 20 years because I believe it is more relevant, but just to let you know, the SEC is about on par with other conferences in regards to the number of teams who have NCAA tournament championships dating back to 1939. These include numbers on membership at the time a championship was won) Big East ( 3 - UConn, Syracuse and Georgetown), ACC (4 - UNC, Duke, Maryland and NC State), Big 12 ((Big 8) 2 - KU and *OSU), and Pac 12 (5 - UCLA, *Stanford, Arizona, *Oregon and *Cal) and Big 10 ( 5 - IU, Mich. Mich. State, *Ohio St. and *Wisconsin.) * Denotes only championship(s) won before 1960. Prior 1960 or so, the NCAA tournament was irrelevant as compared to the big fish at the time, the NIT. In other words, who gives a flip about what happened before 1960 because most of us were not alive and it was a far different game.The numbers for the Pac 12 and Big 10 lower by about half, which puts them there with the SEC.
Here is some more data that supports the fact that the SEC deserves respect as a basketball conference:
Total NCAA Championships by conference: 1. Pac 12 (15) 2. ACC (12). 3 SEC (11) 4. Big 10 (10) 5. Big East (6)
Championships by current conference membership: 1. Pac 12 (16) 2. ACC (12). 3 SEC (11) 3. Big East (11) 4. Big 10 (10)
The bottom line is simple: Historically, the SEC is no slouch when it comes to basketball when compared to the other BCS conferences and is not getting its due when it comes to respect as a basketball conference.
As for this year, no one has yet to justify why the MWC received more bids than the SEC.
@UtahReb @prerich45 Once again, championships should not determine the strength of the conference. Depth should. Conferences should have a head to head matchup. Do you really think the SEC would win more than 3 games if matched up head to head against the Big East or Big Ten? When Memphis won it all, I never heard anyone saying CUSA is the best conference in the nation. In football when USC won it all, the Pac 10 was down. One school does not make a conference. So while historically Kentucky is great, and to a degree Florida, the rest of the conference sucks. It's not hard for one school to be good, but for the majority of the conference it is. That's what makes the SEC in football special, not the run of championships. The depth is here for football, not here for basketball.
The SEC also can't lose to "cupcakes" in the non-conference and expect anyone to appreciate their conference battles. Do a team series like the ACC does with the Big 10, I'm sure both of those conferences will be willing to do this with the SEC.
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NCAA basketball championships by conference over the past 10 years: SEC - 3, ACC - 3, Big East - 3 and Big 12 - 1.
The past 20 years: ACC -6, SEC - 6, Big East - 4, PAC 12 - 2, Big 12 -1 and Big 10 -1.
History says that the SEC deserves a reputation of being a top basketball conference, especially compared to the mighty Big-12 and Big 10.
As for this year, any one who takes a close look at the MWC OOC victories over quality opponents (and trust me, you will have to look hard) will find that five bids are unjustified. Basically all they did was beat up on each other. With the exception of possibly New Mexico, all those teams will be gone by the end of the second round.
Mr. SEC, I enjoy your site and I agree the vast majority of you posts, but the SEC deserved at least one more bid.
Vanderbilt and Kentucky had huge turnover, Tennessee had injuries. They all made runs near the end, so it is a temporary down. Being number 8 RPI did not help anyone though.
Tennessee 3-5 vs top 50 RPi teams and SOS 58. (Yes they lost to UGa twice) but guess you not only have to schedule strong but win more than you lose for it to matter.
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