Yesterday we told you that Nick Saban would like to see the SEC add more in-conference games to it yearly football schedule.  In addition to seeing rival institutions more often, adding more conference games would boost SEC team’s strength of schedule — if an additional league game replaced one of the three cupcakes usually found on an SEC’s squad’s schedule.  And strength of schedule is something Alabama’s coach wants to see emphasized in the new playoff selection process:

“Anytime you do a subjective evaluation of who should be in the playoff, there’s going to be a lot of debate as to whether that was done correctly.  Some of the part of the old system that we had were very, very good.

I don’t think there’s enough weight put on the quality of your schedule and the opponents that you play, which in our league is very, very important, because we had six teams in the top 10 last year at the end of the season.  We play each other, and that has a huge impact on the quality of team you have, regardless of how many games you lose.  There are thing like that that I think we can do better.”

The FBS presidents behind the new playoff have said that schedule strength will indeed play a big role in the process.  Just how big, no one knows.  In fact, there’s still no knowledge of just how the selection committee will look or who’ll be on it.

One thing is for certain, however — when the new playoff kicks off next year, someone will learn the hard way about the value of strength of schedule.  Early on, you can bet that some schools (and their conferences) will continue to schedule with a “business as usual” attitude.  That’s a risk.  Especially if rivals increase the difficulty of their own schedules.

There seems to be a belief that a shift to a nine-game schedule in the SEC would lead to teams dumping a good non-conference game — most SEC teams try to play one per year — in favor of keeping three cupcakes on the menu.  That would be a risk as well.  If other leagues start playing 10 quality foes and SEC teams play nine it bite those SEC squads in the rump come selection time.  The opposite could be true as well.  If an SEC team schedules 10 quality games and loses one of them, might it get left out of the playoff mix because another team swept through nine quality games and three creampuffs?

Consistency is always an issue when discussing the NCAA Tournament selections.  In that process, a team’s RPI and strength of schedule will usually give you a great idea as to who 95% of the at-large bids will go to.  But the remaining 5% changes from year to year as the committee changes members.  For example, this past year, road wins seemed to be a bigger than usual factor in selection who got those last few bids.

Get ready for those types of issues with the new football selection format.  Especially early on as teams and leagues try to figure out just how tough their schedules need to be.

One school has a pair of national championships, three Final Fours, and five Elite Eight appearances under its belt since March of 2000.  The other has been playing Division I basketball for all of two years.

With Florida Gulf Coast University into the Sweet Sixteen — the first #15 seed to ever go so far, in case you haven’t already heard 30 times — and facing off with big, bad Florida Friday night in Austin, Texas, you should prepare yourself to see plenty tale-of-the-tape comparisons between the two neighbors.

Not unlike this one:

The two schools are separated by 200 some-odd miles on a map, a million miles in terms of name recognition and past basketball achievements.  One is famous for the Gator chomp.  The other might be more famous for its coach’s ex-model wife.

FGCU’s Andy Enfield has been a head coach for two seasons — his school’s only two Division I seasons — and has won 40 games in his career.  UF’s Billy Donovan is in his 19th season.  A win on Friday over Enfield would be Donovan’s 45o career victory.

So do the underdog Eagles have a legitimate shot against the Gators, one of America’s top programs?  Of course.  And FGCU forward Eric McKnight is looking forward to it.  “That is going to be a great deal,” he said yesterday after the Eagles’ win over San Diego State.  “It’s going to be so much fun because we’ll have a chance to prove who’s the best in Florida.”

When asked who is the best in Florida, McKnight didn’t hesitate: “FGCU.  FGCU.”

Gator fans shouldn’t laugh.  The Eagles have an RPI of 67 which puts them in the same company with several SEC bubble teams this year.  They’re also a pretty respectable 3-3 against RPI top 50 teams.  They beat one #2 seed in Georgetown to begin their tournament run.  Back in November they beat another eventual #2 seed — Miami — 63-51.

If McKnight and can crew topple Miami and Florida in the same season the Eagles really will be able to call themselves Sunshine State champs this year.

You have to wonder if the SEC’s football and basketball fortunes passed one another on some great lucky escalator in the sky.  With the league mired in mediocrity at the moment — two of its three NCAA Tournament teams combined for one win and two exits — it’s interesting to look back and see when/where the SEC started having hoops issues.  Interesting for two reasons.

First, there is a clear dividing line between SEC basketball goodness and SEC basketball blah-ness.

Second, because that line falls at exactly the same point in time when the league’s football success began to soar.

Below is a look at SEC basketball since the turn of the century.  From left to right you’ll see the SEC’s rank among conference RPI (each year on March 25th, today’s date), it’s actual RPI, and the number of NCAA Tournament bids it received:

See the split?

In the last six seasons the SEC has had an average conference RPI rank of 5.33.  In the previous seven seasons, the SEC’s average rank among leagues was 2.14.  That’s a drop from second-best to fifth-best, on average.

Over the last six years the SEC’s average league-wide RPI has been .555.  In the seven seasons prior it was .574, never falling below .561.

Since the 2007-08 season, the SEC has not ranked better than fourth in conference RPI.  From 2000-01 thru 2006-07, the league finished worse than fourth only once.  It ranked as the best basketball conference in country three times in that span.  Five times the SEC ranked in the top two.

Naturally, the SEC never received fewer than five NCAA Tournament bids during its seven-year hot streak.  It’s received fewer then five on four different occasions in the six years since.

It’s pretty clear that the SEC’s decline can be traced back to the 2007-2008 basketball season.  Ironically, it was in January of 2007 that Florida won the first of the SEC’s seven-straight BCS championships.  Looking for a turning point in recent SEC athletics history?  Look no further than January ’07.

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There should be no crying in the land of popped bubbles today.  No whining should emanate from Dixie.  The NCAA’s selection committee made its choices yesterday and 11 of the SEC’s 14 teams simply didn’t deserve to go dancing this year.

Alabama ended its season at 20-12 with an RPI of 60 and a strength of schedule of 76 (non-conference of 84).  Worse, the Tide was 0-6 against RPI top 50 teams and had three losses outside the top 100… plus another outside the top 200.  If Anthony Grant’s team wanted in, it needed more than a win over Tennessee in Nashville (as we told you on Friday).  UA needed to take down Florida but it didn’t/couldn’t.

Kentucky had a slightly better record at 21-11, but it’s RPI was 57.  It’s strength of schedule was 70.  It’s non-conference SOS was 73.  While the Cats did manage three top 50 RPI wins, they also suffered three sub-100 losses.  But the real undoing of John Calipari’s fourth squad was the season-ending knee injury to Nerlens Noel back on February 12th.  Needing to prove that they could thrive without their big man, UK instead went 4-4 down the stretch.  That includes three losses in the Wildcats’ last four games, all to teams with RPI of 95 or worse.

Tennessee had a bubble-worthy resume, but there should be no complaining from the Volunteer State.  Good enough for the conversation?  Yes.  Definitely better than some other teams who landed at-large bids?  Hardly.  UT’s strength of schedule was 58 and its RPI 59.  It’s non-conference SOS was a solid 47.  Tennessee was 3-5 against top 50 RPI foes.  All pretty good.  But the Vols had a pair of sub-100 losses.  Those twin losses to Georgia (RPI 140) and an annual SEC Tournament flop — this time against Alabama — sealed the Vols’ fate.  UT surely had its chances.  Even going back to November the Vols went three-of-11 from the foul line against Georgetown in a 37-36 loss.  Hit two more free throws and beat the Hoyas (RPI 11 and a #2 seed in the tourney) and the Vols might have made the field.  In the end, UT left too much fruit hanging on the tree.

As for Arkansas and LSU not making the NIT field, well, that’s just further proof that the NIT has improved since the NCAA has taken it over.  Still a bracket for also-rans, the NIT is now forced to take those teams who won their conference’s regular season title only to be upset in their conference tourney.  That’s a good thing for the little guy.  It’s a bad thing for all the middle-of-the-road, big conference teams that used to fill the field.

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Two days into the SEC Tournament, it’s time to update the CVs for the four teams described as being on the NCAA tourney bubble by post prognosticators.  As of 8:30pm last night, BracketMatrix.com — a site that combines nearly 90 different internet projections into one list — had four SEC teams in the field of 68.  The current belief is that Florida and Missouri are clearly in, Kentucky and Tennessee are barely in, and Ole Miss and Alabama are barely out.

If you’ve been reading this site all hoops season, you know that that’s the way we’ve been calling the race for weeks — Florida and Missouri in, Kentucky and Tennessee in if the SEC gets four bids, Ole Miss and Alabama doomed by bad scheduling, bad losses, or both.

Let’s see if there’s any reason to change our thinking today…

So what’s changed since our last (even more) in-depth bracket breakdown on Monday?

*  Tennessee’s resume has changed the most.  Yesterday’s win over Mississippi State got the Vols over the 20-win plateau and boosted their winning percentage rank from 92 to 85.  However, UT’s resume overall has taken a hit by a) having to play a team as bad as MSU and b) the poor work turned in this week by teams the Volunteers had already played.  Since Monday, UT’s average RPI win has fallen from 144 to 148… it’s average RPI loss has dropped from 61 to 64… it’s overall SOS has cratered from 42 to 57… its now played an additional sub-200 team in RPI (MSU).  All of those numbers appear on the info sheets handed out to the tournament selection committee, by the way.  Aside from grabbing a 20th win, the Vols have caught very few breaks this week.

*  Kentucky has seen an RPI boost from 50 to 48 (though their RPI is a tad different in every computer model you look at it).  Going up is a good thing.  Texas A&M has falled outside the RPI top 100 (again that depends on the RPI you look at) and that’s caused UK to now show two sub-200 losses on its data sheet.  Still, UK looks to be more of a lock today than at any point in recent weeks.

*  It’s non-conference foes from early in the season have done Ole Miss a bit of a solid this week.  While the number will still likely be a killer on Selection Sunday, UM’s non-conference strength of schedule has at least improved from 290 to 284.  Hurrah?  Overall, however, the Rebels’ average RPI win and average RPI loss have both dropped a point.  Also, Texas A&M’s fall from inside the top 100 to outside the top 100 has given Ole Miss another sub-100 loss to go along with two sub-200 losses.  Carrying three losses outside the RPI top 100, Mississippi really needs to do some winning in Nashville.

*  There’s been very little movement on Alabama’s resume aside from an RPI drop from 62 to 63.  As we’ve mentioned numerous times, fewer than one sub-60 RPI team per year has received an at-large bid since 1995.  The last two years — with an expanded field — three teams outside the RPI top 60 have gotten at-large berths (out of 74 total invitations extended).  The Tide still has a lot of work to do.

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Marshall Henderson is a showboat with a bad reputation and a bad history.  He’s the kind of player that 13 SEC fanbases hate while the one he’s playing for feels he’s “misunderstood” or “picked on.”

Well, the pub Henderson is getting today is due to a classless — funny how that word is always associated with him — tweet that he posted yesterday once the All-SEC team was revealed:

Whether someone feels Ole Miss’ Murphy Holloway was more deserving of an All-SEC first-team selection than LSU’s Johnny O’Bryant isn’t the point and it’s not even close.  Neither is the fact that Henderson was defending the accomplishments of a teammate.  The point is there are better ways of voicing one’s displeasure with the coaches’ All-SEC selections than by going to Twitter and suggesting another school’s player “can’t even hold” the jockstrap of your teammate.

But we’d expect no less from a guy who’s taunted and flaunted his way through 23 Mississippi wins this season.  Perhaps if a few more of those wins had come against teams in the RPI top 200, Henderson would have a better shot at showboating his way through the NCAA Tournament as well.

Some kids are just kids.  They make a habit of silly behavior that someday they’ll outgrow.  Others cross so many lines and show so little understanding of the term “class” that it’s obvious they’ll remain Iverson-esque for years to come.  Henderson is in that group.

Ole Miss fans don’t care, of course, because he plays for Ole Miss.  But we’d love to know what they’d say about Henderson, his actions, and his attitude if he played for Mississippi State.  Here’s guessing they wouldn’t spend quite so much time defending him.

Henderson himself had an outstanding season on the court averaging 19.7 points per game for his fourth school in four years.  Hmmm.  You don’t think he was left off the coaches’ first-team All-SEC squad because they too dislike the way he carries himself, do you?

Florida and Missouri are in.

Arkansas, LSU, Georgia, Vanderbilt, Texas A&M, South Carolina, Mississippi State, and Auburn are out (unless one of them wins the SEC Tournament).

Alabama, Kentucky, Ole Miss, and Tennessee remain on the NCAA Tournament bubble — or at least within striking distance of it — depending on the source you choose to believe.  So with only the tourney in Nashville to go, we wanted to give you a look at four teams’ resumes, side-by-side, using much of the same info that appears on team sheets provided to the NCAA selection committee:

So armed with all the important data, which SEC teams are better positioned to receive NCAA at-large tourney bids?

Read on (teams listed in order according to current RPI)…

Observations

*  Looking at the NCAA’s example team sheet, it’s clear that a team’s conference record is not listed (though it’s easy to figure out with a little subtraction).

*  A team’s record over it’s final 10-12 games is not listed.  Team schedules are not arranged by date, either.  The NCAA wanted teams to schedule better in November and December so it de-emphasized a team’s play at season’s end.  That said, most basketball aficionados would probably have some idea of which teams are hot and which aren’t.

*  All numbers on NCAA’s team sheets are rounded.

*  Conference names are not listed and neither are conference RPI ranks, but the committee knows that information.

*  As for the SEC’s four bubble teams, let’s take a look at these resumes line by line…

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Each year at this time sports fans become amateur mathematicians.  We study RPI charts — there are dozens of different sites trying to mimic the NCAA official formula — and we break down strength of schedule numbers.  We count up wins and losses against RPI top 50 teams.  We eyeball obscure numbers like the rank of a team’s winning percentage (that data appears on the official team info sheets handed out to selection committee members).  Some of us might go so far as to buy a slide rule and a compass.

One thing we’ve never seen, however, is a breakdown of multiple teams over multiple years using RPI.  Which is why we’ve put together just such a list below.

For this exercise we’ll use ESPN’s RPI formula.  We’ve looked at the data from the current season, the 2011-12 season, and the 2010-11 season in order to compare the best and worst SEC teams — according to ESPN’s computers — of the past three seasons.  Since Missouri and Texas A&M weren’t playing SEC ball in two of those years, their squads from this season will be the only ones listed.

Observations:

*  This year’s Kentucky, Tennessee, and Ole Miss teams are sitting squarely on what’s been the cut-off line for recent SEC teams hoping for NCAA at-large bids.  This is just another example of how shaky their current situations are.

*  The top seven teams on the list all belong to Florida (three), Kentucky (two), and Vanderbilt (two).

*  The top 10 slots are filled by teams from the East Division (in football).

*  Tony Barbee’s three teams at Auburn rank 32nd, 37th, and 38th on the list.  Those numbers aren’t great for a man’s job security.

By rhis time next week the SEC Tournament will be under way in Nashville.  Hopefully, by then, we’ll have a clear idea of who’s destined to reach the NCAA tourney and who’s not.  As of today, the numbers point us in a certain direction, but the SEC and the overall bubble for this year’s tourney are so weak that it’s still not an open-and-shut case.  Normally by this stage of the season it is.

Below is a look at how all the SEC’s teams’ resumes look as of this morning.  Amazingly, even with Kentucky’s painful loss to Georgia last night, the Wildcats still have hope.  The same is true for three other SEC squads if — big if — they take care of their business, finish the season strong, and get plenty of help from other bubble teams who fall apart late.

At the bottom of this post we’ll give your overall picks for at-large bids as of today.

Notes

*  There are about 50 different sources that try to replicate the NCAA’s official RPI formula.  The vast majority are similar.

*  The information handed out to the NCAA selection committee does not emphasize or list the way a team finishes the season.  Each team’s schedule is listed according to wins and losses, so there’s no way to look at schedule from start to finish and determine who’s hot and who’s not.  This has been done to make sure teams schedule better non-conference games in November and December.  However, the people on that panel must have some knowledge of who is playing well and who isn’t.  So we list each school’s record over its final 10 games.  It might not be a big factor, but it has to be some factor.

*  While the NCAA selection committee says it uses RPI more for seeding than for filling the field, a quick study of the past 10 brackets suggests that just the opposite is true.

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Since last Friday, we’ve said that Ole Miss and Alabama are dead in the water when it comes to reaching the safe shores of NCAA Tournament Island.  Arkansas had already sunk so far beneath the waves that it wasn’t even necessary to discuss the Razorbacks’ tourney hopes.

We based those conclusions on simple math and history.  While Joe Lunardi of ESPN is eyeballing all the teams rising and falling on this year’s “soft bubble,” we compare only the resumes of this year’s SEC hopefuls to those of past SEC squads that have and haven’t received NCAA invites the past four years.  And in four years, we haven’t been wrong in our tourney predictions yet.

As of today, we still believe Florida and Missouri are locks to make the field of 68.  Tennessee and Kentucky still have reason for hope as well, but neither can afford to stumble.  And last night’s games probably didn’t mean much at all.

Missouri’s blowout win over Arkansas only solidified the Tigers’ spot in the tourney.  They were in the field before tip-off.

Arkansas entered that game with an RPI of 80 (it’s now 82).  Since 1995, only two teams with RPI rankings over 70 have been handed at-large bids.  No teams above 80 have made the cut.  The Hogs were doomed regardless of last night’s outcome.

Ole Miss’ victory over Alabama probably didn’t mean much, either… at least not tournament-wise.  The Crimson Tide has an RPI in the 60s (now 62), an 0-4 record against RPI top 50 teams, and four losses to squads ranked outside the RPI top 100.  The bubble had burst for Bama long before last night’s game.

The Rebels improved to 22-8 overall and 11-6 in the SEC.  They still have a game remaining at LSU.  If Andy Kennedy’s team goes 23-8 and 12-6 in the conference, new AD Ross Bjork would take a beating from the national press for firing his head coach.  Yes, even if Kennedy doesn’t reach the NCAA Tournament.  And he probably won’t.

If history is a guide, last night’s victory over Alabama probably meant more for Kennedy’s job security than it did for UM’s tourney resume.  Yes, the bubble field is weak this year, but the Rebels have several important numbers working against them.  Their RPI is 57 and only eight of the past 74 at-large bids have gone to teams with RPI in the 50s.  Their strength of schedule is bad (131) and their non-conference strength of schedule is worse (291).  Of their eight losses, two have come against teams ranked outside the RPI top 200.  Add it all up and Ole Miss’ resume wouldn’t be good enough in a normal year.

So much for an important night of basketball.

Missouri was already in.  Alabama and Arkansas already needed to win the league tourney to earn an NCAA bid.  And Ole Miss already needed a heap more wins — at LSU on Saturday, and in Nashville next week — plus a lot more help in the form of bad losses from other teams on the NCAA bubble.

Heading into tonight’s slate of SEC games, the numbers still point to Florida, Missouri, probably Tennessee and maybe Kentucky getting NCAA bids.  So keep an eye on the Vols trip to Auburn tonight.  The Wildcats travel to Georgia tomorrow.  Those games definitely will matter.