NASHVILLE – Ole Miss Chris Beard called it the “gauntlet,” while Texas coach Rodney Terry called the SEC “every night NCAA Tournament Basketball.”
Arkansas coach John Calipari, who once lived in the SEC during the dark ages of the league, offered a more dull rating.
“Flesh grinder,” said Calipari.
“The best league in college basketball history,” Georgia coach Mike White added in Sunday’s statement proven true with historically important indicators.
The SEC set a new record by placing 14 of the 16 teams in the NCAA Tournament bracket, earning 11 previous marks in 2011 with the Big East 16 members. In the percentage (87.5%), the SEC’s NCAA tournament management is also a record high, surpassing the 77.7% mark posted when the nine-team Big East placed seven schools in Bracket in 1991.
87.5%
SEC (14 out of 16 teams)
2025
77.7%
Big East (7 out of 9 teams)
1991
75%
ACC (6 out of 8 teams)
1991, 1989, 1987, 1986
75%
Big 8 (6 out of 8 teams)
1993, 1992
70%
Big 12 (7 out of 10 teams)
2023, 2021, 2018, 2016, 2015, 2014
70%
Big Ten (7 out of 10 teams)
1990
70%
Big East (7 out of 10 teams)
2017
But for all the stories about how the 2025 SEC was the best conference in college basketball history and how all the evidence of support provided by the Select Committee was made, the real awards are now ahead.
Playing the NCAA Tournament begins on Tuesday with the first four, and the SEC is under the microscope as they try to verify that so far it has been the most dominant season in modern college basketball conferences.
“Our regular season speaks for itself,” Garth Grisman, the SEC’s men’s basketball associate committee member, told CBS Sports. “But that doesn’t guarantee a specific set of outcomes in the postseason, so you have to look after your business in the postseason.”
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What does care for your business in the postseason look like for the SEC? Are there any teams that have to escape the first weekend? Should the meeting produce a few final four representatives to show that it is worthy of all the hype?
After all, the SEC itself is higher than that.
“We need to win the national championship over this next period,” Grisman said. “Whether that’s happening this year or not, it’s still a success this season, but we’ll need to win some national championships soon.”
Grisman acknowledged that the randomness associated with March Madness and its single-removal format would not place too much emphasis on the league’s NCAA tournament performance over the course of a year.
The 2024-25 season will not be a SEC failure if a team from another conference cuts the net in San Antonio on April 7th. But in a league that boasts that it has no recent 19 national champions in college football, three women’s basketball national champions, five NCAA baseball national champions, and no recent men’s basketball titles.
The last time I did that was in Kentucky in 2012.
“I’ll first admit that in the SEC it’s measured at the national championships, ultimately,” Grisman said.
The league has four serious candidates in Auburn, Alabama, Florida and Tennessee, with long shot candidates who can realistically crash the last four.
Arrange on top of the pack
There is no denying that the SEC has run the regular season of college basketball, whether it is the National Championship or not. The 14-2 mark in the ACC-SEC Challenge and the 59-19 mark against all highly important opponents stand out, but there are also more subtle ways to quantify its advantage.
The college basketball talks leading up to the selection feature many discussions about where teams and leagues are on a particular indicator. Certainly, the SEC is a great meeting. Because Ken Pomeroy says he has seven of the country’s top 17 teams.
Yes, the league owns four of the top six spots in Evan Miyakawa’s team ratings.
Oh, and how can you forget Bert Tovik, who has a 14-second team in the top 50?
How will the NCAA Tournament Selection Committee handle 12, 13, or 14 teams in the SEC?
Matt Nolander
Pomeroy, Miyakawa, Torvik and others can use advanced analytics to explain the greatness of the SEC, but there is another metric that explains the rise in male basketball in the SEC more simply.
The six Final Four coaches do not live in the SEC from charity. Nor is it not some of the most talented players in the country.
So Glissman assesses how the SEC has reached and zooms out, pointing to economic factors such as a booming population growth, rising GDP and an increase in the registration of the SEC’s geographic footprint after Covid.
To explain his claims about the latter fact, he points to an article in the 2024 Wall Street Journal. “Sorry, Harvard. Everyone wants to go to university in the South right now.”
“There’s a macroeconomic momentum,” Grisman said.
This led to his coaching talent.
“I think my commitment to basketball was most clearly reflected in the quality of our head coach,” Grisman said. “Like any other labor market, compensation needs to be there to attract and retain the best talent.”
Over the span of four seasons in 2013-16, the SEC only placed three times in the NCAA Tournament. The general consensus was that the meeting was a football league. That has begun to change in recent years. The SEC placed eight of the 14 teams in the NCAA Tournament in 2023 and 2024, paving the way for historic tally this season.
“I want to help create SEC men’s basketball products. There’s no need for fans who are SEC fans to stop when the football season is over,” Grisman said. “We want to convey that passion that we all know and love from SEC football.
Part of that is winning the National Championship.
“There are people who can do this year. I think we’ll have multiple teams this year.”
