Vicky Graff Photo
Just how difficult will it be for any team to win games in the Southeastern Conference this season?
Conference coaches, including Kentucky’s Mark Pope, have spent the last month praising the league and admitting how brutal conference games will be.
Numbers compiled by the SEC office certainly confirm how strong the league has been.
· Three of the four remaining undefeated teams reside within the SEC (Drake).
· SEC teams have won 88.5 percent (177-23) of their games this season. That tops the nine-team ACC in 2003-04 that had a 88.2 winning percentage (75-10) in games before New Year’s Day.
· SEC teams are 59-19 (75.6 percent) against teams from the ACC (30-4), Big 12 (14-2), Big East (5-4) and Big Ten (10-9).
· SEC teams are 21-7 against teams ranked in the Associated Press Top 25, including a 6-2 mark against teams ranked in the Top 10.
· The SEC’s 21 regular-season, non-conference Top 25 wins are eight more than any other league has ever had in a season (per former ESPN researcher Jared Berson).
· The SEC leads the nation with five teams (Auburn 1st, Tennessee 2nd, Florida 4th, Alabama 8th and Mississippi State 14th) ranked in the Top 15 of the NCAA’s NET rankings.
· The SEC leads the nation with 14 teams ranked in the Top 50 of the NET.
· Eight SEC teams are currently Quad 1 opponents regardless of the game location (NET Top 30). Fifteen teams are either Quad 1 or Quad 2 opponents (NET Top 75).
· SEC teams have already amassed 28 wins in 47 games against Quad 1 competition. They have a 47-22 record against Quad 1 & 2 teams.
· The SEC is the only conference to have a winning record against Quad 1 teams (28-19).
· The SEC’s +20.04 KenPom rating is the highest rating by a conference in more than 20 seasons.
· Four SEC teams are ranked in the Top 10 of KenPom’s team rankings, 13 are in the Top 50 and all 16 teams rank in the Top 65.
· The SEC is 52-22 (70.3 percent) vs. Top 100 teams in Bart Torvik’s ratings system. No other conference is over .500 against the Top 100.
· Ten SEC teams are ranked in the Dec. 30 Associated Press Poll. It is the first time since at least the start of the 2012-13 season that one league had 10 ranked teams.
· The SEC’s 10 teams ranked in the Dec. 30 AP Poll are twice as many as any other league.
6 Responses
Larry, will the NCAA tournament committee remember these numbers? I doubt it. Rarely do they ever acknowledge the strength of a conference and just look at wins and losses. The ESPN computer states that Kentucky has the hardest remaining schedule in the country. So how will a Kentucky team that has 6 or 7 SEC losses compare to a Duke team that only has 1 or 2 ACC losses? Will they remember that the SEC dominated the SEC/ACC challenge this year? Auburn has the easiest SEC schedule followed by Alabama with the second easiest. It should be no surprised that those two teams will have no more than 3, possibly 4 conference losses while the rest of the league gets chewed up. It’s no coincidence that the SEC headquarters is in Birmingham, AL. I wonder if the people who set the conference schedules have a favorite team? It’s also no surprise that Kentucky has the hardest SEC schedule every year. The SEC figures that more of it’s teams will get NCAA bids if they have a win or 2 against Kentucky. It’s all about the money followed closely by the league not ever wanting to be dominated by Kentucky like it had been in the past.
you are probably right Barry
The SEC crooked administrators thought ALA & TN would be the 2 top SEC teams so they set up 2 games each for UK. Has they known it would be AUB instead of ALA in the top 2, then TN & AUB would have been the double jeopardy whammy lit on UK. It’s a brutal schedule and the ups on losses will only make the selfish players be even more selfish.
The photo in this article shows why BB is not longer the same genuine BB played in the 60’s & 70’s. It slowly progressed into thug ball. Even the pros in the days of truly great BB players such as Wilt, Wesr & Oscar, there was a whistle blown when a foul was committed. Through the years it has become a football game without pads. The skill of dribbling without palming the ball, running while dribbling instead of carrying it under the arm a few steps, the skill to defend without grabbing, pushing, shoving – those are all in the archives. It’s no longer the true game of BB but a game of thuggery. That reckless play with limited actual skills leads to the fights – street ball in an arena – and now it’s a slug fest so those who have no skills can play and just use force to do anything they want.
UK BB in the Pitino days were among the last real skilled ball players.
Coach Pope and his staff rapidly built an amazing TEAM only to have a couple of players decide after 5 games that they should hog the ball.
Today will be an indication if ALL the players are going to be 100% TEAM players so UK can be competitive in the SEC or if the fractured TEAM play will continue due to a couple of selfish players.
UK had a FF TEAM in progress for 5 games.
Will it resurface? Or will it be a season of frustrations.
You are exactly right about basketball becoming a game of football without pads. Palming and arm carries occur on every trip down the floor. As for the outlook for the rest of this season, I fear the selfish play will continue and our record will reflect it. I would love it if Pope benched the selfish guys and played with the rest, even if he had to call for open tryouts to finish the season. He may need to start recruiting defensive ends and safeties from the football team but the NIL money and the NBA money may have very well taken the team out of basketball team.
Once again, you’ve nailed it