Let’s hope the SEC lives up to it’s billing as the nations best conference, and that Missouri can make some noise.
From season to season it’s often difficult to compare quality at the top of the sport. Even comparing data across seasons is challenging because the personnel in college is so fluid. Especially these days where transfers are everywhere and immediately eligible.
How does last season’s UConn team compare with the 2009 North Carolina Tar Heels or the 2001 Duke Blue Devils, what about 2018 Villanova or 2012 Kentucky? What about the 2025 Auburn Tigers? They have a NetRating of +36.41, which is nearly UConn’s clip of +36.43. And UConn’s rating was the best for a National Champion since the aforementioned Duke Blue Devils of 2001.
Duke featured five NBA players with Carlos Boozer, Mike Dunleavy, Shane Battier, Chris Duhon and Jay Williams. Only Duhon fell short of the lottery, going in the second round. UConn featured four players who were drafted, and Alex Karaban came back to school despite a 2nd round grade in last years draft. Two lottery picks, two in the early second round.
Auburn? There are zero projected 1st round draft picks on the Tigers roster this season. There are a few mocks out there who project Johni Broom getting a pick in the second round.
But Auburn is leading the charge for the renewed and revived SEC as the preeminent basketball conference this year. And the remake has been years in the making.
As a basketball league, the SEC has endured some high times and some low times. But the year the league launched the SEC Network (2013) they were mired with another disappointing season and ranked 7th in conference power rankings on KenPom.com. It was the leagues first year as a 14 team league and only 3 teams (Florida, Ole Miss, Missouri) made the NCAA Tournament. Five teams (LSU, Georgia, South Carolina, Auburn, Mississippi State) finished with a rating below 100. Four more teams were below 70.
The league was such a joke many fans coined the hashtag #SECBasketballFever in an effort to mask the pain of having to watch such terrible hoops all winter.
Kim Klement-Imagn Images
Plans were already taking shape as Mike Slive, then the SEC Commissioner, politely told the schools presidents and athletic directors to cut the crap and start investing into basketball. The leagues coaches in 2013 were lined with names like Tony Barbee, Rick Ray, Kevin Stallings, Mark Fox, and Johnny Jones.
Those days are long gone.
It’s been a steady climb, but the combination of the transfer portal, COVID providing extra eligibility, and Name, Image, & Likeness laws opened up college sports free agency and nobody has taken better advantage than the Disney / ESPN Network rich SEC Conference.
The SEC’s conference rating is currently +20.23 in KenPom.com and they’re rated as the best conference overall. An easy explainer of NetRtg by Conference is what a .500 team would be expected to have within the team ratings. Looking at this season Kentucky is projected to go 9-9, as is Arkansas (the SECs unbalanced schedule plays a bit of a role) as the ‘Cats are 21st in KenPom and Arkansas is 37th. But the league’s rating is impressive because it’s only been approached by three conferences in the last 25 years.
- The ACC in 1997 had a rating of +21.37
- The ACC in 2004 had a rating of +20.32
- The Big 12 in 2017 had a rating of +19.81
Those ratings are all important, but the 1997 and 2004 ACC had 9 teams while the 2017 Big 12 only had 10. With its most recent expansion the SEC is a 16 team league. Expansion is usually the easiest way to dilute your talent level and lower the floor, even if you’re able to maintain the ceiling. Just look at the Big 12.
Mizzou’s former conference is currently 3rd at +17.16 and by all accounts still a great league. Two years ago it was a 10 team league with 8 NCAA teams and everyone finished in the top 70. Add 6 more teams and now that (still good!) range goes to 108th ranked Oklahoma State. But 7 teams are ranked 60th or lower. The league is still good at the top with 5 top 20 teams, but the bottom has fallen out a bit.
The SEC at 16 teams doesn’t have that problem, for the first time.
The lowest rated team this year is South Carolina at 63, there are three additional teams ranked 60 or lower. Georgia and Oklahoma are in the 40s. Ole Miss, Texas, and Arkansas are in the 30s. Then there 7 teams in the top 22, including four top 10 teams, with Auburn at the top and a +4 Net Rating better than the second best team, Duke.
The respect is completely justified, SEC teams combined to go 185-23 in non-conference play, an average of 11.6 wins and 1.4 losses. That all sounds good but things are even better when you go deeper into the wins and losses. Facing teams ranked 75th or lower in KenPom the SEC was 145-1. That one loss was South Carolina’s opening loss to North Florida. They also went 125-2 at home, with the other loss being when Texas lost to UConn. Combined the league won 13 top 100 games at home.
On neutral courts they went 46-14, including 35 wins against top 100 teams, and 19 wins against the top 35. They had more wins against top 35 opponents than total losses on a neutral court, which is a staggering. I also didn’t give credit for semi-home or semi-away, they were all neutral. Games like Texas A&M winning in Indiana against Purdue, or Auburn winning in Houston just not at Houston against Houston were nearly true road games, but they weren’t. Still an incredible run.
In true road games the SEC went 14-7. What’s funny is of the 21 games, 8 of them came in the ACC-SEC Challenge and the league went 6-2 with the two losses on the road against Duke (#2 in KenPom) and Clemson (#30) which are two of the best three teams in the ACC. The other 6 road wins were Boston College (#167), Virginia Tech (#157), Miami (#113), North Carolina State (#83), plus North Carolina (#35) and Louisville (#53). So only two Quad 1 games… thanks ACC.
So the only non Q1 road games the SEC played were against the ACC, and when Nate Oats scheduled North Dakota so Grant Nelson could have a bit of a homecoming. Oh and LSU beating Kansas State. Every other true road game was a Q1. Where the final record was 7-7.
This really was a historic non-conference slate for the SEC. Now that league play is here, let’s hope they can keep this momentum going. While also watching our Missouri Tigers win lots of games. Let’s start today by beating Auburn!
Missouri-Auburn Basketball: How to Watch, Game Info:
TIME: 3:00 p.m. CT
DATE: Saturday, January 03, 2024
LOCATION: Neville Arena; Auburn, AL
TELEVISION: SEC Network
STREAM: WatchESPN
FORUMS: Rockm.Plus/Forums