As for the SEC...2 of the top four are already in the sweet 16. I have confidence Florida and Alabama will join them. Throw in Arkansas and I hope Kentucky and that will be 6 of the top 16.
Not shabby.
Not shabby.
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From about December on, I thought the SEC could get half the Sweet 16.
Once they got into the tournament, Missouri is the only one that really surprises me. Thought they'd make it out. (Arkansas obviously is a surprise the other way.)
Texas A&M losing didn't surprise me a whole lot. I never bought into them even as they were winning a bunch of games.
The bottom of the conference showed that it wasn't as powerful as it could've been. Also a few of those teams just absolutely could not win close games, which suggests coaching might've been part of that. (They were all over Mississippi State's coach for instance for some wildly bad decisions.)
Best conference ever? I thought it was definitely the most rugged conference in many, many years, at least since the old Big East. But the only way you could make the claim of "best ever" would've been had they pulled something off like getting half the Sweet 16.Comment
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Meh, I stand by my statement in December, the polling is skewed. We saw the same thing with Big12 a few years ago. If a number of SEC teams weren’t ranked pre-conference, they would’ve prolly never broke into the rankings, prolly UK included. This opinion is based on the seesaw win, lose 2, win, lose 2-3, win, and so on we see in these situations.
Yes, there are some strong teams at the top of the SEC this year, there are a few in the middle. But the Texas/Oklahoma 6-12 teams aren’t what I would consider good teams.
Is there a better way to do polling? I doubt it. All polling, computer or human, has human bias in it. Even the old BCS was modified at the end to have a “skew” value for a particularly good win.
SEC will have 4-7 teams in sweet 16. Out of 14 😱. None of the bottom even won a game (play in!)
Sure a conference can overachieve in the tourney, but it can also underwhelm. Here we are.
I’ll root for UK to “hold serve” on their seed, so hopefully they’ll win today. And, if that happens, upset Tennessee for a 3rd time this year.Comment
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^ Had nothing to do with the preseason polls. Had to do with who those SEC teams were beating at the beginning of the season.
By the time they got into conference season, the SEC had an outlandish out-of-conference record. That had nothing to do with those polls.
There were seven SEC teams in the preseason top 25, most of them at the bottom (five SEC teams were ranked from 18 to 25). The only team in the preseason top 10 was Auburn.
The conventional wisdom about the SEC was that teams like Texas and Oklahoma (neither in the preseason top 25) were better than their conference records. Both lost so you have to say no, they weren't. When you reached the middle of the league with teams like Missouri and Georgia (neither in the preseason top 25) that's where the real "disappointment" (if you're a fan of SEC basketball, which hardly anybody is) lies. Georgia had played well recently and had beaten some really good teams, and they looked atrocious.
Those teams clearly were either paper tigers or they were just shelled out by having to play in a league where the average age was as old as my dad (probably a little of both).Comment
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Here we come to the final day of the NCAA's first weekend.
The TV scheduling has been odd for this tournament. For instance today one of the best games is UCONN/Florida, and it's at noon. Not sure what the thought process behind that one was.Comment
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Understandable that you misread my comment as “pre-season” as I made up the idea of “pre-conference poll”.
Pre-season polls are another topic all together.
The polls before the conference 😎 can skew the rest by what I said: “well this highly ranked team lost to another, so it shouldn’t drop.” Rinse and repeat.
It bore out a few years ago with Big12, and it’s leaning that way this year even if the SEC goes 4-0 today. That’d be half of the 14 teams and none had to face a fellow conference foe.Comment
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I personally thought the eyeball test bore out the SEC’s strength. The games looked different.
Thing is, you had a bunch of similar teams down in the middle but not a lot of powers. Arkansas may be one who came out of that group who was more NCAA-ready. Easy to see why: they probably have the fourth best roster in the league.Comment
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