SEC hoops? Hurtin'
Posted: Monday, January 12, 2009 5:39 PM
Filed Under:
SEC, Mid-majors
The SEC may have the national champs in football, but the conference is hurtin’ in hoops. It doesn’t appear to have any Final Four contenders and barely half of its 12 teams appear to be NCAA tournament contenders (four seems more likely).
Whether one goes by the RPI or kenpom.com’s rankings, the SEC is well behind the other five BCS conferences – and unlikely to rise anytime soon.
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Bruce Pearl
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Tennessee (10-4) should be the SEC’s best team, but a brutal schedule has roughed up the Vols. They’ve beaten Georgetown and Marquette, but a road loss to Temple was a stunner.
Kentucky (12-4), Florida (14-2) and South Carolina (12-2) sport nice records and each have good wins on their résumés, but doubts remain about each. Same goes for Arkansas (12-2), which upended Top 10 teams in Oklahoma and Texas, then dropped its home SEC opener to Mississippi State.
Alabama, LSU, Auburn, Vandy and Ole Miss have winning records, but haven’t beaten anyone of note. And Georgia (9-7) is just … bad. The Dawgs will be lucky to win four SEC games.
Right now, there just isn’t any SEC team that scares you. That’s not true of the Mountain West, which is doing its best to supplant the Missouri Valley as the best non-BCS conference.
Wyoming coach Heath Schroyer says the MWC is better than the SEC, which isn’t a stretch. Especially at the top.
The Mountain West’s best teams – BYU, Utah, UNLV and San Diego State – could play with any of the SEC’s best. (The Cougars nearly knocked off Wake Forest on Jan. 3). The Rebels have the worst RPI among those four, but could end being the best, too. They’ve already beaten Louisville and Arizona.
But the MWC has the same problems as the SEC – the middle and bottom teams aren’t very good. New Mexico’s inconsistent, Wyoming can’t play defense and Air Force and Colorado State are unbearable.
The Mountain West has an argument for being better than the SEC, but I’m also not sure that’s something to brag about. In past seasons when the Missouri Valley was trying to sneak into the top 6 in conference power rankings, it featured a mix of teams that were just as good at the top and far better from top to bottom in the conference.
Check out the RPI and kenpom’s ratings. The worst average RPI among BCS schools is usually .544. (True for 2008, 2006 and 2005; if the Mo Valley snuck in there, it was .550 or better.) On kenpom’s list, the worst average rating among BCS conferences hasn’t been lower than .81 since 2004. This season, the SEC is at .7988, while the MWC is at .7698 (the Big Ten is fifth best among BCS conferences with an average rating of .8513).
Is that boost for the Mountain West? Or is it simply a huge concern for the SEC?
Put it this way: How long until spring practices begin?
