Nice showing by the SEC this weekend! I guess it really DOESN'T mean more lol. Was the strength of the league not as strong as the experts thought or are there just a bunch of good teams out there?

The Big 10 got shredded today after a good start.

The SEC had simply crapped its pants this tournament.  A lot weaker conference than a lot of us thought.

8 minutes ago, Randy Parker said:

The SEC had simply crapped its pants this tournament.  A lot weaker conference than a lot of us thought.

Probably this.   Although this a season with extraordinary few dominant teams and therefore ripe for upsets. 

It appears that the cream of the SEC crop was playing much better basketball in January than they are in March.

Auburn was a bizarre team all year. Probably the most puzzling part is they have a top 3 prospect, yet their two guards were the ones that would try and take over games late and pretend they were top 3 prospects.

RE: SEC. There were four potential schools that we felt could make a run. Of those, the two that looked the best down the stretch and going into the tournament were Arkansas and UT. UK and Auburn did not look the part. While it is shocking they lost, there are much more shocking things that all but one remain going into the second weekend.

football kicks off 8/27....   ?

12 hours ago, 9068 said:

Nice showing by the SEC this weekend! I guess it really DOESN'T mean more lol. Was the strength of the league not as strong as the experts thought or are there just a bunch of good teams out there?

I'm guessing both.

4 hours ago, 4 Quarters said:

I'm guessing both.

I would say you're right.... even the advent of the monster "one and done" teams hasn't affected the steady march of parity....    We have to remember that there are no "bad" teams in this tournament.

But....

The teams expected to carry the SEC banner far into the tournament flamed out, often in spectacular fashion.   This was not the showing we all expected.   

Per Calipari (in a tweet), "every SEC team that won 9 league games should be in the tournament"...."the top four teams in our league went 35-1 at home.   Crazy!   We're the best league and our teams deserve that respect!"

Oops.   Maybe not.

Kentucky (NET ranking #5) lost to #15 seed St. Peter's (NET ranking #124) in one of the biggest upsets in the history of the tournament (based on seeding and the projected victory margin)....

Auburn was blown out by #10 seed Miami, an ACC team that was up-and-down all year and finished with double-digit losses....

Tennessee was handled by an 11-seed, a decent Michigan team that still lost 14 times during the season and barely made the tournament.

Losing to double-digit seeds was catching....

#6 Seed LSU lost to #11 seed Iowa State....

#6 seed Alabama lost #11 seed Notre Dame, another team that barely made the tournament (and who had just survived a double-OT game over Rutgers in a play-in game 48 hours earlier)

If it wasn't for nine measley points over two games, the SEC might have no teams left.   Arkansas beat #13 seed Vermont by just four points and #12 seed New Mexico State by 5.

As a league, the SEC is definitely getting better at basketball, and I really don't blame Calipari for stumping for his league prior to Selection Sunday.     The regular season was impressive ....but maybe all the crowing should have been reserved till after the league showed its mettle in the actual tournament, instead of before the opening tip....

CM