By Jonathan Lidskin
For a long time, the SEC was the dominant football superpower. It still is, but that’s what the conference was known for and what they embraced. I’ve written about how the upswing of SEC Basketball over the last 4-5 years has been because the teams in the conference have made smart investments with coaches and the money is now flowing into basketball and not just football. Despite playing an inferior league, Tuesday and Wednesday night felt like another big moment for the SEC as a basketball league.
The SEC-ACC challenge is still very new. It’s just in year two. However, in all of the years I’ve spent watching the ACC-Big Ten Challenge and the SEC-Big 12 Challenge among others, I can’t remember a performance that dominating. The SEC won the challenge 14-2 with the only two wins for the ACC being by home teams. The SEC’s margin of victory on average was over 14 points per game and the conference showed off some insane depth in the process.
Now it wasn’t all bad for the ACC. You can easily make the argument that the best two teams in the conference (Duke and Clemson), both scored massive victories. However, there are more results for the ACC to be concerned about than pleased with. UNC got handled at home by Alabama. Mississippi State wrecked a Pitt team that I like. Ole Miss beat a solid but banged-up Louisville team easily on the road. The list just keeps going.
There are two sides to this though and the other side is that the SEC looks like the best conference in college basketball this season. This morning, the SEC has 11 teams inside the top 40 at KenPom, six inside the top 12 and no teams outside of the top 70. In a month when conference play gets going, this league is going to be a war.
The investment in basketball is paying off. Good coaches have turned into good players and good players are turning into big-time wins. Soon enough, those big-time wins will become big-time March wins for a lot of these teams.