This year’s SEC continues to bolster its case as one of the strongest basketball conferences in recent memory.
The league will send at least six teams to the Sweet 16, tying a record set by the ACC nine years ago.
Alabama became the sixth SEC team to advance to the NCAA tournament’s second week on Sunday evening when the Crimson Tide shoved aside seventh-seeded Saint Mary’s 80-66. Kentucky and Florida had previously clinched their spots in the Sweet 16, as had Auburn, Tennessee and Arkansas.
The SEC will have a chance to break the record for most Sweet 16 bids from one conference if sixth-seeded Ole Miss can upset third-seeded Iowa State on Sunday night. The Rebels enter as a 5.5-point underdog, according to BetMGM.
It’s no surprise that the SEC will have at least six of this season’s final 16 teams left standing. The SEC dominated November and December in a way few, if any, conferences ever have before. The league won 88.9% of its games against other conferences, amassed a 58-19 record against the other four power conferences and notched victories over the likes of Duke, Houston, Texas Tech and St. John’s.
Fourteen of the SEC's 16 teams received NCAA tournament bids on Selection Sunday when the 68-team field was unveiled. That smashed the previous record of 11 NCAA bids from one conference, set by the Big East in 2011.
Auburn, Florida, Alabama, Tennessee, Kentucky and Texas A&M each received top-four seeds in the NCAA tournament. The only one of those teams that did not live up to its seeding was the Aggies, who blew a 10-point second-half lead against fifth-seeded Michigan in the second round on Saturday afternoon.
The SEC’s surprise Sweet 16 team is Arkansas, which only two months ago was 0-5 in league play and firmly outside the NCAA tournament picture. John Calipari’s Razorbacks have since won 12 of 17 games culminating with Saturday’s thrilling upset of the best St. John’s team in at least two decades.
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