The problem is that a conference gets judged on how it preforms during the OOC schedule (which is played at the beginning of the season), and the SEC preformed pretty badly. However, the talking heads seem to ignore the fact that as a conference the SEC is very young and/or inexperienced, and thus it is only logical that teams would struggle at the beginning of the season (which is when you play your OOC). Also, there is no marquee team, and that hurts the perception of the conference. I think the quality of the teams in the SEC has improved as the season has progressed (State now is definitely better than the team that lost to Charlotte and USD), and I personally believe that the SEC teams that do get into the tournament will upset some teams.
However, the SEC is down this year and cannot compare the the ACC and Big East.