Right now all 3 remaining undefeated teams are SEC(Florida, Oklahoma, UT) and the SEC has five of the top seven teams in the rankings and 8 of the top 17 and 11 of the top 28 teams. I can't remember any conference having a 9th best team in the top 28, much less 11. I'm going to say, yes, this is the strongest conference ever.
Is the SEC this year the most dominant conference ever?
- Thread starter 4Frusciante#
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YES should get 11-12 teams in the tourney and an SEC team should win the NATTY hopefully KY.
S.C. or LSU may be the worst teams in the conference, and they are currently 17-5. I can't think of any other year or conference where this years South Carolina team would finish dead last. And I don't think the NCAAT results is how you judge it. The overall body of work proves a lot more than a quirky tournament where anything can and does happen. The SEC this year is flat out brutal.
That would be hard to equal or surpass but the top of the conference is only half the story when you're talking about league strength.
I mostly agree with you; I'd say the top half matters most but the bottom half matters too. If the bottom teams are cupcakes that has to be taken into account in determining conference strenth. I agree that the argument won't hold unless the SEC has tournament success. I'd say it would have to be four of the final 8 and 2 or more of the final 4.
To this point I believe the Big 12 had a higher median Kenpom ranking last year than the SEC does this year.
I don't get how one can say too early.
The majority of what remains is conference games which are a net zero on this stuff.
sure the tournament games but at that point you are putting a lot of stock in one and done tournament and a small sample supply. And if you're just looking at the NCAA, your doing it wrong. Given the sheer number of teams the SEC will get in, some of those will not be great seeds and thus might bounce early. It doesn't change the fact they were better than the teams that didn't even make it to begin with tho. Not to mention the fact people when talking about conference strength during the tournament seem to forget that conferences contain other teams that don't make the NCAA tourny. You have to look at things top to bottom.
Best conference ever? I dunno.
Definitely the best conference this season by a longshot? yes.
The majority of what remains is conference games which are a net zero on this stuff.
sure the tournament games but at that point you are putting a lot of stock in one and done tournament and a small sample supply. And if you're just looking at the NCAA, your doing it wrong. Given the sheer number of teams the SEC will get in, some of those will not be great seeds and thus might bounce early. It doesn't change the fact they were better than the teams that didn't even make it to begin with tho. Not to mention the fact people when talking about conference strength during the tournament seem to forget that conferences contain other teams that don't make the NCAA tourny. You have to look at things top to bottom.
Best conference ever? I dunno.
Definitely the best conference this season by a longshot? yes.
I always feel the big 12 had a jump on this as they had a low number of teams overall. it was always at the bottom they made their biggest gains IMO. Most seasons, no "bad" teams whereas other power conferences there was always one or two or three teams that were just awful brining things down.
SEC this season there are no bad teams. Despite having multiple title contenders IMO, that is the biggest difference between the SEC and others right now.
I hope you don’t believe that
Kenpom ain’t God
Sometimes you just have to be realistic about games played
Aren't we like 10-8 against Big 10 and 6-6 against Big East. Not exact just trying to provide scale. Not sure greatest conference ever can be barely over. 500 with 2 others.
The ACC might be historically bad. And Big 12 not far behind. But with other 2 that close, need tourney success. Not where we get seeded, but how many advance to S16.
The ACC might be historically bad. And Big 12 not far behind. But with other 2 that close, need tourney success. Not where we get seeded, but how many advance to S16.
Actually going through the conferences pages which has data from 1997 to 2025 only three times has the average conference team exceeded a +20 net ranking;
1997 ACC (21,.37)
2004 ACC (20.32)
2025 SEC (20.03)
Tho those 97 and 04 ACC conferences only had 9 teams. 6 of the 9 making the tournament in both years. It's just easier to have good conferences from top to bottom when there's not many teams.
The fact the SEC is doing this with 16 teams is amazing.
1997 ACC (21,.37)
2004 ACC (20.32)
2025 SEC (20.03)
Tho those 97 and 04 ACC conferences only had 9 teams. 6 of the 9 making the tournament in both years. It's just easier to have good conferences from top to bottom when there's not many teams.
The fact the SEC is doing this with 16 teams is amazing.
Yep.
And remember who those ACC teams were too. Syracuse was pretty great for a while. Duke and UNC of course. NC State was really good in some of those years.
ACC is a shell of its former self.
The year after (so 86) was the year the SEC put 5 of 10 teams in the NCAA-T, and in that tournament SEC teams only lost to each other or the eventual champion (UL).
No, the league that year was not one of the best ever, I just always find that interesting.
Using averages (means) is a bad way to assess. Because a single bad outlier can skew the results. Looking at the median NET team (the team in the middle) is better. Or maybe even better than that is the 25th percentile.
I think what separates the SEC this year is how legit good the bottom 4 (25%) teams in the league are. Those 4, IMO, could go compete for 3rd or 4th place in the ACC or Big East, and for middle of the pack in the B10 and B12 this year.
Oh look, another thread on this.
The major conferences keep getting larger and larger, so you can't even make this comparison. It's a lot different than when the SEC only had 10 teams.
Plus, people have been talking about how great it is for several years now and the post season has dispelled that.
Personally, I don't care. We're KY. We don't need to puff up our conference to make us feel better about not dominating it anymore.
The major conferences keep getting larger and larger, so you can't even make this comparison. It's a lot different than when the SEC only had 10 teams.
Plus, people have been talking about how great it is for several years now and the post season has dispelled that.
Personally, I don't care. We're KY. We don't need to puff up our conference to make us feel better about not dominating it anymore.
The overall level of play is better this year, according to my analysis. So while this is definitely an interesting point, I don’t think it’s exactly apples to apples.
Syracuse didn’t join the ACC until 2013, along with Pitt and Notre Dame.
While I agree that outliers skew averages I'm not so sure using medians would be the correct way to go about it either.
Using medians would just tell you what middle team is better in each conference. You'd be comparing the 5th best team in a 10 team conference to the 8th best team in a 16 team conference (or around there). I think that would be worse than averages.
Actually the calculation on Kenpom is neither. If I take the average for the SEC it comes out to 20.45.
This page states:
Ranking of conferences by NetRtg of team expected to go .500 in conference play.
So not taking averages. Not using the median either tho. That would be 18.85 Not sure how that's calculated but it seems like a logical way to do it.
So maybe I was incorrect in thinking that specific teams were weighing down some conferences.
Currently Miss St (20.30) is projected to finish 9-9 in conference. Miss (17.97) is projected to go 8-10 so the 20.03 number makes sense.
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In 1985, the Big East had 8 teams in tournament.
3 made it to the Final Four (WHICH WAS HELD IN RUPP ARENA)
Villanova shocked the world, upsetting Georgetown.
To me there's an issue with looking just at tournament results.
You are only focused on the specific teams that make the tournament in that case. Some people in my St Johns group was trying to make the argument that since the Big East won back to back titles, they had the toughest conference. No, that just means you had one really dominant team the past two years lol.
The only way IMO to compare conference strength is to factor every single team in that conference.
You are only focused on the specific teams that make the tournament in that case. Some people in my St Johns group was trying to make the argument that since the Big East won back to back titles, they had the toughest conference. No, that just means you had one really dominant team the past two years lol.
The only way IMO to compare conference strength is to factor every single team in that conference.
This is the post I was waoting for. Everyone is debating in the thread, but nobody could list a conference that was ever better, until this one.
But, like you said, this year the SEC is doing it with almost double the amount of teams. Take the top 9 of the SEC and run the numbers and I have to believe SEC 2025 has better numbers.
But, as was already said, the SEC has to do something in the NCAAT to put the cherry on top.
I just hope the committee doesn't do to us what they have done so many times, have it where 2 of the better teams are in the same bracket. They've even had it where there were no SEC teams in one region, but 3 in another.
It's going to he interesting, UT and AU have the inside track on 1 seeds, UK can get a 3rd one. The schedule is taylor made for that to happen. That would be amazing.
They're going to put duke on the 1 line, so the SEC wont get 4.
i think it's extremely unlikely for one conference to get three 1 seeds.
I feel like if they did it strictly by computer rankings it might be possible but I think it's hard for a group of humans to put 3 teams from a single conference on the 1 line. I just think people will start to compare teams in the same conference whether that's their intention or not. Oh this 3rd SEC team isn't quite as good as this 1st SEC team lets slide them down to a 2 seed. Even tho that 3rd SEC team might truly be one of the four best teams.
Because the conference tournaments tend to have some weight and if there's three teams in consideration, someone is getting bounced early.
It's going to be awfully hard this year to follow the bracket rule of keeping teams from conferences separate until specific rounds given the sheer number of SEC teams that might make it. That will be interesting to see what kind of effect that has on the placement of teams in each region.
We keep expanding conferences. At some point the rules will have to change IMO.
I feel like if they did it strictly by computer rankings it might be possible but I think it's hard for a group of humans to put 3 teams from a single conference on the 1 line. I just think people will start to compare teams in the same conference whether that's their intention or not. Oh this 3rd SEC team isn't quite as good as this 1st SEC team lets slide them down to a 2 seed. Even tho that 3rd SEC team might truly be one of the four best teams.
Because the conference tournaments tend to have some weight and if there's three teams in consideration, someone is getting bounced early.
It's going to be awfully hard this year to follow the bracket rule of keeping teams from conferences separate until specific rounds given the sheer number of SEC teams that might make it. That will be interesting to see what kind of effect that has on the placement of teams in each region.
We keep expanding conferences. At some point the rules will have to change IMO.
Said today during Miss st. Game best numbers since 2011 big east and on its way to beat that season
Most top 25 wins by a conference in the non conference slate would argue against that. SEC broke the record two weeks ago and is only stacking it further. It’s the best conference of all time
And it continues...unranked Miss. State just went to 11-1 with a road win vs #21 Memphis.