No one in his right mind would think other teams could make his team look good unless he's counting on opponents that truly suck or those who truly don't. In either case, you have to win.
So, the SEC blows
- Thread starter 18IsTheMan
- Start date
I like to throw in with the smart people every chance I get.
I'm one of the few on here who doesn't hate Kentucky basketball with a passion(had some friends back in high school and college who were Kentucky fans and they were some cool people) don't love Kentucky though I'd put them in the middle of the list. I don't like Tennessee, can't stand Auburn, and when they're good don't like Georgia either.
I don't want the Gamecocks to ever again win 24 regular season games and be left out of the tournament. To the extent the SEC can avoid an 0-for-everything NCAA tournament that generates a public narrative that the SEC sucks, that would probably be a good thing for us on future NCAAT selection Sundays. At a minimum, it doesn't hurt if the conference we almost won is generally viewed as competent in basketball - a position one could not possibly take after the first round of this tournament. The only thing that can salvage public opinion is if the remaining three SEC teams make deep runs.
Spot on, my friend. Yes, there are some SEC teams we don't like. But, when we pull against conference teams, we are trading away long-term benefits for short-term satisfaction. Have to be a visionary and look down the road.
I'm not so sure public opinion matters all that much. IMO it's about the experts... and they think very highly of themselves. If I had to guess most will hold firm on the conference being good because they will not believe they could have been that wrong. They will write off our first round losses as fluke and next year they will be back to praising the conference as one of the best if not the best. I suspect this will happen every year as if the previous year never happened.
NCAA tournament conference breakdown: Big East, Pac-12 thriving, while Mountain West, SEC struggle
Here’s how the multi-bid conferences are performing in the 2024 men’s NCAA tournament
www.sbnation.com
I’m pulling for the Tar Heels because I don’t trust Bama to beat Clemson. But Go Vols and go MissSt. They are giving Houston hell, hope they win
Well, as bad as it’s been, SEC will have at least 2 teams in Sweet 16 which is a bit better than the percentage of 7 teams in the round of 64.
ACC reasserts itself as the dominant basketball conference.
ACC reasserts itself as the dominant basketball conference.
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Well, it's been the worst tournament possible.
We got exposed and unceremoniously bounced out in the first round. Clemson has surprised and advanced to the Sweet 16. Outside of the Oakland upset of UK and Yale over Auburn, there haven't been any great upsets, and no Cinderellas are left.
This is exactly how I feel. For years, Clemson fans have laughed at our obsession with being in the SEC regarding football. They rightly point out that we lean on that SEC crutch pretty hard. We mock the ACC and then lose to their teams. We deride Clemson for being in the ACC and they win national championships and own us. For the past few decades (pre conference realignment and NIL) the reality of college football has been that the top team or two in every conference was pretty good and could go toe to toe with any team in the country and the rest of the teams in every conference were all pretty evenly mediocre to bad.
Alabama and UGA being dominant programs hasn't helped our football program in any way. When LSU, UT and UF were dominant that didn't help Carolina's recruiting. We need to win our own games and quit worrying about the conference. How the conference does makes little to no difference in recruiting. Clemson has recruited pretty well in spite of being in a conference that is weak in football. FSU recruited well when they were the top team in the ACC. Being in the SEC has not elevated our recruiting in any measurable way the same as being in the B1G hasn't helped Minnesota's recruiting.
ACC teams routinely go 0 for in bowl games and, yet, they continue to be invited to bowls. No one in the "public" really thinks the ACC is anything other than mediocre in football. The NCAAT has 68 teams, they are going to spread the invitations to all the major conferences in order to attract viewers from all of the schools. Public opinion has nothing to do with what teams are invited. A barely over .500 team in the ACC isn't going to get an invite over a 24 win SEC school because the public thinks the ACC is better than the SEC in basketball.
I agree with this. I despise a few teams in the league (Tennessee, A&M, Mizzou), will support my best friend (LSU) and in-laws (Ole Miss) if I'm watching a game with them, and couldn't care one way or the other about the rest. Except for Texas, my second alma mater. Hook 'em.
The ACC went 0-fer in 2020, but that's the only season since at least 2009 that happened (I didn't check years prior to 2010). Their bowl game winning percentage since 2010 is on par with the other Power conferences not named the SEC, in the 46% - 49% range.
Being in the SEC has benefitted our athletic program overall from a financial standpoint. It will only continue to do that if the brand maintains a high level of respect. People are going to pull for whom they will, but SEC membership is only as good as the brand.
Joining any conference would have benefitted us financially compared to remaining independent and would have continued to regardless of how the conference performed.
OK, then change the word "public" to "experts," or even "committee." I actually said "public narrative." By that, I mean what is said - general - , whether by sports analysts, coaches, bloggers, athletic directors, etc. The committee may not care what you or I think, but they are humans who don't live in a vacuum. Their perceptions are shaped, at least in part, by the public narrative. The fact is, we DID win 24 games and got left out of the tournament, largely on the premise that the SEC was a weak basketball conference.
Pull for whoever you want - it's kind of dumb for us to argue about who somebody should pull for. But the idea that the Gamecocks are better off when the SEC brand is weak seems pretty ludicrous to me.
Edit: to be clear, I with just a few exceptions, I also like the SEC programs better than the programs of the ACC, Big Ten, and (formerly) PAC. I prefer the teams, the cities, the food, the atmosphere, the culture, and most of the fans I've met.
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Which will become even more germane with the passage of time.
As I recall, the year we won 24 and got left out was not because the SEC was weak, it was because our OOC schedule was a complete joke. Then, we went 11-7 in conference and lost 5 of our last 10 games in the regular season and lost in the first game of the SEC tournament. It really wasn't a snub of a good team.
You said everything that needed to be said. We absolutely sucked. Syracuse, which bumped us, went to the Final Four. We weren't going to any Final Four with that bunch.
It comes in every year. Maybe somebody will figure something out.
Everybody enjoys visiting a Nashville. It's the best destination in the conference and ensures that Vandy will have a home in the SEC for as long as they want it.
Be careful with those thoughts. The idea that we just beat the teams that we play sounds a lot like that team in the upstate that we make fun of because of their weak schedule in football. OK, I actually agree with that whole sentiment. I don't care who wins or loses in our conference. I good day is a day when the Gamecocks win. A great day is a day when the Gamecocks win and the Tatertots lose (any sport applies).
Tulane coulda had it in NOLA as well, but I guess Baton Rouge being not that far away suffices.
Well, in our case, they did get a new relatively small state in conference territory, but our independence made us low-hanging fruit. They could have had UPC had they been willing to entice them to leave the ACC. Leaving would have been cheaper then, cheaper than what it cost Maryland.
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