The SEC Network and the Changing Landscape of SEC Basketball

ACassady_KSR

In February of 2014, Alabama.com wrote a piece titled "What if SEC schools hired basketball coaches like they do in football?" The gist was simple.

The SEC has the very real perception of being a football league in part because of who its schools hire to coach basketball. Coaching matters, and many of the SEC's basketball coaches have more question marks than those in football. {...} Kentucky's John Calipari and Florida's Billy Donovan have a stranglehold on SEC basketball coaching success. They're the only current coaches who have won at least 60 percent of their SEC games in their careers. By contrast, six current football coaches have won at least 60 percent of their SEC games as a head coach. [...] Ten SEC coaches rank among the top 25 salaries in football, including four of the seven highest-paid coaches in the country. In basketball, five of the 14 SEC coaches have top-25 salaries

For a long time schools in the SEC have been able to achieve sustaining success in football or sustaining success in basketball but rarely both. However with the launch of the SEC network this past fall that may be quickly changing. Already the landscape of SEC basketball has seen a dramatic shift from even earlier this year. Here's how the coaches have shifted:

	2013	2015
Kentucky	Coach Cal	Coach Cal
Florida	Billy Donovan	Billy Donovan
Georgia	Mark Fox	Mark Fox
Arkansas	Mike Anderson	Mike Anderson
LSU	Johnny Jones	Johnny Jones
Vanderbilt	Kevin Stallings	Kevin Stallings
Mississippi	Andy Kennedy	Andy Kennedy
Texas A&M	Billy Kennedy	Billy Kennedy
South Carolina	Frank Martin	Frank Martin
Mississippi St	Rick Ray	Ben Howland
Tennessee	Cuonzo Martin	Rick Barnes
Auburn	Tony Barbee	Bruce Pearl
Alabama	Anthony Grant	Avery Johnson
Missouri	Frank Haith	Kim Anderson

In the past two years schools like Mississippi State and Tennessee were able to hire coaches with Final Fours on their resume in Howland and Barnes. Auburn and Alabama were able to hire big names in Bruce Pearl and Avery Johnson. Texas A&M can pay a former coach like Rick Stansbury to be an assistant and reel in a 3rd ranked recruiting class. LSU is bringing in two top-20 players and could add more. What has changed the fortunes of the SEC? The launch of the SEC Network. The SEC Network was set to double each of the conferences yearly revenues in the first year and that's a number that is going to grow and grow. We've seen the impact of that revenue in a upgraded football stadium in Lexington and well paid coaching staffs all over campus. Other SEC schools seem to be trying to make similar improvements on the hardwood. Now the only question remains will it pay off? The SEC is finally beginning to hire basketball coaches like they do in football. A more competitive conference is sure to be coming next.