Every year there are scenarios that are hard to figure out what the committee will do.
This year’s dilemna is what to do with the SEC. Right when you think you have everything figured out, you have Tuesday and Wednesday.
- #1 Auburn loses to #22 Texas A&M
- #4 Tennessee loses to Ole Miss
- #15 Missouri loses to Oklahoma
- #25 Mississippi State loses to Texas
- Vanderbilt loses to Arkansas
Only 3 teams that were ahead in the standings won – and two of them (#19 Kentucky and Georgia) were playing the last place and second-to-last place teams who have only beaten 5 SEC teams between then. You could even argue that #5 Florida beating #7 Alabama was a little bit of an upset since it was at Alabama.
After there was some separation between the bubble teams, the teams 11th – 14th in the standings all won to make the waters murky again. Should lead to a really fun set of regular season finales and SEC tournament. But makes for a complicated task of picking the final at-large teams.
Can you really take a team that goes 5-13 in conference?
Can you really leave out a team that has beaten #14 Louisville, #15 Missouri, #17 Michigan, #24 Arizona and #25 Mississippi State?
If you answer No to both of those questions, you have a problem since the team in both questions is Oklahoma (if they lose on Saturday to Texas).
Since I give the bracketologists a lot of criticism, I have to thank ESPN’s Joe Lunardi – since he did some research for me. The worst conference record to ever get an at-large bid was 2 years ago when West Virginia was 7-11 in the Big 12. If Oklahoma beats Texas on Saturday, they will both be 6-12 with some pretty big Quad 1 wins.
I personally would prefer the committee look elsewhere. I feel the conference schedule is important – I would rather see the 4th place team from the ACC or Big East get in over the 13th place team from the SEC.
Lets take 2023, WV got in where everyone talked about how brutal it was to play in the Big 12 – they were clearly the strongest conference. 70% of the conference got invited (7 of 10 teams). Of course, West Virginia lost in the first round to Maryland. And none of the Big 12 teams made it to the Final 4.
I am not debating that the SEC is the strongest conference. But at a certain point, winning games has to matter. The conferences play over 60% of their games against themselves. Trying to truly base who is the best conference based on how teams did in a Thanksgiving break tournament is impossible. Do you really leave out teams that have won 22-23 games because they did it against weaker teams?
I get it – playing Auburn, Tennessee, Florida and Alabama is tough – and you are likely losing all those games. But guess what – playing Houston, Texas Tech, and Iowa State isn’t that much easier. How about Duke, Clemson and Louisville – or Michigan State, Wisconsin, Maryland, Michigan and Purdue. Every team has 3-4 games against highly ranked teams that they should be expected to lose.
I don’t know what the committee will do with teams like Texas and Oklahoma. I am sure I will have more to say about it in the coming week. Maybe things will get a little clearer by then. Probably not – if the madness has anything to say about it.