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Greg Sankey is obviously going to stump for his own conference to have as many teams in the NCAA Tournament as possible, but lately, the SEC commissioner simply has to pass along facts to make his point for him.
On Thursday night, Sankey shared a stat that 14 of the 16 teams in the SEC have appeared in the AP Top 25 poll this season. And he believes that’s the number that makes the most sense for the league on Selection Sunday.
Neither LSU nor South Carolina have appeared in the AP poll this season. But every other SEC team has spent at least 1 week among the ranks of the ranked. That includes Oklahoma and Texas, who each lost 12 games in league play. That includes Mississippi State, Georgia, Vanderbilt, and Arkansas, who each finished with a losing record in league play.
The SEC was the best conference in basketball during the regular season, according to KenPom. Fourteen of its 16 teams are currently sitting inside the KenPom top 50.
On Thursday night, Arkansas took Ole Miss to the brink, Oklahoma lost to Kentucky on a last-second shot, and Texas upended Texas A&M in double-overtime.
Heading into the second round of the SEC Tournament, Joe Lunardi’s bracket projections suggested Oklahoma was safely in the field as the SEC’s 13th team while Texas was the first team to miss the cut. But with Indiana losing to Oregon in the Big Ten Tournament on Thursday and the Longhorns picking up a seventh Quad 1 win of the season, the Longhorns now seem to be on the right side of the cut line.
Texas faces Tennessee on Friday in the quarterfinal round.
RELATED: SDS is keeping track of all the latest March Madness odds as Selection Sunday approaches.
Derek Peterson does a bit of everything, not unlike Taysom Hill. He has covered Oklahoma, Nebraska, the Pac-12, and now delivers CFB-wide content.
