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Best all-time SEC rankings when combining football and basketball
By Tom Brew
Published:
Alabama is that the top of the heap in the SEC when it comes to football, both this year, in the past decade and all time. SEC football starts and ends with the Crimson Tide, though they’ve had challengers through the years.
It’s the same with SEC basketball, where Kentucky has dominated the league both recently and all time. They’ve had far few challengers to their superiority through the years.
But when it comes to picking the best SEC team when you combine BOTH sports, there’s no doubt about those rankings either.
It’s great to be a Florida Gator.
Here’s what I did to rank our 14 SEC programs in both football and basketball. I ranked three areas: This year – which includes a season and a half for basketball since we’re in the middle of a season – the past decade and all time. Overall wins were a factor, as were national and conference titles. There’s a whole lot of personal preferences too, since I actively watch both sports.
Agree to disagree, and I’m sure you will, but here’s how those rankings came in adding up the three categories, this year, the past past 10 years and all time.
FOOTBALL
- Alabama
- Florida
- LSU
- Georgia
- Tennessee
- Auburn
- Ole Miss
- Texas A&M
- Arkansas
- Missouri
- South Carolina
- Mississippi State
- Kentucky
- Vanderbilt
BASKETBALL
- Kentucky
- Florida
- Arkansas
- Missouri
- Tennessee
- LSU
- Alabama
- Vanderbilt
- Georgia
- Mississippi State
- Texas A&M
- South Carolina
- Ole Miss
- Auburn
Adding up the rankings, here’s the composite total
- Florida (4)
- Alabama (8)
- LSU (9)
- Tennessee (10)
- Arkansas (12)
- Georgia (13)
- Kentucky (14)
- Missouri (14)
- Texas A&M (19)
- Auburn (20)
- Ole Miss (20)
- Mississippi State (22)
- South Carolina (22)
- Vanderbilt (22)
There’s no question that Florida deserves this lofty ranking. Kentucky in basketball and Alabama in football set the bar for lofty standards, but it’s the Gators who have been able to threaten in both sports.
The Gators were kings in both sports not that long ago, when Urban Meyer and Billy Donovan were winning multiple national championships simultaneously. That’s never happened before at any SEC school.
And the Gators did it. First with Steve Spurrier and then later with Meyer, Florida took on Alabama nose-to-nose and often came out on top. Same with Donovan and his Gators basketball teams. They passed Kentucky by for a long stretch there and winning back-to-back national titles gave them a massive stamp of approval.
It’s really nice being on a campus where you’re good at both sports. It makes watching sports year-round fun. And for Gator fans, they’ve had plenty to enjoy. The last 25 years or so especially have been a lot of fun in Gainesville.
Some of the all-time rankings get skewed a bit by the SEC newcomers through the years like Arkansas, South Carolina, Missouri and Texas A&M. But I didn’t let that alter the rankings. No old-school bias at all.
Tom Brew is an award-winning journalist and author who is covering SEC football for Saturday Down South.
