Prior to yesterday, if you had asked me who had the best basketball conference going into the season, I would have told you the Big 12 without hesitation. After all, they have 3 of my top 5 ranked teams heading into the season with Houston, Kansas, and Iowa State. They have been the best conference on KenPom for the last 3 seasons and 9 of the last 11. They also added a blue-blood type program this year in Arizona. However, when I finally got around to calculating my preseason rankings, the SEC emerged as the runaway best conference in both average ranking and returning talent rating.
Average Rank
Talent Rating
1
SEC
34.75
3.56
2
Big 12
44.75
3.34
3
Big Ten
45.16
3.18
4
Big East
51.18
3.13
5
ACC
60.78
2.91
6
MWC
82.1
2.52
7
WCC
88.6
2.45
8
A10
102
2.18
9
AAC
110
2.19
Unfortunately, it seems that the loss of Texas and Oklahoma hurt more than just the perception, as did adding Utah, Arizona State, and Colorado, who project as three of the bottom four teams this season providing an anchor to the league. Arizona also doesn’t project at the same level this year as it has under Tommy Lloyd.
The SEC simply looks like it will be a better conference from top to bottom. It also has the top team in our projected rankings with #1 Alabama and 11 teams in the top 32. They also feature the top two players in the nation in our statistical model, Johni Broome and Mark Sears, who are essentially on a tier of their own.
We shall see, but this appears to be a very strong conference that might move into the number one position as the best basketball conference, a spot the Big 12 has dominated for most of the last decade. With their resources and NIL, it might not be a position they relinquish for a long time.
