The NCAA men’s tournament went about as poorly as possible for the SEC.
Along with No. 6 seeds Alabama and LSU losing in the first round, No. 2 Kentucky suffered a shocking opening upset against No. 15 St. Peter’s. Tennessee and Auburn also got knocked out by double-digit seeds in the second round.
Only Arkansas made it to the Sweet 16, where the No. 4 Razorbacks eliminated the top-seeded Gonzaga. However, the SEC’s last hopes of sending a representative to New Orleans vanished when Duke ended Arkansas’ run in the Elite Eight.
Two weeks ago, ESPN’s Seth Greenberg claimed that the SEC has “leap frogged” the ACC in terms of men’s basketball. Now the ACC will send the winner of Duke and North Carolina’s historic matchup to the championship game next Monday.
Speaking on WJOX’s “McElroy and Cubelic in the Morning,” via Keith Farner of Saturday Down South, ESPN’s Paul Finebaum referenced those remarks as motivation for enhanced scrutiny of the SEC’s shortcomings.
“The criticism is coming from the ACC,” Finebaum said. “The reason is that most people, if not everyone, thought that the ACC had been passed … a lot of people are jumping on comments like that and hey, that’s fine. It was not a good year in the ACC, but when you have a big postseason it wipes away whatever you didn’t accomplish.”
As the college football analyst noted, everyone only recalls the ending, and the SEC hasn’t captured an NCAA championship since Anthony Davis guided Kentucky to the 2012 title.
“That’s all people remember,” Finebaum said. “You can say on one hand the criticism is justified, but it doesn’t take away from what happened during the season. But ultimately, it has been 10 years since the SEC won the national championship in basketball, and been what three years with Auburn since it’s been to the Final Four and that’s what people remember.”
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