More than likely, the good fans of Kentucky and Tennessee have quit complaining about getting snubbed by the NCAA Tournament selection committee last Sunday.
The Wildcats and Volunteers embarrassed themselves and the SEC by losing their first-round games in the National Insignificant Tournament.
Kentucky was beaten by a guy named Robert Morris, who had zero postseason victories before facing the defending NCAA national champions, and Tennessee went down at the hands of Mercer.
Nothing against Robert Morris, which the Arkansas Razorbacks defeated just before Christmas, or Mercer, which beat Alabama and destroyed the Crimson Tide’s strength of schedule. Robert Morris and Mercer won their respective conference championships and then slipped up in their conference tournaments and ended up in the NIT.
Still, SEC teams aren’t supposed to lose to teams from the Atlantic Sun or Northeastern conferences. It’s just not supposed to happen, on any floor on any night.
That gives pause to how well the SEC might fare in the NCAA Tournament, which started Tuesday.
Understand that Missouri played late Thursday night and this was written before the Tigers could earn the SEC a small degree of respect with a victory over Colorado State, which was bounced out of last year’s tournament by Cinderella team Murray State. As far as talent, the Tigers should have won easily. If they didn’t, it may have come down to coaching, something Colorado State’s Larry Eustachy is very good at, especially now that he is sober and has been for almost a decade.
What could help the SEC’s sinking national reputation is Ole Miss - which takes on Wisconsin, a team that grinds you down - and Florida.
The Rebels won the SEC Tournament and still ended up a No. 12 seed, which clearly meant the selection committee wasn’t impressed, even with the championship game victory over Florida.
The Gators can start to prove today they aren’t overrated as a No. 3 seed when they take on No. 14 Northwestern (La.) State, the second-place finisher in the Southland Conference and a team the Razorbacks beat 79-61. Obviously, this should be a total blowout and Florida should advance to face either Minnesota or UCLA.
What the SEC needs badly is for Florida to get some help and make the Final Four. That would help everyone’s recruiting, and that is what makes the league better.
Admittedly, on a personal level, the NCAA Tournament isn’t as much fun without the Razorbacks, but then their slide coincides with the decline of SEC basketball. The SEC needs Arkansas to get back to where it was in the 1990s, but that isn’t going to happen in just a couple of years because Arkansas slipped from being a national power to an afterthought.
Nationally, success is judged by a team first making the NCAA Tournament and then by having success on the national stage.
Eddie Sutton took the Hogs to nine consecutive NCAA Tournaments in his 11 seasons and posted a 10-9 record there, including a Final Four appearance in 1978.
Nolan Richardson kicked it up several levels with 13 NCAA Tournament appearances and three Final Four appearances, which included winning the national championship in 1994, and posting a 26-11 record during March Madness.
Since Richardson’s departure, the Hogs have been to three NCAA Tournaments and have a 1-3 record. The current five-year absence is the longest since Sutton arrived.
The SEC needs to make a little thunder in the big storm that started Tuesday, but even more so, it needs the Arkansas Razorbacks to get back to being a team that is feared no matter where it plays.
Sports, Pages 19 on 03/22/2013