Six stats that show the SEC’s men’s college basketball dominance

Jeff Borzello, ESPN Staff WriterJan 3, 2025, 08:00 AM ET

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• Basketball recruiting expert.
• Joined ESPN in 2014.
• Graduate of University of Delaware.The story of the SEC’s supremacy

this season started back in early December throughout the SEC/ACC Challenge: After 9 games– a 9-0 SEC record on the first day– the SEC had actually already clinched the two-day, 16-game conference challenge.Even though the ACC is the worst of the power conferences in

2024-25, the numbers– and social networks posts– were eye-opening. The Challenge ended with a 14-2 edge to the SEC, among the very first indications of the frustrating supremacy displayed.The conference’s success wasn’t surprising: The SEC had an excellent offseason in the transfer portal, landing 17 of ESPN’s leading 50 transfers. In a piece taking a look at the winners and losers of the portal, the SEC had 10 schools in categories where they helped themselves– and just one noted among schools that were harmed by the portal. It had nine teams ranked in the preseason AP poll and presently boasts 4 of the 10 top-performing freshmen in the country.Editor’s Picks 2 Associated (As an aside, the SEC’s capability to stockpile talent isn’t slowing anytime soon. For the 2nd year in

a row, the SEC will be bringing in the

most ESPN 100 freshmen in the country next season. The league had 26 top-100 prospects committed to member schools at the end of the early finalizing duration.)But no one might predict a showing that 2 months into the season is approaching”best-ever”status.Conference play in the SEC starts Saturday, highlighted by Saturday’s two Sonic Smash hit games, Florida’s trip to Kentucky(11 a.m. ET, ESPN)and Tennessee hosting Arkansas(1 p.m., ESPN). Later in the day, unbeaten Oklahoma heads to Alabama( 6 p.m., SEC Network )and an in-state rivals Texas A&M and Texas clash(8 p.m., SEC Network ). Is the SEC having the best season of any conference all time? And will it continue in league play? Here is a look at six stats that show the league’s dominance entering conference play.88.9 %That’s the SEC’s total winning percentage going into conference play.

It’s without a doubt the best record of any conference in the country. It’s without a doubt the very best gaining percentage in the league’s history. The SEC has all 3 of the remaining unbeaten groups; every team in the conference has at least

10 wins; and South Carolina is the only team with more than two losses(the Gamecocks have a whopping … 3 beats). All 16 of the SEC’s teams have at least a. 750 winning portion; according to ESPN Research, it’s the very first conference with every team having a. 750 winning percentage entering January since the 1983-84 ACC, which had just 8 teams.Of course, that winning percentage will drop considerably as league play begins. However as ESPN’s Neil Paine looked into last month, the SEC now has the best nonconference record for any conference in games before New Year’s Day since a minimum of 2002-03, according to SportRadar data. The previous pacesetter was the 2003-04 ACC, which had an 88.2 winning portion entering conference play.12 That’s the variety of SEC teams presently in Joe Lunardi’s Bracketology. The record for bids from a single conference is 11, which the Big East sent in 2011. That number might diminish as conference play warms up, however as we’ll get to a little bit later, almost every game in SEC play is going to be a Quadrant 1 opportunity, meaning very

couple of losses will hurt a bubble group’s résumé– and there are opportunities galore for profile-boosting wins.There were 10 SEC teams in this week’s AP Top 25, so that’s at least 10 groups in a reasonably strong position going into conference play. Georgia is knocking on the door, with just one loss and a win over St. John’s. Texas is 11-2 and will get a chance to prove itself extremely quickly in SEC play: The Longhorns open at Texas A&M, vs. Auburn, vs. Tennessee, at Oklahoma and at Florida

. Missouri is 11-2 and owns a declaration win over then-No. 1 Kansas. Lunardi has 2 more teams– Vanderbilt and LSU– in his First 4 Out and Next Four Out, respectively. A record-setting season is quite within the range of results.21 That’s the number of wins the SEC has against AP-ranked teams in nonconference play– the most ever by a conference prior to postseason play, according to ESPN Research study. The SEC isn’t stat-padding and stacking wins versus weak nonconference slates: They are beating the very best of the very best and doing it every night.To take it a few steps even more, here are the power conferences’records against the top 25 teams at BartTorvik.com: SEC: 15-10 ACC: 5-31

Big East: 5-18 Big Ten: 11-26 Big 12: 9-22 Expand it to the leading 50: SEC: 27-17 ACC: 13-55 Big East: 15-33 Big Ten: 21-40 Big 12: 16-36 The leading 100? SEC: 51-22 ACC: 27-79 Big East: 32-45 Big Ten: 47-48 Big 12: 34-48 And in Quadrant 1 games: SEC: 29-19 ACC: 12-53 Big East: 11-31 Big Ten: 21-40 Big 12: 15-36 Plus-20.12 That’s the league’s existing ranking at KenPom, the very best in the nation by some distance. In reality, it’s the greatest since the ACC finished at plus-20.21 in 2004. For recommendation, a group with
a plus-20.12 net ranking would be in the top

30 nationally in his rankings. There are 4 SEC groups in the top 10 at KenPom, seven in the
leading 25 and 11 in the top 40.15 That’s the number of

SEC groups are

ranked in the leading 75 of the NET. South Carolina is the only
SEC team ranked outside of that limit

— also the only one outside the

leading 55– and
the Gamecocks are not that far off at
No. 86. With Quadrant 1 games specified

as home games vs. the leading 30, neutral-site games vs. the leading 50 and roadway games vs. the top 75, that implies that almost every time an SEC group plays a roadway game, it’s a Quadrant 1 opportunity.One way to keep the league’s supremacy through Selection Sunday is for teams to acquire Quadrant 1 wins and limitation losses to groups outside the first 2 Quadrants. It’s going to be extremely hard for teams in the SEC– which has absolutely no Quadrant 3 losses and simply one Quadrant 4 loss as a league– to have résumés that end up being weighted down by the bottom groups in the conference.5 That’s how many teams are ranked in the leading 10 of this week’s AP poll.The SEC hasn’t won a national championship considering that Kentucky in 2012 and has actually had simply one Final Four appearance in the past 4 NCAA competitions. With Auburn, Tennessee, Alabama, Florida and Kentucky all near the top of the rankings as we begin 2025, it’s

a remarkable chance for the SEC to end the drought.Auburn is the favorite to lower the webs entering January, while Tennessee is ranked No. 1 in the AP poll and isn’t far behind the Tigers when it comes to champion hopes. Alabama has one of the most talented lineups in the country, Florida hasn’t lost a game yet and Kentucky already owns wins over Duke and Gonzaga. And no one will be surprised if Texas A&M or Mississippi State or even Arkansas

discovered its way to the Last 4 come March.The SEC is without a doubt the most dominant and deepest league in the nation.