Bracket fever is suddenly sweeping the nation — the NBA Cup is down to its final four teams and college football’s expanded playoff is also getting in on what had previously been the domain of its college basketball cousins.
But that doesn’t mean the Bracketology has stopped on the collegiate hardwood, either. During the past week or so, No. 1 Kansas was toppled by Creighton and Mizzou, dropping its ranking in the latest AP poll by nine spots, to go with additional losses for Gonzaga, Michigan and other ranked teams. All of these shake-ups help the season come into greater focus, setting the stage for a sprint to March, when it’s time to fill out the real brackets we all know and love.
In this week’s edition of our men’s college basketball column, we’ll dig into the early, historic dominance of a conference traditionally known for football, plus a look at the bubble team nobody can agree on, and the games to watch this weekend.
Jump to a section:
The Big Dance: Best SEC season ever?
Bubble Watch: Mixed feelings on Arizona
Future Focus: Best weekend games
This column will always tip off with one wide look at a key team, player or trend from men’s college hoops action. What does it mean for the rest of the season?
Lost amid all the hand-wringing over Alabama being excluded from the College Football Playoff — giving the SEC only three entries in the field — was on the basketball court the conference has never been better.
Literally so: The SEC is currently on pace for the best winning percentage (.872) and schedule-adjusted scoring margin per game (+19.1, per Sports-Reference’s Simple Rating System) in its men’s basketball history, as of Thursday morning.
Now, that’s a bit of an apples-to-oranges comparison — we’re pitting preconference numbers for 2024-25 against full seasons of the past — but even if we isolate only nonconference games from before New Year’s Day, this is still a historic start for the SEC.
According to data since 2002-03 (via SportRadar), the conference’s current .872 winning percentage in those games is easily the best in that span, topping its .840 mark from early in 2003-04.
To find a conference rival for this year’s SEC from the past 22 seasons, the only place to really compare is the 2003-04 ACC, which posted an .882 winning percentage in nonconference, pre-New Year’s games, slightly better than the 2024-25 SEC to date:
And even there, it’s not hard to argue that the current SEC has been more impressive. The ACC had just nine teams that season — the SEC has 16 now — and played 85 games out of conference early on (going 75-10). The SEC has played 148 games, losing only nine more times than the 2003-04 ACC, but winning 54 more times. The quality of the wins has also been more impressive: The 2024-25 SEC has a .667 winning percentage against nonconference teams ranked among the AP Top 25 going into the game, significantly higher than the 2003-04 ACC’s collective .600 mark against ranked nonconference opponents.
In that regard, the only superior winning percentages since 2002-03 belonged to the 2020-21 West Coast Conference (.857 against Top 25 opponents), 2019-20 Big 12 (.727), 2006-07 Missouri Valley Conference (.714) and 2009-10 Big 12 (.700). Again, they all compiled those records in fewer than half as many contests as the 2024-25 SEC — which has already played 24 games against ranked nonconference opponents, winning 16 of them (the most of any conference before New Year’s since at least 2002-03).
This SEC strength has been building, leading up to what looks like a peak performance for the conference in modern times. Including 2024-25, it has ranked among the top four of Ken Pomeroy’s conference ratings in six of the past seven seasons, after ranking that high just once in the 10 previous campaigns. The ACC will always be a comparison point for the SEC as far as conferences go, since its Atlantic Coast brethren were traditionally the big bullies on the basketball block.
But it might be no coincidence that the SEC’s rise has arrived in parallel with hard times in the ACC. In stark contrast with the SEC’s early success, the ACC’s .650 nonconference winning percentage is its lowest mark before New Year’s since at least 2002-03. In his latest Bracketology update, colleague Joe Lunardi listed three times as many SEC schools (12) making the tournament as ACC schools (4).
The key element in the SEC’s rise might be the conference’s depth. Eleven of the conference’s 16 teams rank among the KenPom top 40, and every member is among the top 70. That’s the perfect ingredient for seeing your representatives be competitive in any given nonconference game. The one thing missing from the SEC’s recent performance, however, is a championship — no SEC program has won a national title since Kentucky in 2012.
If that drought is going to end anytime soon, there is probably no better chance for the SEC than this season. Take for example one Saturday feature game — Louisville at No. 5 Kentucky (5:15 p.m. ET, ESPN).
With a combination of depth and high-end contenders — fully half of the KenPom top 10 hails from the SEC — there’s a reason why the conference is off to such an incredible start this season. The only question is how it will translate in March.
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Calipari shouts out the SEC and Dick Vitale after big Arkansas win
John Calipari speaks to the depth of SEC basketball this season and wishes a speedy recover to Dick Vitale after Arkansas beats Michigan in the Jimmy V Classic.
It’s never too early to worry about which teams could be on the outside looking in and which teams need to notch a few more wins to make themselves tournament eligible. Here we’ll feature one team and why that team is on Bubble Watch now:
Most of the time, subjective hoops assessments tend to agree with the various computer models — including ESPN’s own BPI metrics — which all, in turn, tend to be in alignment (because they operate using similar data). But this week’s Bubble Watch featured team seems to be throwing all of those numbers and narratives for a loop.
Depending on where you look, Arizona is either a lock for the NCAA tourney — the Wildcats have a 98.6% chance to make it, according to ESPN Analytics’ forecast — or are fighting for their bubble lives. Lunardi has them as the first team out of the tourney in Bracketology — or somewhere in between.
Even the models can’t agree: In contrast with BPI, TeamRankings sets their tourney odds at 75%, while Bart Torvik is considerably lower at 60%. And to top it off, the Cats only appear in 39% of the tourney projections aggregated by BracketMatrix.com.
Among teams with at least a 70% average NCAA tournament probability across all three sources above, Arizona has the second-largest spread between the models most bullish and bearish on its chances (trailing only Texas Tech):
So what the heck is going on in Tucson?
As is usually the case, coach Tommy Lloyd’s team has no shortage of talent, ranking among the top 10 in the preseason poll after dynamic guard Caleb Love withdrew from the NBA draft over the summer. But Lloyd also had to reassemble a roster around Love after losing four starters from a team that hit No. 1 early last season, but ultimately fell short in the Sweet 16. Among the other members of the preseason top 10, only Duke (23.6%) and Baylor (30.0%) returned a smaller share of minutes from 2023-24 this season than Arizona.
Perhaps those growing pains help explain some of the Wildcats’ string of early losses against their tougher foes. Arizona has handily beaten opponents among Quads 3 and 4 of the NET rankings, but it is 0-4 against Quad 1 teams (a group that includes Wisconsin, Duke, Oklahoma and West Virginia). And Love, in particular, has struggled in those games, with an uncharacteristic 41.1% on True Shooting while hitting just 22% of his 3-pointers.
If the season ended today, the Wildcats would not make the tourney — they currently sit 1.3 wins below the bubble by Torvik’s measure. But while the Big 12 is by no means an easy conference to rise within, the Wildcats should at least see better luck going forward in terms of opponent 3-point shooting, a highly volatile category where they rank 277th in the nation after finishing among the top 130 in each of Lloyd’s prior seasons in Tucson.
The downside in Arizona’s forecasts comes from the chances it had — and blew — to distinguish itself before the selection committee. But the upside remains, which is why opinions on these Cats differ so greatly.
The last part of our column features a rotating cast of items with a lookahead on what’s coming up:
Before the college football bowl season kicks off Saturday, basketball will be at the forefront this weekend. Here are the best games:
1. No. 18 UConn vs. No. 8 Gonzaga
Saturday, 8 p.m. ET, Fox
After their recent overtime loss to Kentucky, the Zags had a week to regroup before another showcase game — this time versus the two-time defending national champs at Madison Square Garden. For its part, Connecticut did its regrouping by bouncing back from a miserable start with a pair of solid Quad 1 wins against Baylor and Texas. Look to see whether UConn’s 91st-ranked KenPom defense (its worst since Year 1 of the coach Dan Hurley era) can slow a Gonzaga offense that ranks No. 2 in the country.
2. No. 1 Tennessee at Illinois
Saturday, 5:30 p.m. ET, Fox
The newly-minted No. 1 team in the nation gets a strong nonconference test against the Fighting Illini in Champaign. The Vols have plenty of offensive threats who will keep coach Brad Underwood’s defense occupied — Chaz Lanier has scored 20 or more in four of his past five games — but the big question might be whether Illinois can avoid another offensive power outage (like it had in last week’s OT loss to Northwestern) versus one of the nation’s top defenses in Tennessee.
3. No. 24 UCLA vs. Arizona
Saturday, 3 p.m. ET, ESPN2
We already covered Arizona above, so we won’t belabor the point except to say that UCLA offers the Wildcats their last chance to score a Quad 1 win before conference play starts in the Big 12. And for the ex-conference rival Bruins, it’s a chance to add to a résumé that also includes a recent signature win against Oregon. Early signs point to coach Mick Cronin’s squad reloading for another tourney run this season after a down campaign in 2023-24.
4. No. 17 Texas A&M vs. No. 11 Purdue
Saturday, Noon ET, CBS
Texas A&M is a perfect example of the SEC depth we were praising so heavily earlier. Though they sit sixth in the conference in KenPom’s ratings, the Aggies also rank 23rd in the nation. Along those lines, ESPN Analytics gives Texas A&M a 2.5% chance to win the conference, well behind favorites Tennessee (33.2%) and Auburn (31.9%). This game against the Boilermakers won’t have much direct bearing on those odds, but it couldn’t hurt to come out ahead in a coin flip matchup with a Purdue squad that has proved itself capable of beating top-tier teams.
5. Creighton at No. 7 Alabama
Saturday, 8:30 p.m. ET, SEC Network
Speaking of one of those top teams that fell to Purdue, Alabama has won four of five since that loss — the only blemish being a two-point defeat to Oregon — putting Bama back on track to battle for a potential 1-seed in the NCAA bracket. Creighton will be a fascinating opponent for its résumé in that regard. The Bluejays have run hot and cold to begin the season, following double-digit losses to Nebraska and San Diego State, blowing a game against Texas A&M they mostly led and recording a big win against then-No. 1 Kansas. That’s why this matchup could take any number of different directions, depending on how hot coach Greg McDermott’s team gets from 3-point range.
