NCAA Basketball: Missouri, Kentucky and Saint Louis lead Sunday Mailbag
By Bryan Mauro
1. How many bids will the SEC get? Likely only 3 or 4? – DJ Brooks (@mallory131313)
It is no secret that the SEC has not performed well as of late and the teams who I thought would be good have turned out to not be very good at all. It is no secret I was extremely high on Auburn and Kentucky and in the reverse, I was not overly high on Missouri or Tennessee.
Tennessee is likely going to make me have some egg on my face as they look to be one of the better teams in the country. Kentucky is making all of us scratch our heads with how bad they have looked. Kentucky is going to be looked at further in-depth later.
It’s early but the SEC is likely going to get six or seven bids into the NCAA tournament. The league may be down but it is still going to have some tournament worthy teams who are going to rack up wins against good competition. LSU, Missouri, Arkansas, Tennessee, and Florida would be the teams who would receive a bid right now. There are numerous teams who have work to do but can still do enough, especially in the conference to gain a bid.
Ole Miss, Kentucky, Alabama are the three most obvious teams who have the talent to make a run and get into the tournament. Ole Miss doesn’t have any bad losses and are undefeated right now but don’t have much on the resume right now. They still have work to do.
Kentucky I will get into more in-depth later but never ever count out the Wildcats and Alabama has a tremendous roster and great coach and they are likely going to find themselves in the tournament the roster is just too talented for them to not make it. So if two of the above three make it that already gives the conference seven bids into the tournament.
One team to keep an eye out for and a team I am not ready to give up on yet is the Auburn Tigers. They have an extremely young roster full of really talented freshmen and they are coached well by Bruce Pearl. Auburn is an interesting case study because they have a large number of talented players mainly Justin Williams and JT Thor, but the recruiting class was built around Sharife Cooper who is currently facing some NCAA eligibility questions and has not played yet.
If Cooper does play that increases the chances of the Tigers making the tournament. If he doesn’t play, then the Tigers are likely a bottom half team in the SEC. A reasonable expectation for the conference is likely six bids. Three bids would be a disaster for the conference. It is down from where it normally is, but it isn’t that bad.