College basketball fans infuriated by the SEC’s historic Selection Sunday

Heading into Selection Sunday 2025, the record for the most NCAA Tournament bids for a single conference in a given year was held by the Big East back in 2011, when the league sent 11 teams to the Big Dance. Expectedly, the newly expanded 16-team SEC blew that mark out of the water, but what was unexpected was just how many teams the league put into the 68-team March Madness Field. 

SEC sends 14 of 16 teams into March Madness field

The Florida Gators claimed the one automatic bid into the NCAA Tournament on Sunday afternoon, beating the Tennessee Volunteers 86-77 in Nashville. Then, the NCAA’s selection committee awarded 13 of the league’s 16 teams at-large spots into the Big Dance. That makes 14 SEC teams in a 64-team field, three more than the Big East sent over a decade ago, and a mark that seemed impossible before the recent wave of conference realignment. 

Needless to say fans, some still adjusting to the reality of Texas and Oklahoma joining the most dominant conference in college sports and some appalled by what appears to be preferential treatment for one of the sport’s two super conferences, were fired up on social media. 

Along with sending 14 teams, the SEC also claimed two of the four No. 1 seed in the tournament with Auburn earning the No. 1 overall spot over Duke despite losing three of its last four games and falling to the Vols in the SEC Tournament semifinals. The league also got two No. 2 seed: Alabama and Tennessee, and Kentucky nabbed a three-seed for good measure. 

Sorry to break it to you Dane, but Texas snuck into the First Four with a matchup against Xavier for a No. 11 seed, so the SEC actually got 14 teams. The only two teams left out were LSU and South Carolina, which won a combined five games in conference play. Texas only won six, but with a 7-10 record in Quad 1 games finished No. 39 in the NET Rankings and is 44th in Kenpom. 

The SEC is not the biggest conference in the sport, the Big Ten and ACC share that distinction with 18 teams. However, you can certainly make an argument that the league has the most money, much of that through lucrative television contracts and that money is expediting the SEC’s dominance on the basketball court. However, with the Big Ten winning back-to-back football national championships, many spent the fall wondering what’s wrong with the SEC before spending the Spring complaining about how it’s too strong. 

While North Carolina was the final team in the field, and likely the least deserving, some frustrated West Virginia fans have chosen to point their fingers are the sport’s two true super conferences and their consolidation of power. 

To me, the most legitimate criticism is not about TV affiliations or big-money conspiracies. It’s just the simple fact that a team with a 6-12 record in conference play is probably not more deserving, and is certainly not more interesting, than the best mid-major teams in the country. 

There were very few bid stealers this conference championship weekend, and maybe if George Mason had upset VCU in the Atlantic 10 Championship Game on Sunday, then both the Patriots and Rams would be in the field, or if UAB had dethroned Memphis in the American, then North Carolina or Texas wouldn’t have had a trip to Dayton. But maybe, those both should have been two-bid leagues either way, and if they were, the bracket might have been better for it.