Next week, the head coaches at Vanderbilt, Georgia, South Carolina, Missouri, Texas A&M and the University of Arkansas most likely will say the same thing: "It's a new season."
The only shot those six schools have to play in the NCAA Tournament is to win the SEC Tournament, which probably won't happen. If one school could do it, it would be South Carolina.
The Gamecocks currently have the No. 4 seed because they own a tiebreaker with Auburn. The double bye that comes with that seed means just having to win three games in three days.
Arkansas is assured of at least the 10 seed after Wednesday's 84-48 victory over Vanderbilt, and the Razorbacks can earn the No. 9 seed with a victory at home Saturday over Alabama, which would leave both teams at 8-10 in the SEC. It is Arkansas and Alabama's only meeting this season, so it also serves as the head-to-head tiebreaker if Arkansas wins.
No. 10 is nothing to brag about, and the Hogs currently stand to face Florida on Thursday night, but one game separates the No. 4 seed from the No. 8 seed.
There's a lot to be decided on Saturday.
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Some are going to point the finger at Kansas' new athletic director and say, "We won 14 Big 12 championships in a row until he was hired."
Jeff Long became the athletic director at Kansas in August, and for the first time since 2005 the Jayhawks were eliminated from the conference championship race. Tuesday's 81-68 loss to Oklahoma assured Kansas cannot win the league, which will go to either Texas Tech or Kansas State.
It may have been a bit ironic that the loss was to OU, where Long used to work. He's a former assistant AD and remains close friends with OU Athletic Director Joe Castiglione, who is believed to have helped Long land the Kansas job.
Someone had to have some major influence: How else does one explain that eight months after Long was fired at the University of Arkansas, he lands the AD job at Kansas with a $500,000 raise?
Wish him nothing but the best, but he's not off to a great start at a great basketball school. Of course, winning the NCAA championship would wipe away a lot of the disappointment of not winning a 15th consecutive conference title.
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This is the first basketball season the NCAA has used its own metric system to rank teams 1-353. Although it isn't perfect and will be tweaked after the season, it seems fairly accurate.
There are a lot of ranking systems out there, but the NCAA needed to have its own since it selects the selection committee that selects the teams who participate in the NCAA Tournament.
Going on the NCAA's NET rankings entering Wednesday, there is a best conference in the country.
Using the top 25 teams, the Atlantic Coast Conference has six teams ranked, but the SEC is just one behind with five.
The Big Ten has four, and the Big 12 is at three (and yes, Kansas is still one of those). The other Power 5 conference, the Pac-12, has none, as in zero.
Its best-ranked team is No. 33 Washington, and its second best ranking belongs to Oregon at No. 64.
That won't bode well when the selection committee meets.
And the committee won't have to worry about anyone from the Pac-12 recusing themselves when a Pac-12 team is discussed. No one from the Pac-12 is on the selection committee this year.
A final note on the NCAA Tournament field: According to the NCAA, two teams on the bubble who need to play well to make the field are Alabama and Clemson, the teams who played for the football championship in January.
Sports on 03/07/2019