I don’t care what the standings or seeds say. It’s Kentucky vs. the field.

The SEC Tournament is John Calipari’s to lose until proven otherwise. Since arriving in Lexington, he has 5 conference tournament titles (including 3 in a row) and 7 SEC Tournament Championship appearances in 8 seasons. Compare that to Nick Saban, who won 5 of a possible 11 SEC Championships (including 3 in a row before Georgia ended that in 2017) since arriving in Tuscaloosa.

John Calipari has won 5 SEC Tournament titles -- in 8 tries. That's already more than everybody except Alabama -- in SEC history.

That’s the reason that the Alabama-Kentucky comparison is an easy one to make. Nobody is saying the Wildcats and their 1 national title during the Calipari era hold a candle to Saban’s 5 titles at Alabama. It’s because of how dominant both have been in the SEC.

A week from today, 13 SEC teams will try and end Kentucky’s reign atop the conference. If they fail to do so, it’ll be a loss for the SEC. Auburn won’t get the credit it deserves for accomplishing the more impressive feat of winning the regular season title (still not in the bag yet), and programs like Alabama and Tennessee won’t get the national recognition they deserve for their surprising seasons.

If Kentucky claims its fourth consecutive conference title, it’ll be back to square one for the SEC’s basketball reputation.

Credit: Mark Zerof-USA TODAY Sports

In some ways, the SEC’s basketball reputation is a lot like the B1G’s football reputation the past decade. Some perceive Ohio State as the B1G’s only yearly contender while the rest of the conference falls short of “elite” status. Whether that’s fair or not for the B1G, the same school of thinking is obviously a criticism of the SEC’s basketball landscape.

Yeah, I hear you, Florida fans. The Gators accomplished one of the most impressive feats in all of sports in the 21st century by winning consecutive national titles.

But in the 10 years since the days of Joakim Noah and Al Horford, Florida has just one conference tournament title. The other non-Kentucky winners during the Calipari era was that Ole Miss team with Marshall Henderson and the 2011-12 Vanderbilt squad that lost in the second round of the NCAA Tournament.

The non-Kentucky SEC Tournament winners during the Calipari era were more of the “one-hit wonder variety.” Even that 2014 Florida team that won the SEC Tournament and earned the one-seed was upstaged by Kentucky after it made a stunning run to the NCAA Tournament National Championship as an 8-seed.

And remember last year when South Carolina shocked the world and made the Final Four as a 7-seed? The Gamecocks won’t even sniff the NCAA Tournament this year.

Man, no wonder Kentucky is the only SEC basketball team moving the needle. The Wildcats are still the team to beat even when they have a down year. For all the criticism about Calipari’s inability to win multiple national titles, that’s perhaps the best representation of his program being on a different level than the rest of the SEC.

Well, and this:

If you’re keeping track at home, that means Calipari already has more conference tournament titles than every non-Alabama school and this is just his ninth season in Lexington.

So yes, of course another team winning the conference title would help the SEC overall. That might actually matter more in the immediate future than the conference potentially getting 8 teams into the NCAA Tournament this year.

The ACC is viewed as a basketball conference because it has several Kentucky-like programs. Duke and North Carolina are the blue bloods while new entries like Louisville (pre-Rick Pitino firing) and Syracuse added to the conference’s prestige. And oh, by the way, the No. 1 team in college basketball, Virginia, also hails from the ACC. It’s fitting that 6 ACC teams won the past 6 conference tournaments while the conference put an average of 6 teams in the NCAA Tournament.

The SEC isn’t close to developing that yet. Has there been perhaps as much parody than ever among decent SEC teams throughout the season? Probably, but that’s all for naught if it’s just another year of Kentucky winning a conference tournament title.

Cinderella stories don’t move the needle. Steady, winning programs do that.

And for what it’s worth, the SEC basketball narrative won’t be completely flipped if Kentucky fails to win the conference tournament. It’s simply the first thing that must happen in order for that transformation to begin to actually take shape.

The SEC developed its football reputation based on the fact that 4 schools (Alabama, Auburn, Florida, LSU) won 10 National Championships dating to 2003. Nobody is claiming the SEC is the power conference if it’s just Alabama dominance.

It’s different judging basketball teams because the NCAA Tournament is such a crapshoot. That 2015 Kentucky team lost 1 game and didn’t even get to play for a national title while the year before it lost 11 games and still made it to the NCAA Tournament Championship game. In the end, though, everyone still remembers them as a couple of incredibly talented Kentucky teams.

We don’t know how this 2017-18 Kentucky team is going to be remembered. Not too long ago, it looked like the group that was finally going to open the party up to the rest of the SEC. But after 3 straight double-digit wins, the Wildcats look like they still want to have their own exclusive party.

It’s still Kentucky vs. the field next week in St. Louis, and once again, that might be bad news for the SEC.