I knew it was bad. Until I spent some time breaking down the numbers, I didn’t realize it was that bad.

I’m referring to something many sports fans are talking about this week: the NBA Draft lottery. The Zion Williamson sweepstakes appear to have him coming to LSU. Er, New Orleans.

After that, though, it appears that Vanderbilt’s Darius Garland will be the first SEC player off the board. It’ll likely be a rare year in which a Kentucky player isn’t taken super high in the draft. The Cats are actually in jeopardy of not having a lottery pick for the first time in the John Calipari era. Crazy, right?

What’s even more crazy is just how much heavy lifting Kentucky has done for the SEC in the NBA Draft in the past decade. Specifically the lottery (the top 14 picks in each draft).

Again, I knew it was bad, but not to this extent.

We’re going to do a fun little exercise to show just how Kentucky-dominated it’s been. In the meantime, we’re going to include Kentucky. So with the Cats, the SEC accounted for 25 lottery picks from 2008-18. That’s an average of just over 2 lottery picks per draft. That’s actually pretty standard.

Keep in mind that the NBA Draft isn’t as Power 5 heavy as the NFL Draft because you have the international impact and the mid-majors are more plentiful with more exposure because of the NCAA Tournament.

And yes, I realize that the lottery during this stretch has been dominated by one-and-dones. The fact that Kentucky was ahead of the curve on this obviously boosted those numbers, and with Duke essentially copying that model once Kyrie Irving came on board, those 2 programs have been extremely prolific in the lottery in the 2010s decade. No SEC school has come anywhere close to replicating the one-and-done model both from a recruiting and developmental standpoint.

OK, back to the exercise.

With Kentucky, the SEC accounted for 4 of the past 11 No. 1 picks, 9 of the past 55 top 5 picks and 17 of the past 110 top 10 picks from 2008-18. Nothing crazy there. In fact, I’d argue the No. 1 pick thing is pretty impressive. No other conference even had 3 No. 1 overall picks during that stretch.

Now is when it gets weird. Let’s hypothetically say that Kentucky is an independent and not an SEC team.

Here’s the list of non-Kentucky SEC players who were drafted in the lottery from 2008-18:

  • 2008 — No. 14 Anthony Randolph, LSU
  • 2012 — No. 3 Bradley Beal, Florida
  • 2013 — No. 8 Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, Georgia
  • 2016 — No. 1 Ben Simmons, LSU
  • 2018 — No. 8 Collin Sexton, Alabama
  • 2018 — No. 14 Michael Porter Jr., Mizzou

That means only 6 of the SEC’s 25 lottery picks from 2008-18 came from non-Kentucky schools. That means Kentucky produced 76% of the SEC’s lottery picks. Yikes.

Simmons and Beal were the only non-Kentucky top 7 picks, which Garland could be this year. That really shows the lack of next-level development from the SEC as a whole during that stretch.

And while that theory doesn’t apply to every non-Calipari SEC coach during that stretch, I think even the average person would have been stunned to hear that Billy Donovan only developed 1 lottery pick at Florida after his repeat squad dominated the 2007 NBA Draft. Donovan stayed in Florida for another 8 years after the Al Horford, Joakim Noah and Corey Brewer squad left.

The reason I bring that up is because this post-2007 stretch with SEC basketball has been talked about a lot in the last year. Auburn was a missed double-dribble call from becoming the first non-Kentucky SEC team to win a Final Four game since that 2006-07 Florida squad. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the lack of non-Kentucky NBA Draft lottery numbers have been so bad for the SEC during that stretch.

Credit: Brad Penner-USA TODAY Sports

For what it’s worth, I did this exercise with Duke and the ACC because obviously the Blue Devils have had their fair share of lottery picks in the past decade.

Here was that breakdown from 2008-18:

  • 24 total lottery picks from ACC
  • 11 total lottery picks from Duke
  • 13 non-Duke lottery picks from ACC

In that sample size, Duke accounted for 46% of the ACC’s lottery picks compared to the 76% that Kentucky accounted for the SEC. And the non-Duke ACC teams had 13 lottery picks compared to just 6 from the non-Kentucky SEC teams.

That’s why this is so glaring.

But here’s the good thing for the SEC. I’ve said this throughout the 2018-19 season and into the NCAA Tournament as it relates to SEC hoops. The conference is in the best place it has been in a while. With Rick Barnes not leaving for UCLA, Bruce Pearl not going into cardiac arrest on the sidelines and Buzz Williams taking his talents to College Station, the “Kentucky and everyone else” argument will begin to fizzle. It already has.

There are better coaches to actually recruit and develop talent, and that’ll show come draft time. It showed last year when the SEC had multiple non-Kentucky players picked in the lottery for the first time since the Horford/Noah/Brewer group in 2007.

That year was also the last time that the SEC accomplished that feat in consecutive years. Maybe that happens this year. While Duke appears to be entering Kentucky territory with lottery picks — Duke had 7 of the ACC’s past 11 lottery picks and could dominate even more in 2019 with Williamson, R.J. Barrett and Cam Reddish — perhaps we’re closing the book on this chapter of SEC basketball.

After all, Calipari doesn’t have to be the only college coach getting all the green room airtime on draft night.

He’s long overdue for some SEC company.