A shirtless Eric Musselman is coming to an “It Just Means More” commercial near you.

You’ve been warned.

You’ve also been warned that the SEC is prominently in the building. The Sweet 16 building, that is.

Day 3 of the NCAA Tournament was a big one for the SEC. Five teams were in action, and 4 head coaches kept their shirts on. A 3-2 mark at day’s end had 3 impressive victories in their own unique way.

The headliner, obviously, was Musselman taking down No. 1 seed Kansas in the Round of 32. We also had Tennessee knocking off red-hot Duke, as well as No. 1 seed Alabama rolling to a comfortable win against Maryland. A year removed from having just 1 team in the Sweet 16, the SEC totally flipped the script already, and it can further establish that if Kentucky beats Kansas State on Sunday.

Of course, we also saw Mizzou run into the 15-seed buzz saw known as Princeton, and Auburn coughed up a 10-point halftime lead against No. 1 Houston.

Speaking of that, what if Auburn hadn’t forgotten to tie its own shoes in the second half against Houston? Well, that was the difference between an excellent day and a historic day.

There are only 3 NCAA Tournaments that saw the SEC take out multiple 1-seeds (1986, 1996 and 2006). None of those happened in the same round, much less the same day. In fact, no conference has ever taken out multiple 1-seeds on the same day. But the SEC eliminated 1 Saturday.

Including Arkansas against the Bill Self-less No. 1 seed Kansas, there are now 5 instances of an SEC team doing that in the Round of 32:

  • 2023 — No. 8 Arkansas beats No. 1 Kansas
  • 2014 — No. 8 Kentucky beats No. 1 Wichita State
  • 2004 — No. 8 Alabama beats No. 1 Stanford
  • 1996 — No. 8 Georgia beats No. 1 Purdue
  • 1986 — No. 8 Auburn beats No. 1 St. John’s

Think about this other scenario.

We knew that 1-seed Purdue was already ousted in historic fashion. Arkansas, with some unbelievably clutch free throws from Ricky Council IV and a second-half performance for the ages by Devo Davis, took care of 1-seed Kansas. Auburn had No. 1 seed Houston staring at a double-digit deficit in the second half. No. 1 seed Alabama rolled to 2 opening weekend victories to reach the Sweet 16.

In other words, the SEC could’ve claimed 3 of the 4 No. 1 seeds if Auburn could’ve held on. What a flex that would’ve been.

Mind you, that came on the heels of having 6 teams advance to the Round of 32, which was the most of any conference. Temporary bragging rights would’ve belonged to the SEC in a major way if not for Houston’s roaring comeback.

Was it close? I suppose not. For a minute, though, the SEC appeared to be on the brink of a week of dominating the NCAA Tournament news cycle. That didn’t even include future SEC team Texas, whichwho fended off an under-seeded Penn State squad to reach its first Sweet 16 in 15 years.

Not including Texas, the SEC owns 3 of the 8 tickets punched Saturday. For now. Maybe it’ll be 4 by day’s end on Sunday.

That would be quite the feat in its own right for the SEC. Here are all the instances of putting 3-plus teams in the Sweet 16 since the field expanded to 64 in 1985:

  • 1985 — 3
  • 1986 — 4
  • 1987 — 3
  • 1993 — 3
  • 1996 — 4
  • 1999 — 3
  • 2000 — 3
  • 2007 — 3
  • 2014 — 3
  • 2019 — 4
  • 2023 — 3 (can be 4 if Kentucky beats Kansas State on Sunday)

Notice that all of those instances in which the SEC had 4 teams in the Sweet 16 had at least a decade gap in between them (186, 1996, 2019). In other words, they felt like one-offs.

Conference supremacy matters on Selection Sunday. For all the talk about A&M getting under-seeded and Vanderbilt not making the field with a low NET, an easy way to combat that moving forward is having a loaded conference, not as KenPom had, the No. 3 conference behind the Big 12 and Big Ten.

And call me crazy, but something tells me that Greg Sankey wouldn’t mind for a surging hoops conference to be a heavy part of any future media contract negotiation.

It helps to have a team like Tennessee exorcise some March demons by taking down a peaking blue-blood like Duke. How quickly we forget that Arkansas was the team who went without a Sweet 16 trip from 1997-2020 and is now rocking a streak of 3 consecutive years of that under Musselman, AKA Tom Izzo South. It’s even key to see a non-Kentucky team look the part of a 1-seed like Alabama did by cruising to a pair of blowout weekend wins to kick off the tournament.

Time will tell if this ends up being a historic March for the conference like we got in 1996. That year, we had an SEC national champ (Kentucky), 2 SEC Final Four teams (Kentucky and MSU) and 4 SEC teams (Kentucky, MSU, Arkansas and Georgia) in the Sweet 16. That’s the gold standard for the SEC in the NCAA Tournament.

Topping that would be having an all-SEC national championship for the first time ever. In fact, no conference has done that since the Big 8 had Oklahoma and Kansas play for the national title in 1988.

Is that likely? No, but after the start to the Round of 32, we can at least say this.

The SEC set itself up for history with quite the Saturday (in basketball).