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Jay Bilas says SEC is ‘most powerful’ conference in college basketball history
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Jay Bilas continued to praise the SEC on Thursday morning when he joined ESPN’s Get Up. Days after the college basketball analyst told Paul Finebaum he’s never seen anything like the 2024-25 SEC basketball conference, he said on Get Up that the SEC is the most powerful conference in college basketball history.
“It’s the best basketball conference, top to bottom, relative to the field, that we have ever seen,” Bilas said. “They’ve put up numbers that compare favorably to the mid-80s in the ACC but people forget the ACC had 8 teams back then. It’s a lot easier to have 8 good teams than it is to have 16. It’s been remarkable.
“… No other league can match what the SEC has done this year and historically, it matches what any other league has done ever. I think it’s the most powerful league, top to bottom, that we’ve ever seen.”
While the SEC has been beating up on itself a bit in conference play and catching folks with their foot in their mouth, the league blasted its out-of-conference schedule with 188 wins and just 26 combined losses. After its 13-0 start, Oklahoma was one of the last remaining unbeaten teams in college basketball. The Sooners are just 3-8 in league play and sit 14th in the conference.
There’s no rest for the weary. All but Auburn and Alabama have multiple conference losses. And those 2 sides face off against each other on Saturday.
The SEC is currently projected to have at least 3 No. 1 seeds in the NCAA Tournament. The league could get 13 or more teams into the field and set a tournament record. The SEC’s plus-21.81 net rating in KenPom is on pace to be the best mark by a conference since KenPom started tracking in 1997.
Rece Davis agreed with Bilas’s assessment of the SEC’s might.
“I don’t think we’ve seen anything like it in terms of depth, in terms of quality depth, and national championship contenders. Those 3 teams that are on the 1-line right now (Auburn, Alabama, Florida) are the 3 that I think could win the national championship. The others are all good teams, they’re capable of upsetting highly ranked teams.”
At DraftKings, Auburn has the second-shortest odds to win the national championship (+425). Alabama (+850) and Florida (+1100) are both in the top 5.
Related: Residents in the Bluegrass State who want to bet on college basketball can grab our DraftKings Kentucky bonus for a nice boost upon signup.
Derek Peterson does a bit of everything, not unlike Taysom Hill. He has covered Oklahoma, Nebraska, the Pac-12, and now delivers CFB-wide content.
