As Tennessee fans let out the exhale of all exhales Sunday afternoon, an impressive feat was accomplished.

It wasn’t just that the Vols earned their first Sweet 16 berth since 2014, or that Rick Barnes became the first coach since ever to bench a player of Admiral Schofield’s caliber for an entire overtime period of the NCAA Tournament (don’t fact check me on that).

It was that the SEC flexed its muscles. In basketball. In March.

Tennessee’s win gave the SEC its fourth Sweet 16 team. Before Sunday, that hadn’t happened since 1996. That’s only the third time in conference history that it accounted for 4 Sweet 16 teams.

Think about that for a second.

As recently as 3 years ago, the SEC didn’t even have 4 teams make the NCAA Tournament. Now, 4 SEC teams will play in the Sweet 16. No, it isn’t quite as impressive as when the SEC had 3 teams in the Elite Eight like 2017, nor is it like when the SEC had a pair of teams in the Final Four and the national champ like 2006.

But in terms of the SEC realistically changing the narrative about it being a second-tier Power 5 hoops conference, 4 teams in the Sweet 16 seems like a good place to start.

Credit: Gary A. Vasquez-USA TODAY Sports

I’ve always been a believer that getting to the Sweet 16 — for most programs — is a huge weight off your shoulders. You get an extra week of headlines, and suddenly, the path to the Final Four is just a 2-game tournament. If the SEC winds up with the most teams of any conference in the Sweet 16, that could have the same type of effect.

Consider the alternative. Let’s say the SEC only sent 2 teams to the Sweet 16. That would be after it sent half the conference to the NCAA Tournament.

Sound familiar? It should because that’s what happened last year. Actually, a conference record 8 SEC teams earned NCAA Tournament berths in 2018. Yet when the first weekend closed, Kentucky and Texas A&M were the lone SEC representatives moving on. And when the second weekend closed, well, the SEC was sitting at home with the rest of us.

Based on what we saw this year, I’d be stunned if history repeated itself. In a way, it’s already different.

It isn’t just that the SEC has 4 teams moving on to the Sweet 16. It’s that all of them feel like they should be there. There aren’t any Cinderella stories in that group. And while expectations for LSU were admittedly lower for plenty of people (myself included), the SEC regular-season champs making the Sweet 16 was by no means an anomaly.

Auburn is the lowest-seeded SEC team heading to the Sweet 16 as a 5, though I think we can all agree that the Tigers were under-seeded and that they didn’t look anything like a 5-seed in the opening weekend (sans the last 73 seconds against New Mexico State).

Back when the SEC had 4 teams reach the Sweet 16 in the 1996 NCAA Tournament, there was No. 12 Arkansas, No. 8 Georgia, No. 5 Mississippi State and No. 1 Kentucky (that was the SEC’s entire NCAA Tournament representation that year). Arkansas and Georgia fell in the Sweet 16 while MSU and Kentucky ultimately made it to the Final Four. That, of course, was the year the Cats won it all with Rick Pitino.

A repeat of that kind of year for the conference would be perhaps the most impressive SEC basketball season to date.

Take that, ACC.

(For what it’s worth, the ACC is in position to accomplish that feat for the fourth time in 5 years and looks poised to claim its fourth national championship since 2012, which was the last time an SEC team won it all.)

But you know what? You’ve got to start somewhere. Putting 15 teams in the NCAA Tournament in a 2-year stretch was a start. Doing something that hadn’t been done in the SEC in 23 years was pretty important, too. Watching the SEC make up half the Elite Eight field would be another statement.

After destroying Kansas on Saturday night, Bruce Pearl was asked about Auburn — which always has and probably always will play second-fiddle to football — making its first Sweet 16 appearance in 16 years. Pearl has been in the SEC for the majority of the 21st century, most of which the SEC has mostly been Kentucky, a historic 2-year dynasty from Florida and a Cinderella run sprinkled in here and there.

Pearl’s answer reflected that.

“It’s a big step. I’m very proud of the SEC,” Pearl said. “I’m blessed to be able to coach in the SEC. I was rooting like crazy for LSU and Kentucky. I will be rooting for Tennessee and the teams that we still have alive in this tournament. Because we had a great conference this year, so competitive, such great coaches and the kids, really good kids.

“So the fact that we’re still playing, I know the SEC’s proud of us. That means a lot to me.”

I can picture the conference’s new slogan: “The SEC, where (even basketball) just means more.”