Good not great.

That was the story of the year for the SEC. Despite the record-setting number of teams in the NCAA Tournament (8), despite the record-tying number of first-round victories (6), despite the hype surrounding Kentucky and Texas A&M entering the Sweet 16, the SEC was exactly what we thought it was.

Good not great.

The conference is officially done in the NCAA Tournament. Zero Elite Eight teams.

In many ways, it’s fitting. After all, this was the year in which a 4-month regular season couldn’t even decide who the SEC’s best team was. The SEC Tournament told us that was Kentucky.

The NCAA Tournament told us that between Auburn, Kentucky, Tennessee and anyone else who once claimed the title of “SEC’s best team,” the conference didn’t have anyone that could come close of “nation’s best team.”

Go figure that Loyola-Chicago and Sister Jean came closer than all of them.

That’s a tough pill to swallow for a Kentucky team that couldn’t beat its first single-digit seed of the tournament. It’s probably still tough for a Tennessee team that was a last-second shot away from continuing its improbable season in the Sweet 16. The same goes for Florida, which could have used a Sister Jean prayer to beat Texas Tech.

As for the rest? It’s not like the SEC went out flirting with elite status.

Texas A&M fittingly showed its 2-faced ways and got trucked by Michigan 4 days after burying the defending national champs. A 27-point loss is a brutal way to go out, but it actually wasn’t that drastic of a loss compared to how the rest of the SEC went down.

Mizzou lost by 13 to Florida State. Arkansas lost by 17 to Butler. Alabama lost by 23 to Villanova. Auburn, aka the SEC’s co-regular-season conference champ, lost by 31 to Clemson. In basketball.

I’ve always believed that great teams — in all sports — don’t get blown out. There’s something about a blowout loss that shows a sense of vulnerability. The great teams overcome their weaknesses and find ugly ways to win.

Credit: Richard Mackson-USA TODAY Sports

Maybe that’s why the conference was so streaky throughout the season. Everyone not named Auburn and Tennessee suffered at least one 3-game losing streak during the regular season, and had double-digit losses. Ten of the 14 teams were between 7-11 and 11-7. That doesn’t necessarily scream “elite teams.”

The truth was, though, the opportunity was there for the taking.

The four teams that will battle for a national title berth on the left side of the bracket (Loyola-Chicago, Kansas State, Florida State and Michigan) didn’t necessarily have dominant regular seasons, either. Shoot, Florida State was 9-9 in conference play and Michigan wasn’t even ranked in the Associated Press poll until mid-January. Kansas State and Loyola-Chicago are still waiting on their first top-25 appearance in 2017-18!

Those teams surprised. The SEC didn’t.

It was a much different story than last year. The SEC didn’t have multiple surprise teams make a run like Florida and South Carolina, and there wasn’t that conference champ with national title aspirations like Kentucky. The SEC cannot brag about sending three teams to the Elite Eight while other conferences sent one.

This was a prime opportunity for the SEC to show that it was making serious strides on the hardwood. But one non-Kentucky Sweet 16 berth won’t move the needle. Texas A&M’s beatdown confirmed that before Kentucky even played a minute on Thursday night.

The SEC’s bid to change the conference’s basketball reputation took a significant step back. It would have taken more than NCAA Tournament participants to shift the narrative. It would have taken a team like Mizzou to pull off what Florida State is doing. Or perhaps consecutive trips to the Elite Eight for Florida would have changed the perception of the program in the post-Billy Donovan era.

Nope. Not in 2017-18. Not in a year in which the SEC’s best were good not great.

Now, the SEC is basically in the same spot it was in 2 years ago when ironically enough, Texas A&M and Kentucky were both the final SEC teams to bow out of the NCAA Tournament (only A&M made it to the Sweet 16).

Who knows how long it will take the SEC to truly change the narrative that it can only dominate one revenue-driving sport. It will take longer than a year or two. However long it takes, there’s still a silver lining at the end of the SEC’s basketball season.

SEC football kicks off in 160 days.