In all fairness Lefors …… it is not a fair comparison, as the 2025 SEC consists of an 18 member Conferences that is largely comprised of transfer portal players, something that was not remotely close to what the 2011 Big East Conference enjoyed.
Too early to make a lot of projections at this point, but all things considered right now, the Lunardi/ESPN accolades and premium projected seeding might be better directed to the Big 10 at 9-0 going into today.
But I keep going on about making way too much about these lower rated teams getting in.
Whether Texas got a bid over WVU and Ohio State doesn't matter to me or anyone.
The SEC and Big Ten each had 8 teams make the next round. If the six SEC teams that lost were replaced with 6 Big Ten teams? Then the Big Ten would've been 8-6 and the SEC would've been 8-0.
People equate that the SEC is tough and has 14 tournament teams with "OMG ESPN is saying the SEC has 14 national title contenders and they'll steamroll through March!!! Such BIAS!!!" but it's more like the SEC has 3-4 really strong teams and then a lot of quality top to bottom. Texas isn't great, but they're decent. No one is saying that they're a title contender. They're one of the last 4 bubble teams that got in compared with teams like West Virginia and Indiana.
The difference is that the SEC had 14 teams that were decent/average and only 2 that were crap. The Big Ten had some quality, but after their 8 teams that made the tournament you had IU & a 17-15 Ohio State. Followed by Rutgers, Minnesota, Northwestern, USC, Iowa, Nebraska, Penn State, and Washington. I would say that Oklahoma probably is better than all of those team judging by when we played them and what I saw versus UConn.
Sometimes we can just recognize their league was the best and just ignore the fact that you know who is in the league. It doesn't make all 14 teams title contenders, it just means it was a tough league. The Big Ten was tough too, but they had a little more filler and average at the bottom.
I mean then look at the Big 12, after WVU as their one bubble team, everyone else in their league had a losing conference record and their bottom 8 was unimpressive.
I just want consistency, if the SEC was overrated then what league and what teams were screwed over? I'm looking around and other than a 19-13 WVU that was 10-10 in their own league, there's really no case that certain leagues got screwed over the SEC.
