Alabama Basketball is not the favorite to win the SEC Tournament. The Florida Gators are heavily favored to win Sunday's SEC Championship Game. The Gators were once the toast of the SEC when Billy Donovan's teams won back-to-back in 2006 and 2007. The Gators have a shot at another back-to-back under Todd Golden.
Florida's current story is eventful, but it is two other teams that prove a changing of the guard in the SEC. After the NCAA Tournament Final Four last season, Auburn has faltered to 2026 SEC Tournament First Round game. The Tigers will play around 2:00 PM CST on Wednesday in Nashville. Auburn's opponent is 13-18 Mississippi State, and the Bulldogs might win. State beat Auburn in Starkville, 91-85, in mid-February.
As embarrassing as that slide is for Auburn, the reputation of the Kentucky Wildcats has been tarnished more. Without looking it up, a fair guess is the Cats have never been seeded so low in an SEC Tournament as their current 9-seed. Further indignity to Big Blue Nation is that Kentucky will participate in the lowest-profile game of the tournament, Wednesday's 11:30 AM start.
Transitioning from the lows of SEC basketball to the highs, there can be no dispute that Todd Golden is the SEC Coach of the Year. As many as four other SEC coaches could be claimed to have been the SEC's No. 2 so far this season. Alabama's Nate Oats is one of them.
Nate Oats and Alabama Basketball lead all SEC teams
There has been broad conjecture about the SEC's current top program. Recency bias favors the Gators, but two seasons is a short span. If only recent measurements are used, then Auburn and Kentucky are currently two of the SEC's worst programs. Measuring through a longer span makes more sense.
The Next Round provided some interesting data. Going back to the 2020-21 season, Nate Oats and the Alabama Crimson Tide have the SEC's best record at 152-56. Only six Division One men's programs have won more games than Alabama: Houston 180-26; Gonzaga 172-31; Duke 163-42; Arizona 158-44; UConn 157-44; and Purdue 157-49.
The Tennessee Vols are the SEC team closest to the Crimson Tide at 148-55. Other top SEC basketball programs during the five-plus seasons are Auburn 137-62; Florida 136-63; Arkansas 136-69; and Kentucky 123-70.
Call it ironic and just plain funny, but Kentucky, with a purported player payroll double that of the next closest SEC team, has become a program treading the waters of near mediocrity.
Note: Additional team records provided by Sports Reference