By CHRIS DORTCH
Southeastern Conference basketball wasn’t historically great this season like it was in 2024-25, but if NCAA Tournament bids are the metric by which conferences are judged, it was still the best in college basketball.
After advancing 14 of its 16 teams to the NCAAs a year ago, the SEC once again reached double figures with 10 bids, one more than the Big Ten and two more than the revitalized Atlantic Coast Conference and the Big 12. The list includes defending national champion Florida, which claimed the final No. 1 seed despite a semifinal-round ouster in the SEC tournament, and six other teams in the top 33 of the NCAA’s NET Ranking: Vanderbilt (13), Arkansas (16), Alabama (18), Tennessee (20), Kentucky (28), and Georgia (33).
Texas A&M, Texas, and Missouri round out the league’s contingent.
Here’s a look at every team, and how far we think they’ll advance in the Dance.
ALABAMA
It was a major bummer on Monday when the news broke that the Crimson Tide’s second-leading scorer, Aden Holloway, was busted for first-degree possession of marijuana after agents of the West Alabama Narcotics Task Force searched a home near the Alabama campus and found 2.1 pounds of marijuana and a bunch of cash. Far be it for us to speculate what Holloway was doing with that much weed lying around, but come on dude, don’t you have an NIL deal? Now you’ve jeopardized your career and the Tide’s chances at advancing in the tournament.
Holloway was averaging 16.8 points and shooting 44% from 3, so his loss will be felt.
Fortunately for coach Nate Oats, he’s still got plenty of firepower on a team that once again led the nation in scoring, led by sophomore guard Labaron Philon, the SEC’s third-leading scorer (21.7 ppg). Alabama, seeded fourth in the Midwest Region, will play Hofstra in Tampa on Friday (3:15 p.m., truTV). Even without Holloway, the Tide figures to beat the Pride and then top the winner of J.T. Toppin-less Texas Tech and Akron game (12:40 p.m., truTV) to reach the Sweet 16, but No. 1 seed Michigan stands in the way of a deeper run. Without Holloway, beating the Wolverines will be a tall task.
ARKANSAS
The SEC tournament champions are super-model thin; coach John Calipari plays just seven guys after a season-ending injury to 6-6 sophomore Karter Knox. But the Hogs have sensational freshman Darius Acuff, Jr., on their side. Forget what you’ve heard about other stars of the freshman class like Duke’s Cameron Boozer and BYU’s A.J. Dybantsa. During the last six weeks, Acuff, who leads the SEC in scoring (22.9) and assists (6.5), has been the best freshman in the country, if not the best overall player.
To provide a bit of context about what Acuff did this season, not since Pete Maravich in 1969-70 has a player led the SEC in scoring and assists.
Arkansas also has size and some experienced help surrounding Acuff, including 6-4 junior D.J. Wagner and 6-6 sophomore Billy Richmond III.
The Hogs start the tournament on Thursday as a fourth seed in the West Regional and will play No. 13 Hawaii (4:25 p.m., TBS). Beating the Rainbow Warriors shouldn’t be a problem, and we don’t think Wisconsin will prevent Arkansas from getting to the Sweet 16, but like Alabama, the road will end there because Arizona, the team we think will win the national championship, should be standing in the way.
FLORIDA
The Gators’ chances of repeating its 2025 title rests with its 3-point marksmen. Though their accuracy from behind the arc got better every month of the season, they shot just 5 of 17 (29.4%) in their surprising SEC semifinal loss to Vanderbilt. For the season, Florida is shooting just 30.8 from 3, 324th among Division I schools.
Still, their offensive efficiency, per KenPom, is ninth in the country; the Gators score 125.5 points per 100 possessions. Much of that damage comes in the paint because no team in the country can match Florida’s quartet of big men—6-11 Alex Condon, 6-11 Rueben Chinyelu, 7-1 Micah Handlogten and 6-9 Thomas Haugh. Often, the Gators’ best offense is tracking down missed shots and putting them back in the basket. Florida is the No. 2 offensive rebounding team in the country and is No. 23 nationally in 2-point percentage (57.9). Fifty-four percent of their points come from 2-point range.
Florida uses that Manhattan skyline of a front line to effectively choke off opponents, too; the Gators are ranked sixth in KenPom’s defensive efficiency metric, and eighth in 2-point percentage allowed (45.2).
We think the Gators have a tough but doable path back to the Final Four. That could mean a rematch with Vanderbilt in the Sweet 16 and a game with either Illinois or Houston in the Elite Eight. Their journey begins Friday night (9:25 p.m., TNT) against the winner of the First Four game between Lehigh and Prairie View.
GEORGIA
Mike White was judged by impossible standards as the head coach at Florida—former coach Billy Donovan’s consecutive national championship teams in 2006-07—but at Georgia, he’s been able to ply his trade without much pressure at a school that’s had only sporadic basketball success over the years. This season, the Bulldogs have fashioned a 22-10 record on the strength of a high-powered offense fueled by an astute bit of portal plundering—guards Jeremiah Wilkinson, Marcus Millender, and Jordan Ross and forward Kanon Catchings—to go with veterans like 6-5 junior Blue Cain and 6-11, 260-pound monster Somto Cyril , who finished the regular season 10th in the country in blocked shot percentage (10.9).
Georgia was given the dreaded No. 8 seed in the Midwest Regional and will play another high-scoring team, No. 9 Saint Louis, on Thursday night (9:45 p.m., CBS). Everyone who fills out a bracket knows what will come next for the winner of that game: a get-together with No. 1 seed Michigan. That means the Bulldogs or the Billikens are destined for a brief NCAA trip.
KENTUCKY
This season, Big Blue Nation, the hard-to-please legion of Kentucky fans, must have thought they were living in an alternate reality. How else to explain the mighty Wildcats having to settle for a Wednesday night game — as the No. 9 seed — in the SEC tournament? That’s what a 10-8 league record will do for you. And some of those 10 wins were pulled from the brink of doom in the final seconds, including a buzzer-beating shot against last-place LSU.
No, it wasn’t a typical season for Kentucky, and many pundits have piled on by continually pointing out the $20 million NIL budget that coach Mark Pope and his staff had available. This is what 20 mil buys you? Closer examination shows Pope took a couple of chances on players with a high risk-reward factor. Former Pitt point guard Jaland Lowe and former Arizona State five-star forward Jayden Quaintance came to Lexington nursing shoulder and knee injuries, respectively. Quaintance played only four games and Lowe nine. The only good news about that is both could claim a medical redshirt.
Without those two, the Wildcats didn’t have a true point guard and, except for freshman Malachi Moreno, were undersized in the post. Thank goodness for leading scorer Otega Oweh, the 6-4 runaway locomotive leading scorer, Florida expat Denzel Aberdeen, and Collin Chandler, a player Pope brought with him from BYU and turned out to be the ‘Cats’ best 3-point shooter with a penchant for making clutch shots.
Kentucky earned a No. 7 seed in the Midwest Regional, paired against a dangerous 10 seed, Santa Clara (12:15 p.m., CBS) on Fridat. Suffice it to say the Wildcats have been an upset special pick of many prognosticators. If they do get past the Broncos, No. 2 seed Iowa State probably awaits, and the Cyclones should put an end to BBN’s suffering, for this season at least.
MISSOURI
The Tigers squeezed into the field with a 20-12 record, including a 10-8 Mark in the SEC. A Feb. 24 win over Tennessee helped, but they lost their last three games. Their reward is a 10 seed in the West Regional, where their opponent on Friday night (10:10 p.m., truTV) will be No. 7 Miami, the one in Florida.
If the Tigers are to emerge from that matchup, then leading scorer 6-9 senior forward Mark Mitchell will have to play well.
KenPom numbers tell the tale about the Tigers—they were pedestrian both offensively (No. 50 in efficiency) and defensively (No. 78).
Even if the Tigers managed to slip past Miami, and most bracketologists don’t believe they will, their NCAA journey will be cut short with a likely second-round matchup against Purdue, which reminded the world it’s still a beast by taking out Michigan in the Big Ten tournament finals on Sunday.
TENNESSEE
Analytics guru Evan Miyakawa lists six teams among his national championship favorites and 11 more he files under the category of Final Four Potential (Talented enough to make a deep run when playing well.)
The Vols are among that group of 11. Few study the game more than Miyakawa, and yes, he’s aware of the six games Tennessee basically gift wrapped and gave away—losses to Kansas, Syracuse, Kentucky (twice), Alabama and Vanderbilt. Three of those losses were at home, where Tennessee, since Rick Barnes began coaching there 11 years ago, seldom gets beat.
Give those six L’s back and the Vols are 28-5 and probably a No. 2 seed. But at 22-11, they earned a No. 6 seed in the Midwest Regional and will start their tournament in Philadelphia Friday (4:25 p.m., TBS) against the winner of Wednesday’s First Four matchup against Miami—the one in Ohio—and SMU.
Give Miyakawa credit. His numbers tell him a lot. All season, Barnes has said he sees a higher ceiling for this team, and his team almost proved him correct, until losing its final two home games of the regular season despite grabbing double-digit leads against Alabama and Vanderbilt.
Few teams have the one-two punch of senior guard Ja’Kobi Gillespie and 6-10 freshman Nate Ament. The problem is, Barnes has to get them going in the same game. And the frontcourt rotation Barnes has at his disposal is the deepest and most talented he’s had—witness the Vols’ nation-leading 45.1 offensive rebound percentage—but JP Estrella, Felix Okpara, DeWayne Brown II, and Jaylen Carey miss a frustrating number of tip-ins and putbacks. Barnes could have also used one more sharp-shooting guard out of the portal last spring but just missed on several. Price had something to do with that. Tennessee has depth at guard, but not enough firepower.
Still, there’s that P word. Potential. Barnes sees it, and Miyakawa sees it. We think Tennessee’s ceiling is the Sweet 16, where its likely opponent is No. 2 seed Iowa State. But who knows? If the big men can convert more at the rim and the guards make a couple of more 3-pointers a game—as a group, not each—the Vols are good enough to beat the Cyclones. Just ask Iowa State’s Big 12 playmate Houston, one of Miyakawa’s national championship contenders that last November fell to the Vols in the Player’s Era Invitational.
TEXAS A&M
It turns out Florida coach Todd Golden was a shoo-in for SEC Coach of the Year honors. But his team was supposed to be good. The Aggies of first-year coach Bucky McMillan could have had a disastrous season, considering he was hired to replace former coach Buzz Williams in April 2025 and, by the time he got there, the portal had been picked over like a blue-light sale at Target.
Nevertheless, McMillan still found plenty of players to give a go at his “Bucky Ball” pressing and 3-centric system. The Aggies finished an impressive 21-11 and 11-7 in the conference. Sure, their strength of schedule wasn’t the greatest, but double-figure wins in the best conference in America? That earned the Aggies a No. 10 seed, and they’ll play perennial West Coast Conference power Saint Mary’s in a South Regional first-round game in Oklahoma City on Thursday night (7:35 p.m., truTV).
We think the Bucky Ballers can upset Saint Mary’s, but after that, their solid first season under their new coach will meet a roadblock—Houston—that will lead to an early spring break.
TEXAS
The Longhorns of first-year coach Sean Miller just squeezed into the Dance. At 18-14 overall, 9-9 in the SEC, that turned out to be enough, despite an early ouster in last week’s SEC tournament. But first there’s a little side trip to Dayton, Ohio, home of the First Four, where tonight Texas meets NC State (9:15 p.m., truTV). Love him or hate him, Wolfpack coach Will Wade has won everywhere he’s been—Chattanooga, VCU, LSU, McNeese State, and now in the ACC.
The Longhorns have enough punch to send the Pack packing. Texas ranks 13th nationally, per KenPom, in offensive efficiency (125.0). Its average of 83.8 points a game is the highest by a Texas team since the 1994-95 season, and its 48.6% field-goal shooting is the best since the 1988-89 team’s 48.7 success rate from the floor.
Texas has a great pair of experienced guards in Tramon Mark and Jordan Pope, along with junior Dailyn Swain, who followed Miller from Xavier and became the SEC’s Newcomer of the Year as voted by the league’s coaches. Swain, a 6-7 junior, is the only player in a Power 4 conference to lead his team in at least five major stats: scoring (17.7 ppg), rebounding (7.5 rpg), assists (104), steals (55), and minutes (32.0 mpg).
A win will net the Longhorns a first-round West Regional matchup with BYU on Thursday (7:25 p.m., TBS), which should be the end of the line for them. But Miller has the program on the rise.
VANDERBILT
Could the Commodores earn a rematch with Florida in the Sweet 16? We think so. Mark Byington has done an excellent job in his two seasons in Nashville, leading Vanderbilt to the NCAA Tournament twice. This team—the No. 5 seed in the South Regional—has dealt with its share of injuries, adversity and player defections, but was good enough to put a 91-74 beating on the Gators in the SEC semifinals.
Vanderbilt is a tough cover because all five starters can shoot 3s, but what makes this team go are guards Tyler Tanner, who’s at least the most improved player in the SEC, but maybe the country, and the well-traveled Duke Miles, who in the span of two months last spring was on the roster of four teams. But Miles didn’t bounce from Oklahoma to Virginia to Texas A&M to Vanderbilt looking for a paycheck. He just wanted to be the man. And though Tyler, a 6-0 sophomore who’s probably going to be a first-round NBA Draft pick come June, is technically Vandy’s man, Miles, might be its heart and soul. He has an old man’s game, and we mean that in the most positive sense of the term—crafty, pesky, never gets sped up, plays to his strengths.
The Commodores, who open their NCAA run on Thursday against McNeese (3:15 p.m., truTV), will get that rematch with Florida in the Sweet 16, but we think their run ends there.