SEC Tournament Championships Only Matter to Non-Basketball Schools

Win enough to keep your seed, then go home to prepare for the real dance

Author:
Kent Smith
Updated:
Mar 6, 2023 9:08 AM EST
Original:
Mar 6, 2023

In this story:

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – Sometimes it's hard to remember that the rest of the league outside of the fans in Kentucky don't look at college basketball through an actual basketball lens.

Instead, they all look at things the same way one might view football.

An argument took place between a fan from another school and an Arkansas fan in a discussion board because the non-Razorback fans was claiming Eric Musselman isn't a good coach.

The Arkansas fan rightfully pointed out Musselman's total wins and back-to-back Elite 8 appearances as evidence that he is not only a great coach, but that he is the best coach in the SEC at the time this argument took place.

The gentleman responded that because Musselman had no SEC regular season or SEC Tournament championships, he is the inferior coach. The poor Razorback fan spent the next several posts arguing that those things don't matter in basketball, but the other gentleman was unwilling to hear facts or reasoning that wasn't going to reaffirm his own team's greatness.

So, for all those non-basketball schools out there, no one at a traditionally strong basketball school cares about conference championships and they especially don't care about conference tournament championships.

Yes, in football, regular season championships, the SEC championship game, and even division championships matter because they impact whether a team can win a national championship.

A regular season title, and especially the SEC Tournament title, have no impact on a path to a national championship. In fact, more often than not, the SEC regular season champion is a lower seed than other conference schools in the tournament.

Had South Carolina, Arkansas or Auburn hit one more shot, Texas A&M would have been the conference champion, but the Tide would have still be a No. 1 seed and the Aggies would still be hovering around No. 6.

Pretty much no one can tell you if Nolan Richardson ever won a regular season or conference tournament championship. They rattle off that he went to three Final Fours and two NCAA championship games in six years and took home the big one in 1994.

No one knows how many ACC championships or tournaments Mike Krzyzewski won at Duke nor Dean Smith at North Carolina. All that matters is Krzyzewski went to 13 Final Fours and won five national championships and Smith went to 11 Final Fours and won two national championships.

In fact, trying to win the SEC Tournament is typically considered a sign of an immature program.

The general rule of thumb is this. Do everything possible to make sure your team is playing on Saturday.

A team that wins Friday night has brought home enough wins to make sure it isn't going to fall in seeding. If that Friday game was against an Top 25 team, then perhaps it was even enough to move from the best team on one seeding line to the worst on the next highest seeding line.

After that, nothing is going to change. The tournament field is pretty much set by noon on Saturday and the committee is just looking to see if it has to work in any additional automatic qualifiers.

That means the focus is on the lowest of bubble teams and low level automatic qualifiers. Everything above isn't going to change.

That's why a deserving Texas A&M team didn't make it last year. It would have caused too much work and chaos at the last minute to put them in.

The best thing a legitimate team can do is avoid playing on Sunday. There's nothing to be gained, but a lot to lose.

Teams lose a day to get home to rest and recover.

Teams lose the experience of watching together in a fun, festive environment on Selection Sunday.

Worst of all, sometimes teams lose key players to injury.

It's not worth the risk. Leave the championship game to teams that aren't going to make the NCAA Tournament if they don't win it.

Add a little to the money pot coming to the conference from March Madness in the process.

This may be the one year that it might be worth it to make a run to the SEC championship game for Arkansas and even that is questionable.

This Razorback team needs to learn how to win and can use as many games as possible get an entire colony of bugs worked out.

This is the one time where Musselman's ability to get teams highly prepared on a short turnaround may not matter.

It's not him, it's them, and time on the floor figuring out how to win or even if they actually want to win is the only path to success for this team.

But if the Razorbacks don't win the SEC Tournament championship, not one person in Arkansas will bat an eye so long as they win on Thursday.

Sunday is for Mississippi State, Vanderbilt and Florida. Let one of them have at it.

Because unless you're a team that wasn't going to make the tournament otherwise, nothing matters less outside of a professional league all-star game than the SEC Tournament championship game.