By: Michael Spiers

TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services

March Madness is finally here! Selection Sunday just locked in the 68 teams for the 2025 NCAA Tournament, and the excitement is off the charts.

Back-to-back champ UConn is looking to make history with a three-peat, something we haven’t seen since John Wooden’s UCLA dynasty won seven straight from 1967 to 1973. But this time around, the Huskies aren’t the clear favorites after a tough regular season.

That opens the door for teams like Auburn, Duke, Florida, and Houston—powerhouses that have been rolling all year—to step up and take the crown.

Back in November, I wrote an article about the Southeastern Conference having nine ranked teams in the preseason Top 25. I wondered if it would even be possible for the 16 teams that make up the conference to end the regular season with as much fanfare as it began with.

Ever since then? The SEC has completely taken over college basketball. Coaches have been raving about just how brutal the competition has been. Coaches have called having to play within the conference everything from a gauntlet to a meat grinder. Georgia’s head coach, Mike White, summed it up by saying the SEC is “the best league in the history of college basketball.”

Turns out, they weren’t just talking. The SEC made history this year by sending 14 of those 16 teams to the NCAA Tournament—shattering the previous record of 11 set by the Big East in 2011.

With an 87.5% participation rate, it’s the highest percentage of teams from a single conference to ever make the tournament.

The only teams left out? South Carolina and my beloved LSU Tigers (at least there is always baseball!). Meanwhile, new conference members Texas and Oklahoma wasted no time proving they belong, both punching their tickets in their first year in the league.

But now, it’s time to back it up. Was this just a dominant regular season, or can the league turn this into something bigger?

Garth Glissman, the SEC’s associate commissioner for men’s basketball, knows the real challenge is just beginning. “Our regular season speaks for itself,” he told CBS Sports. “But that doesn’t guarantee anything in the postseason. We’ve got to take care of business.”

So, what does “taking care of business” actually look like? Do a certain number of SEC teams need to reach the Sweet 16? Does the conference need multiple Final Four teams? According to Glissman, there’s only one real goal: winning it all.

Of course, March Madness is unpredictable. Anything can happen. But for a conference that dominates in almost every other sport—football, women’s basketball, baseball—winning big in men’s hoops is the one thing that’s been missing. The last SEC team to cut down the nets? Kentucky, back in 2012.

“I’ll be the first to admit that in the SEC, ultimately, we’re measured by national championships,” Glissman said.

There are plenty of SEC teams capable of making a deep run. Auburn, Alabama, Florida, and Tennessee are legit contenders, while a few others could sneak into the Final Four.

No matter what happens, the SEC owned the regular season. A 14-2 record in the ACC-SEC Challenge and a 59-19 record against high-major teams prove just how dominant the conference was this year.

Not long ago, the SEC was considered a football-first conference, with basketball playing second fiddle. From 2013 to 2016, the league had multiple seasons where only three teams made the tournament. But that’s changed in a big way. The SEC sent eight teams dancing in both 2023 and 2024, setting the stage for this year’s historic breakthrough.

Now, there’s only one thing left to prove. Can the SEC finish the job and bring home a national title? March Madness is about to give us the answer.