SEC: Five-Year Ranking

SEC Basketball

SEC FIVE-YEAR STANDINGS

This ranking tries to answer a simple question: Who has been the best team in the SEC over the last five years?

A heavy emphasis is put on league play & NCAA Tournament success. NIT wins are meaningless here, as are non-conference wins.  Also, league tournaments wins are not taken into account. An original trial-scoring system included points for conference tourney wins. But then I realized the flukish nature of those tourney's did more harm than hurt: ie, 2008 Georgia, 2006 Syracuse, and 2004 Maryland ended up getting too much credit despite the reality that they were mediocre to sub-par teams. As it is, I feel satisfied this simple system does a good job of ranking the teams recent performance.

100 total points is set up to be the equivalent of batting .300 in baseball.. anything above and beyond is all-world stuff. 50 points is mediocre and you only start to get bad below 40 points.

The postseason scoring system is listed below, along with some related notes & thoughts.

-Ties are broken by favoring conference winning %

Thoughts

- While Florida obviously has the two national titles, Kentucky has actually won more league games in the last five years. In fact, Kentucky is just one of a few BCS teams that have finished over .500 in league play each season. Kansas, Pittsburgh, Texas, Stanford (surprisingly), and Wisconsin are the others.

- Kentucky is also one of the programs to make all 5 NCAA Tournaments. Arizona, Duke, Michigan State, North Carolina, Pittsburgh, Texas, and  Wisconsin are the others.

- Despite being 1 game away from 3rd in overall conference winning %, Mississippi State has had little postseason success. They're tied for 6th along with LSU in postseason success, never having gotten past the 2nd round.

- The SEC teams average about 12 postseason points per team, which is about average for BCS leagues. The ACC has 13.75 per team, which is the most.

- SEC teams have been past the first round 19 teams in the last five years. This is also about average, compared to 13 times for Pac-10 teams, but 25 times for ACC teams.

- Auburn is one of just a few BCS teams that haven't made the postseason in the past five years, along with Northwestern, St. John's, and South Florida.

Postseason Points

NIT = 1

NCAA 1st Round = 2

NCAA 2nd Round = 4

Sweet = 6

Elite 8 = 8

Final Four = 10

Final = 11*

Champs = 12*

* I've stopped giving 2 points per win in the final games, to prevent one year wonder teams from getting too much of a boost (ie, Georgia Tech or Ohio State in the Big Ten). Also, CBI bids receive no credit.

Archive

Pac-10: Five-Year Ranking

Big Ten: Five-Year Ranking