Bruce Pearl refused to stay on topic.
When CBS sideline reporter Tracy Wolfson tried to ask about Auburn’s upcoming matchup with Michigan State, Pearl steered the conversation in a different direction.
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“How about the SEC?” the Auburn head coach enthusiastically shouted. Then Pearl led his fist-pumping players in a round of “S-E-C” chants.
This year’s SEC has reason to crow after backing up the season-long hype that it was perhaps the strongest conference in college basketball history. Half the Elite Eight hails from the SEC after No. 1 overall seed Auburn secured its place with a 78-65 victory over fifth-seeded Michigan on Friday night.
This weekend, it will be the four national championship contenders from this season’s dominant conference against the four leading challengers to SEC supremacy. Saturday will feature No. 1 Florida vs. No. 3 Texas Tech and No. 2 Alabama vs. No. 1 Duke. Sunday will follow with No. 2 Tennessee vs. No. 1 Houston and No. 1 Auburn vs. No. 2 Michigan State.
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The 2016 ACC was the most recent conference to send four teams to the Elite Eight, when North Carolina, Syracuse, Virginia and Notre Dame all reached the regional finals. The 2009 Big East was the first to do it with Louisville, Pittsburgh, Villanova and UConn.
This is the first time that one conference has four Elite Eight teams in four different regions, keeping hope alive of an unprecedented all-SEC Final Four. The Big East became the only league to produce three Final Four teams in 1985 when Villanova toppled Georgetown in the national title game and St. John’s was a semifinalist.
Seldom has an Elite Eight better encapsulated the theme of the entire season than this year’s does. It has been SEC-versus-the-world ever since the league dominated November and December in a fashion few, if any, conferences have before.
The SEC won 88.9% of its games against other conferences, amassed a 58-19 record against the other four power conferences and notched victories over the likes of Duke, Houston, Texas Tech and St. John’s. There were a few weeks during the regular season when the SEC had six of the top 10 teams in the AP Top 25 poll.
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Fourteen of the SEC’s 16 teams received NCAA tournament bids on Selection Sunday when the 68-team field was unveiled. That smashed the previous record of 11 NCAA bids from one conference, set by the Big East in 2011.
The SEC set the outright record with seven Sweet 16 teams and nearly secured more than four Elite Eight bids. On Friday, Ole Miss pushed favored Michigan State into the final minute before suffering a 73-70 loss. The night before, Arkansas squandered a 13-point lead with 4 ½ minutes to play in an excruciating overtime Sweet 16 loss to Texas Tech.
The four SEC teams who did advance to the Elite Eight are the four most deserving over the course of the season. They each finished in the top four in the league standings and each made the SEC tournament semifinals.
No. 1 seeds Auburn and Florida will be favored to win their Elite Eight matchups. Not so with Tennessee and Alabama. The Vols figure to be in a defensive struggle with top-seeded Houston as they fight for their first Final Four in program history. The Crimson Tide might need another 3-point barrage similar to Thursday’s to topple formidable Duke.
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Earlier this month, when Auburn, Florida, Tennessee and Alabama each made the semifinals of the SEC tournament, some bragged that the Final Four wouldn’t match the strength of that quartet.
Now the SEC has an outside chance for more bragging rights. It still has hope of running back its tournament semifinals in San Antonio next weekend.
“Four teams from the SEC in the Elite Eight,” Pearl said during his postgame press conference. “That’s pretty good.”