2008-09 in review: It’s not a stretch to write that the SEC experienced the worst season of any major conference this decade with its showing last winter. The league played such a weak non-conference schedule and played so poorly out of conference that four 20-win teams didn’t get a bid to the NCAA Tournament — Florida, South Carolina, Kentucky, Auburn — and no one really complained. In mid-February, the first three of those teams looked like they had a pretty good shot at dancing, but Florida finished 2-4, Kentucky finished 1-5, and South Carolina finished 3-4. Those four teams combined for just six wins in 23 games against top-50 teams.

If it wasn’t for Mississippi State’s — umm, not sure “stirring” is the right word — successful run to the SEC title, the SEC would have gotten just two teams into the NCAAs. Even with the third bid, not a single SEC team got a seed better than No. 8, and none were left standing once North Carolina pulled away from LSU on the first Saturday of the tournament. The SEC’s NCAA Tournament Conference Score of 0.33 was the worst of any major conference this decade.

What shouldn’t be lost in all of the negativity is the bounceback from LSU. In his first season as head coach, Trent Johnson leveraged Tasmin Mitchell and Marcus Thornton into the Tigers’ second SEC West title in four seasons. The Tigers have won 14, 5, 6 and 13 conference games in the last four seasons — you gotta love consistency. Read More »