The SEC is very, very good this season, and very deep as well. ESPN's most recent bracketology update, for instance, has the SEC taking 11 spots in the 68-team field.
That feels like a good number when you look at the conference as a whole. 11 SEC teams do deserve to be in the tournament at the moment, and the conference's other five teams are essentially out of the picture. But how do those 11 teams stack up against each other?
11. Mississippi State
If any of these SEC teams miss out on the tournament, it will be the Bulldogs. The team sits at 16-8 on the year, but a 3-7 mark in conference play threatens to sink the team. It could even theoretically allow Missouri, the only other SEC team with a shot to salvage its season, to get back into the picture.
The Bulldogs got off to a strong start, but have lost seven of their past nine, including a 43-point loss Thursday to South Carolina. The wins in that span were good ones, knocking off Kentucky and Tennessee both by double digits, but that doesn't make up for all the losses.
10. Georgia
The Bulldogs should make the NCAA Tournament, but if they do, it will be built on dominating a fairly weak non-conference schedule. Georgia is just 2-5 against teams with a top 50 Her Hoop Stats rating, which includes losing by 20-plus points to both South Carolina and LSU.
However, a 23-point win over Ole Miss highlights what this team is capable of when it plays its best. Georgia isn't elite on either end of the floor, but the team still has the 35th-best net rating in the country based on its offense and defense both being pretty good. Notably, the Bulldogs do a solid job of not turning the ball over.
9. Alabama
Alabama has been a good story, overcoming the loss of program legend Sarah Ashlee Barker to start the year 20-5. However, as good as the team has been at times, we can't ignore how bad things went against top 10 teams:
Opponent | Margin of Alabama Loss |
|---|---|
South Carolina | 26 |
LSU | 40 |
The defense has been good enough to keep Alabama competitive against most opponents, but the offense has issues. Alabama plays at a very slow pace, magnifying the importance of each play, but with the Crimson Tide only ranking 44th in points per play, that pace has hurt the team against elite opponents.
8. Tennessee
The Volunteers have had some issues on both ends of the floor, ranking outside the top 50 in both offensive and defensive rating.
Division I Rank | |
|---|---|
Offensive Rating | 64th |
Defensive Rating | 72nd |
Net Rating | 57th |
However, they've still been good enough to sneak out some key victories, beating Kentucky, Alabama, Georgia and Mississippi State so far this season.
On the other hand, Tennessee is 0-3 against teams with a top 10 Her Hoop Stats rating, losing each game by over 20 points, and only one of the team's five losses has been by single digits. Against top opponents, the offense stalls and the defense falters, putting the team in a hole.
7. Ole Miss
This current Ole Miss roster was built through the transfer portal, and you sometimes notice a lack of cohesiveness because of that, like how the team ranks 252nd in the nation in assisted shot rate. Still, Yolett McPhee-McCuin has built a very talented roster.
Cotie McMahon's decision to leave Ohio State for Ole Miss has been a great move for her career, and even with some failed moves like former UCF guard Kaitlin Peterson collapsing as a scorer, this team has shown it can compete with anyone, beating Vanderbilt and Oklahoma while only losing to Texas by three.
6. Kentucky
This is my "going out on a limb because I still believe in the talent" pick. Kentucky has definitely had some bad moments in SEC play, going 5-5 and posting the lowest positive net rating in conference games of any SEC team at plus-3.1, which overall ranks eighth in the conference. So, why put them ahead of Ole Miss and Tennessee? Well, part of it is how impressive their non-conference performance was.
Net Rating | |
|---|---|
Non-conference games | +46.7 |
Conference games | +3.1 |
It's not like the Wildcats exclusively played bad teams in non-conference play either. That portion of the schedule included wins over Louisville, Miami and Belmont, as well as a close loss to Maryland. And conference numbers really haven't been that bad. Of the Wildcats' five SEC defeats, three have come by five or fewer points, including a near miss at a big upset on Thursday against Vanderbilt.
5. Oklahoma
Oklahoma is always a weird team to get a read on. The Sooners love to play fast, with this marking the fifth season in a row with a pace that ranked in the top 12 and the fourth time in five years they've ranked in the top three in pace. That naturally leads to some inconsistency between overall numbers and pace-adjusted numbers.
Division I Rank | |
|---|---|
Points Per Game | 3rd |
Opponent Points Per Game | 177th |
Offensive Rating | 30th |
Defensive Rating | 9th |
At its best, Oklahoma can win a shootout against anyone. I mean, the Sooners beat South Carolina! But the offense can also go cold, which we saw in a 63-57 loss to Kentucky and a 91-72 loss to LSU. This is a good basketball team, but it lacks the consistency to be ranked ahead of any of the four teams that follow.
4. Vanderbilt
Yes, the Commodores have a head-to-head win over LSU, but when it comes down to it, I favor the Tigers because of depth.
That should not, however, take anything away from this impressive Vanderbilt season. Transfer portal losses could have really sunk this team, but Mikayla Blakes has stepped up as the team leader while freshman Aubrey Galvan has been one of the best first-year players in the nation. Defense is a concern, though, and the 29-point loss to South Carolina shows what happens when the team is knocked out of rhythm.
3. LSU
I was starting to wonder if LSU might be closer to the top two than we thought. Then came Thursday's 13-point loss to Texas. If not for an earlier win over the Longhorns, I'd have been tempted to drop the Tigers to fourth.
LSU has talent all over the roster including potential WNBA lottery pick Flau'jae Johnson. The team spent the early part of the year throttling lesser opponents, which helps account for the team ranking second in the nation in net rating, but it's been strong against SEC opponents as well, as its +21.9 net rating in conference games ranks only behind South Carolina and Texas. Beating the Horns back in January plus a 40-point win recently over Alabama show that this team has championship potential.
2. Texas
Two of the four best teams in the country play in the SEC, but which is the best?
Well...the heading this is being written under kind of gives away that answer. Texas is a very talented basketball team with wins over South Carolina, UCLA and LSU on its resume, but it also has losses to both South Carolina and LSU as well.
Looking exclusively at SEC games, Texas is second behind the Gamecocks in net rating. I also think there are just a couple of concerns that prevent me from ranking Texas first here. There's the complete lack of a 3-point game, with the Horns ranking last in Division I in percentage of points scored from downtown, and there's also the concern that primary ball-handler Rori Harmon isn't great at creating her own shot.
1. South Carolina
Who is the SEC's best team? It's got to be South Carolina. Just look at the numbers in conference play.
Rank in SEC Games | |
|---|---|
Offensive Rating | 3rd |
Defensive Rating | 1st |
Net Rating | 1st |
The Gamecocks' overtime loss to Oklahoma is a worse blemish than anything on Texas' resume, but one night shouldn't change an entire narrative about a team. South Carolina has dominated most opponents on its schedule, including double-digit wins over Duke, Vanderbilt, USC, Alabama and Mississippi State.
Depth is a huge part of this. Legitimate future WNBA prospects like Maryam Dauda and Adhel Tac are barely in the rotation and four players are averaging at least 13 points per game.