The storyline of the 2024-25 college basketball season has been the dominance of the SEC. The conference set the stage for its takeover of the sport by dominating everyone else in non-conference play, leading to an epic season in league play that culminated with 14 of the SEC's 16 teams reaching the NCAA Tournament.
After a slow start to March Madness, the SEC started cooking again, placing seven teams in the Sweet 16, with four (Auburn, Alabama, Florida and Tennessee) reaching the Elite Eight. With each school in a different region, the SEC has a chance to make more March Madness history.
Can the SEC fill out the entire Final Four?
The SEC has become just the third conference to ever place four teams in the Elite Eight, joining the 2016 ACC and 2009 Big East in that department. Unlike those conferences, however, each of the SEC's schools is in a different portion of the bracket, setting the stage for the first-ever Final Four featuring teams in one conference.
The most teams a conference has ever placed in the Final Four is three, which came back in 1985 when the Big East had Georgetown, St. John's and Villanova get there in the first year the field expanded to 64 teams. Villanova pulled an upset on Georgetown to secure the title, setting a mark for conference dominance that the SEC has a path to beat.
In order for the all-SEC Final Four to come to fruition, the following results need to occur:
West Region: Florida beats Texas Tech
East Region: Alabama beats Duke
Midwest Region: Tennessee beats Houston
South Region: Auburn beats Michigan State
Florida and Auburn are favored in their games while Tennessee is a 2.5-point underdog to Houston. Alabama is the biggest underdog of the group, getting 6.5 points against the Cooper Flagg-led Duke Blue Devils.
Another interesting obstacle that the SEC could face on their path to sweeping the Final Four is Tom Izzo's track record against the conference in the NCAA Tournament. Izzo, whose Spartans take on top overall seed Auburn to cap off the Elite Eight on Sunday, is a perfect 10-0 in his career against SEC teams in March Madness, including a win in this year's tournament over Ole Miss on Friday night.
If the all-SEC Final Four does happen, the matchups would be Auburn vs. Florida and Tennessee vs. Alabama. Those matchups produced memorable regular season meetings, which would set the stage for an incredible night of basketball in San Antonio on April 5th.