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Buzz Williams reacts to learning where SEC teams stand in Selection Committee’s Top 16

On3 imageby:Dan Morrison•02/16/25•

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Buzz Williams, Texas A&M
Buzz Williams, Texas A&M - © Maria Lysaker-Imagn Images

The NCAA Selection Committee recently released its Top 16 seeds in the NCAA Tournament, as things stand now. It’s a group that is filled with SEC schools, including the Texas A&M Aggies, led by head coach Buzz Williams.

Williams recently learned about the Selection Committee’s Top 16, which led to an interesting immediate reaction. Initially, he joked that he’d be happy with where the Aggies are in the rankings before getting more serious looking at how many SEC teams are at the top of the seeding.

“I wish the season was over today,” Buzz Williams joked. “That would be great.”

At that point, Williams and reporters clarified that as of right now, Texas A&M is sixth overall, which is the second two-seed slot in the NCAA Tournament. Ahead of the Aggies are Auburn, Alabama, Duke, Florida, and Tennessee. That’s five SEC teams in the top six seeds, including four ahead of Texas A&M.

“So, five out of six are from the SEC? Where was Purdue [seventh overall, two-seed, behind Texas A&M]? Rightfully so,” Williams said. It’ll be interesting to see if that — our game — matters. That probably means that the next 6 games matter most if we’re going to have a data point to determine that, right?”

In total, six SEC schools are ranked in the top 16 of the NCAA Tournament Selection Committee’s Top 16 teams. That’s the most of any conference and it fairly closely aligns with BPI, which has five SEC schools in the Top 16, Kentucky is sitting just outside of that mark at 17th. This comes in a season where it has been suggested the SEC could get 12 or 13 teams in the NCAA Tournament out of the 16 teams that are in the conference.

College basketball analyst Jay Bilas has even praised the SEC as the most powerful conference there has ever been from top to bottom.

“I have never seen anything remotely like what we’re seeing in the Southeastern Conference this year,” Bilas said. “The non-conference success has not been seen since the ACC in the mid-1980s. That’s so long ago, I played in the league back then. But the biggest difference in comparing those two is the ACC was eight teams back then. It’s a lot easier to have eight really good teams than it is to have 16 really good teams.”

Buzz Williams and Texas A&M have 11 Quad 1 games this season, going 7-4 in those games. A step back, in Quad 2 games, the Aggies are 7-1, only losing an early season upset against UCF. Of course, the schedule doesn’t get any easier from here. In their final six regular season games, Texas A&M will have four Q1 and two Q2 games, starting with Mississippi State on Tuesday.

Depending on how that final stretch of the regular season goes, as well as the SEC Tournament, there is still an opportunity for Texas A&M to move up or down in the NCAA Tournament’s seeding.