ESPN's Karl Ravech inexplicably falls for troll narrative about SEC during Texas vs Alabama

The SEC dominance has stuck out early and often this college basketball season. Teams from the conference dominated its way through November and December before turning the page to SEC play. Since then, it’s been a dog fight on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Saturdays.

A troll narrative has emerged on social media, joking that the SEC is only .500 since early January. Well, ESPN play-by-play commentator Karl Ravech fell for it. He discussed how the SEC sports an 82-82 record since Jan. 4, the date of the first conference games.

“We know how dominant they were in the nonconference part of the season, the SEC,” Ravech said on Tuesday late in Alabama‘s win over Texas. “They were 185-23. Since January 4, into Tuesday, the SEC teams are 82-82. It’s not as if one team or two teams or three — they’re 82-82. There’s been no ability pull away, there’s no dominant group of teams.”

Five SEC games took place on Tuesday, bringing the conference’s record to 87-87 since the calendar flipped over. Three more take place on Wednesday and it will go up to 90-90 before a full slate on Saturday.

An unfortunate but hilarious moment from Ravech who was just attempting to fill air time during a blowout. He might be right about no dominant teams standing out as multiple programs would argue they are still in the race for an SEC regular season championship.

Jay Bilas speaks to dominance of SEC in 2024-2025 college basketball season

With March on the horizon, the SEC is putting together a year for the ages. In fact, it’s something unlike Jay Bilas has seen in his basketball life.

Bilas grew up in an era where the ACC dominated and there were a few seasons where he could remember these types of runs. However, one thing stands out when comparing this year’s SEC — there are 16 teams compared the eight in the ACC back then.

“I have never seen anything remotely like what we’re seeing in the Southeastern Conference this year,” Bilas said on The Paul Finebaum Show. “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.”

On3’s Nick Schultz contributed to this report