ESPN's Seth Greenberg: 'SEC put the nation on blast' with NCAA Tournament success

The success of the SEC throughout the 2024-25 college basketball season has been one of the major storylines all year long. ESPN’s Seth Greenberg believes it’s far from a one-year wonder.

Even after some disappointing NCAA Tournament runs from the conference’s teams, including a collapse from John Calipari’s Arkansas squad that saw their Elite Eight dreams dissipate on Thursday evening, Greenberg sung the SEC’s praises. During an appearance on Get Up on Friday morning, the analyst explained how the conference is putting the rest of the college basketball world on notice now and into the future.

“The bigger thing is the SEC put the nation on blast, because this SEC is not going anywhere,” Greenberg proclaimed. “You talk about 14 teams in the NCAA Tournament? That is going to be the norm, that’s not going to be the exception. You hire Sean Miller at Texas — they’re going to the NCAA Tournament. He’s going to get players. He’s a terrific coach. If you look at the roster of coaches in this league, you’re talking about Hall of Fame coaches. You’re talking about Final Four coaches. You’re talking about the best of the very best. You give great coaches the resources, infrastructure and NIL? I’ll tell you one thing, those dudes are going to win.

“If you look at the roster of the coaches in the SEC, the SEC is putting college basketball on blast, because what they’re doing right now is they’re building not for today, they’re building for the future. Year-in and year-out, the SEC is going to put 10, 11, 12, 13 and 14 teams in the NCAA Tournament. Not only are they going to be in, but those teams are going to advance deep into the NCAA Tournament.”

As Greenberg alluded to, there aren’t any other conferences that can match the surplus of coaching talent the SEC has at the moment. That’s part of why the conference has been so competitive, and how they’ll remain so next season and beyond. It’s not simply a football conference anymore, and NIL coupled with the NCAA Transfer Portal has played a huge role in the matter.

While Arkansas may have fallen in the Sweet 16, the SEC still has Alabama preparing for a showdown against Duke in the Elite Eight on Saturday. Before all that, Auburn, Ole Miss, Kentucky and Tennessee will find out their fate in the continuation of the Sweet 16 on Friday. Each team has their own claim for being able to make a run in the NCAA Tournament, with the Final Four on their mind at the moment.

Time will tell how the Sweet 16, Elite Eight and subsequent rounds shake out for the SEC in the NCAA Tournament. Regardless, Seth Greenberg is championing the conference, and they may only be scratching the surface of their sustained success. Pray on their downfall, but it seems like men’s basketball is being taken over by the South.