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Jay Bilas: 'The SEC is the most powerful basketball league, top to bottom, there has ever been'

ns_headshot_2024-clearby:Nick Schultz•about 13 hours•

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ESPN analyst Jay Bilas
© Jake Crandall / USA TODAY NETWORK

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.

Entering Tuesday night, the SEC leads the nation with a +21.66 efficiency rating, according to KenPom. That’s nearly four points more than the second-most efficient conference. As a result, the SEC has the most projected bids in ESPN’s latest Bracketology with 13 teams in the field.

To Bilas, it’s something college basketball hasn’t seen in roughly 40 years in the ACC. What makes it even more impressive, though, is the amount of teams in the SEC compared to 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.”

Jay Bilas: SEC strength will ’cause tournament selection process a problem’

The SEC’s 13 bids in ESPN’s Bracketology is three more than the Big Ten, which is in second with 10. On3’s James Fletcher III also had 13 SEC teams in his updated Bracketology, including three programs on the 1-seed line – Auburn, Tennessee and Alabama.

But when it comes to selection, Bilas said other conferences could end up on the outside looking in because SEC teams are playing so many Quadrant 1 games. A Q1 matchup, according to the NCAA, is defined as a home game against Nos. 1-30; a neutral site game against Nos. 1-50; and an away game against Nos. 1-75. In the latest NET rankings, 14 of the 17 SEC teams were in the Top 50 and nine were in the Top 30.

That amount of Q1 games will impact tournament seeding. As a result, the other conferences will face pressure come Selection Sunday.

“It’s going to cause the tournament selection process a problem, because you’re going to have teams with losing records in conference that are going to be significantly better than some teams that are finishing in the top three or four in a couple other power leagues,” Bilas said. “They’re going to have to really dig in because every game in this league is Quad 1. It’s absurd. I’ve never see anything like it.

“And South Carolina, you can say they’re the ‘worst team in in the Southeastern Conference,’ they haven’t won a game in the league. They beat Clemson before the conference started. They had a 14-2 record or something like that coming into conference play. This is the most powerful basketball league, top to bottom, that there has ever been.”