Paul Finebaum warns SEC against the cruel reality if league doesn't win National Championship

This season, the SEC is being lauded as the best conference of all time in college basketball. However, that praise comes with a price. During an appearance on McElroy and Cubelic in the Morning, ESPN’s Paul Finebaum explained why the SEC must succeed in the NCAA Tournament.

“Ultimately, it is really going to be more important to see where the SEC schools go down the road,” Finebaum said. “If you start getting a bunch of first round knockouts and second-round [exits], that becomes a lesser issue. What’s critical for the SEC is the Final Four. And I hate to say this, but I’m going to — I really think it’s incumbent upon the SEC to win it all.

“We’ve established that it’s been so long. It was the 2012 season when Kentucky, with Anthony Davis, won the national championship. And for a league as great as the SEC has been in the last couple of years, that’s really too long.

“If the SEC gets 13 in and one or two in the Final Four, and Houston or Duke wins it all, I think the narrative is going to be Duke won the national championship and what happened to the SEC? That is cruel, but it’s the reality when you’re over 20% of the field.”

In ESPN analyst Joe Lunardi’s latest bracketology, he projected the SEC to have a record-high 13 teams in the NCAA Tournament. On three separate occasions, a conference has received nine bids in the NCAA Tournament but never more.

The SEC has a chance to blow that number out of the water this season. Alas, as Finebaum mentioned, arriving at the party isn’t enough. The SEC needs its teams to be the last ones on the dance floor.

Since Kentucky won the national title in 2012, the ACC and the Big East have each reeled in four national championships. If the SEC wants the respect of the other conferences around the country, it needs to take home some hardware this season.

The conference doesn’t have any excuses. The SEC has eight in the AP Top 25, and the No. 1 team in the country: Auburn. The Tigers look like the SEC’s best shot to break its 12-year national championship drought this season.

Auburn is 27-2 and 15-1 in conference play. Tigers center Johni Broome is a frontrunner for National Player of the Year, averaging 18.4 points, 10.8 rebounds, 3.3 assists and 2.4 blocks per game while shooting 50.5% from the field.

Auburn also has a surplus of veteran backcourt talent that perfectly complements Broome’s dominance down low. With less than a week left in the regular season, the SEC won’t have to wait long to show off its talent in the NCAA Tournament.