Mark Pope says Kentucky's 'real Christmas present' is playing in the SEC: "It's going to be a bloodbath."

The SEC woke up Monday morning with 13 of the league’s 16 teams in the top 50 of the NET rankings then later found out 13 were either in the top 25 or receiving votes in the latest AP Poll — Vanderbilt (9-1), LSU (8-2) and South Carolina (7-3) being the lone exceptions. All 16 teams are ranked inside the KenPom top 68, making the entire conference worthy of a spot in the NCAA Tournament if automatic bids weren’t a factor.

It’s a league that is 143-20 overall and 50-19 in Bart Torvik‘s top-100 quality games with no other conference hitting the .500 mark. SEC teams are steamrolling through the non-conference schedule and setting up what should be an all-time January, February and March with the 16 competitors eating each other alive going into postseason play.

Mark Pope‘s take with the Kentucky Wildcats sitting at 10-1 with just two games remaining until the SEC slate begins? It’s a privilege to be included in what could be a historic year for the league — 11 March Madness participants is the record, in case you were curious.

“Hey, come on, man. It is so awesome, right? Like, isn’t a good chance — 1, 2, 3, 4, we’re gonna have like six teams in the top eight or nine teams in the AP top 25, give or take. Something crazy, like five or six teams,” Pope said on College Hoops Today with Jon Rothstein shortly before five teams were included in the top eight and seven in the top 14 in this week’s update. “Getting to play in the Big 12 last year was really special. Last year, the Big 12 was the best conference in the country and every single game was the biggest game of your life. It was just a brawl every day. This year, that’s the SEC — but times ten. This league is just insanity right now.”

Some would complain about the toughness of the league having to take on ranked opponents week after week, knowing it increases the likelihood of slip-ups and, thus, a tougher draw in March, potentially. For Pope, it’s a welcomed challenge that comes with the territory — and gift — of being at Kentucky.

To prove you’re the best, why would you not want to beat the best?

“As an athlete and as a coach, why would you — I think you’d be sad if you were playing in any other league, right? I mean, this is what you dream of,” Pope said. “There’s not going to be a lot of time trying to get our guys hyped up to compete in the game. I think I saw something the other day, that every single game we play in the month of January is a Quad 1 and all but one in February is a Quad 1. You know, I used to talk about Quad 1 games, ‘You got to go get some Quad 1 games.’ Every game we play in this league almost is a Quad 1 game.”

In his eyes, it’s a Christmas present from the basketball gods in his first season as the head coach at Kentucky.

“It is going to be so sensational. I’m really happy for our guys that they get to experience this, I’m happy for Big Blue Nation, I’m happy for the SEC,” he said. “We can’t wait to get started, man. That’s actually going to be the real Christmas present, that we get to jump into this league.

“It’s going to be a bloodbath, and that’s what you want, man. It’s what you want as a competitor. You want to be with the best every single day.”