In many ways, Tennessee's emergence has run parallel to the Wildcats'. Like Kentucky, the Volunteers were always obviously talented. Like Kentucky, Tennessee's advanced analytics revealed a team far better than its record suggested. Like Kentucky, which beat Louisville on its own floor in December, the Vols' 35-point win over Virginia gave fans a result to point to and say, see? Like Kentucky, UT spent most of the SEC season underwhelming -- being swept by Texas A&M, losing to Vanderbilt, getting overrun on defense at Missouri -- before flipping some kind of switch in the final weeks.
The result for the SEC, combined with Florida's wins, is a 7-0 SEC record in the NCAA tournament. It's the first conference to go 7-0 or better in the NCAA tournament entering the Sweet 16 since the Big East went 8-0 in 2003, according to ESPN Stats & Information. The last time the SEC went 7-0 or better in the NCAA tournament entering the Sweet 16 was 1996, when Kentucky won the national title.
That was the dominant discussion late in the day Sunday -- how the lowly SEC had redeemed itself in the NCAA tournament. Some even went so far as to claim the SEC had been unfairly maligned, that the tournament revealed a league far stronger than anyone previously realized. (via)turns out, we can haz basketball too.
