One of the biggest questions in sports that will linger until 6 p.m. ET on Sunday, when the NCAA Tournament bracket is revealed: How many NCAA Tournament bids will the SEC get, and how will the committee seed the record-setting number of schools in the field of 68?
The SEC’s 16 schools collectively went 185-23 outside league play, the most victories and best nonconference winning percentage (.889) in men’s Division I history for a conference with at least 10 teams. That led to a high-profile league slate, which will be rewarded Sunday night when we finally learn who’s in the bracket and where the teams are slotted. Fourteen of the SEC’s 16 teams rank top-50 in the NET and 13 of them have a résumé-metric average of 42.3 or better (Texas being at 52.3 as of Saturday).
After Arkansas and Oklahoma won their first games in the league bracket to remove their tenuous bubble status, it’s a mortal lock at least 12 will go dancing, and really, 13 seems a near-guarantee.
Texas’ case remains interesting. The Longhorns are 19-15 after falling to Tennessee on Friday. They have the most losses of any team hoping for an at-large. They also have seven Quad 1 wins, the most of any team hoping for an at-large. They are a combined 13-15 in the top three quadrants, which isn’t inspiring. But they’ve beaten Texas A&M twice, Kentucky and Missouri, all NCAA tourney teams. (If Texas makes it in, it’s going to Dayton. That’s a lock.)
Now, here’s what to keep an eye on come Sunday: Getting 13, maybe even 14 teams in would be as incredible for the SEC as it would be challenging, from a bracket-building perspective, for members of the selection committee. There are rules in place to prevent intra-conference foes from meeting too early in the Big Dance — with first-round rematches flatly not allowed and would-be second-round rendezvouses avoided whenever possible.
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With the superconference era officially activated in 2024, the potential for something like this was on the table eventually, but nobody saw it immediately being a factor to this extent. The temporary elimination of the Pac-12 also puts one more at-large bid out for the taking, maybe giving way for the SEC to get 14. Fortunately, the NCAA got ahead of this issue months ago.
“The committee talked about this over the summer, not specific to the SEC, but acknowledging that with bigger conferences there’d be more bids,” a source told CBS Sports.
When 12, 13 or maybe even 14 (depending on Texas) teams make it in, there will be plenty of instances of SEC teams having at least two head-to-head meetings by Selection Sunday. Invariably, there will also be a few cases in which highly seeded SEC squads will have met three times. Prior NCAA rule dictated teams that played each other twice couldn’t meet until the Sweet 16 at the earliest. Last July, the committee altered its rulebook language, amending for that protocol to be relaxed (allowing for second-round affairs) if a league got nine or more teams into the Big Dance.
“The committee will try to avoid it for as long as possible and not have two teams playing in the second round, but historically they’ll prioritize keeping everyone on the same seed line,” per a source.
That means they wouldn’t drop a No. 7 seed to an No. 8 seed, or vice versa, to circumvent a Nos. 2-7 matchup. Seed integrity still trumps conference familiarity, but it is avoided as a competitive courtesy as much as the bracketing process allows. The committee has often moved a team laterally from one seed line to another, in a different region, even if doing so would mean more travel. The SEC is going to test this method more than ever before.
One potential example: Say Tennessee gets a No. 2 and Missouri is a No. 7 seed. Those teams only played once this season. If they wind up on those seed lines, it’s easily conceivable they’d be paired to meet in the second round if shipping Missouri to another region isn’t feasible for a number of other complicating factors.
In 2011, the committee handled the Big East in such fashion when it had to disperse 11 teams throughout the bracket. Syracuse (a No. 3 seed) wound up facing Marquette (a No. 11 seed) in the second round after the teams played once earlier that season. The same for UConn (a No. 3 seed) over Cincinnati (a No. 6 seed). If you want to look back at the 2011 NCAAs, when the Big East had a record 11 in, here’s that bracket.
The thornier issue that could rear its head is the amount of really good teams that will break into the top four seed lines, something the committee has been acutely aware of before, in the few years when the Big 12 had more than four really good teams (like in 2021 when it had five). Here are the six SEC teams realistically in play to be top-four seeds:
The principle is this: the top four seeds from a conference are placed away from each other in the four regions, provided they are a No. 1, 2, 3 or 4 seed. But with five or more teams from a league with a top-four seed (and the SEC is guaranteed to get at least five of the top 16 seeds), that rule will have to be broken. Seed lines are still protected in these scenarios, meaning we could have SEC rematches one round earlier than otherwise would happen.
You can get really twisted on hypotheticals, but just know the committee should do everything it can to evade rematches through every avenue possible, so long as it doesn’t compromise seed integrity. Barring first-round upsets, we’re likely to get SEC battles before the start of the second weekend — and we could have a dose of more in the Sweet 16.
One rule that won’t change: If SEC teams (as is true with all leagues) have played thrice prior to Selection Sunday, they will be placed away from each other to meet no sooner than the Elite Eight, in keeping with longstanding bracketing procedures. Here are those matchups. These teams can’t meet before the regional finals, and in fact could wind up in separate regions altogether:
- Kentucky vs. Alabama
- Texas vs. Texas A&M
There are two more potential three-time matchups on the table for Sunday: Auburn vs. Alabama and Tennessee vs. Florida. Those teams will be moved far apart in the bracket if indeed they get a third matchup Sunday.
Additionally, if two SEC teams wind up being sent to Dayton for the First Four, they won’t play each other. Also critical to know: if it so happens that the overall seed list winds up in a place where three SEC teams just barely get in (doesn’t seem likely) — and all three as a result are First Four teams — then two of them will be forced to play each other, with the least-common rematch winning out. The committee won’t (and obviously shouldn’t) move a team up on the aggregate seed listing just to avoid sending three teams from the same conference to the First Four. (You can read all the rules and procedures here.)
Seeding is always a debatable topic, but this year could be the committee’s trickiest assignment yet. The SEC is going to populate the bracket more than any conference in history, and where the teams are placed is destined to be one of the biggest stories heading into the first round on Thursday and Friday.
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