The new year will begin with the SEC in a place of dominance over college basketball
The new college basketball rankings were released Monday with few changes from last week.
Kentucky remains the No. 10 team in the country, according to the Associated Press Top 25 poll, which will include a whopping 10 teams from the SEC when the calendar flips to the new year later this week.
Only three teams from the previous Top 25 rankings lost last week — No. 14 Gonzaga (to No. 22 UCLA), No. 16 OIe Miss (to Memphis) and No. 20 San Diego State (to Utah State) — and that meant there wasn’t a whole lot of room for shuffling, especially at the top of the rankings.
In fact, the top 10 stayed the same, with Tennessee still ranked as the nation’s No. 1 team, followed by No. 2 Auburn, No. 3 Iowa State, No. 4 Duke, No. 5 Alabama, No. 6 Florida, No. 7 Kansas, No. 8 Marquette, No. 9 Oregon and Mark Pope’s Wildcats in the No. 10 spot.
That’s five teams from the SEC among the nation’s top 10 with league play set to tip off Saturday, plus five more — No. 12 Oklahoma, No. 13 Texas A&M, No. 17 Mississippi State, No. 23 Arkansas and No. 24 Ole Miss — joining that bunch in the final AP poll of the nonconference portion of the season.
Florida and Oklahoma will be undefeated heading into their SEC openers this weekend, and — assuming Tennessee beats Norfolk State on Tuesday afternoon — the top-ranked Volunteers will be perfect, too.
Meanwhile, Auburn is the nation’s best overall team — according to major analytics websites KenPom.com, EvanMiya.com and the Torvik ratings — while preseason SEC favorite Alabama boasts one of the country’s best offenses and looks like a legitimate national title contender.
The latest ESPN Bracketology projections feature 13 teams from the SEC — that would be a record for one league in a single NCAA Tournament — with Vanderbilt among the “first four out” of the March Madness field, LSU among the next four out, and South Carolina the only other team from the conference not included in the bracket.
That Bracketology board has Auburn as the top overall team in the tournament, with Tennessee getting a 1 seed and Alabama, Florida and Kentucky all landing 2 seeds. The Wildcats were No. 4 in the AP rankings before their 85-65 loss to Ohio State in Madison Square Garden on Dec. 21.
Obviously, all these formidable teams will make conference play an exercise in attrition, and just about every game night will be stacked with must-see matchups.
Opening weekend is no exception.
Conference play begins with Kentucky hosting unbeaten Florida in Rupp Arena at 11 a.m. Saturday, the battle of top-10 teams serving as a fitting intro to what will come over the nine weeks that follow.
This weekend’s slate also includes undefeated Oklahoma playing at Alabama, as well as John Calipari’s Arkansas Razorbacks facing top-ranked Tennessee in Knoxville.
Next weekend’s SEC schedule features three more matchups that will pit two Top 25 teams against each other. And so it will likely go for the remainder of the 2024-25 season.
Saturday’s SEC games
11 a.m.: No. 6 Florida at No. 10 Kentucky (ESPN)
Noon: Georgia at No. 24 Ole Miss (SEC Network)
1 p.m.: No. 23 Arkansas at No. 1 Tennessee (ESPN)
2 p.m: South Carolina at No. 17 Mississippi State (SEC Network)
4 p.m.: Missouri at No. 2 Auburn (SEC Network)
4:30 p.m.: Vanderbilt at LSU (ESPN2)
6 p.m.: No. 12 Oklahoma at No. 5 Alabama (SEC Network)
8 p.m.: Texas at No. 13 Texas A&M (SEC Network)
This story was originally published December 30, 2024 at 1:20 PM.
