Sec Basketball

SEC History

The SEC is an old standard in collegiate sports. Established in 1932 out of 13 colleges located in the southeastern United States, the SEC still retains 10 of its original member institutions. Currently, teams fall into one of two groups within the SEC, the Eastern and Western Divisions. SEC Eastern Division contains Florida, Vanderbilt, Tennessee, Kentucky, Georgia, and South Carolina while SEC Western Division contains Mississippi State, Ole Miss, Arkansas, Auburn, Alabama, and Louisiana State. Collegiate sports are incredibly important in the SEC region. Its teams raked in an impressive $122 million in revenue during the 2006-2007 fiscal year, more than any other athletic conference in the United States.

SEC Basketball Tournaments

For men’s and women’s teams, the winner of the annual SEC Tournaments is the deciding factor for which team gets the division championship title, and also, most importantly, gets the coveted automatic bid to the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Tournament.

The SEC has produced spectacular results in both conference and NCAA tournaments. Since 1979, the University of Kentucky men’s basketball team has won the SEC Tournament 12 times. It is one of the undisputed elite programs in all of college athletic teams. An astonishing 25 out of 47 SEC Tournament championships belong to the Kentucky Wildcats, which also led to numerous wins in NCAA tournament play. Each year, the SEC also gives an individual team member a Player of the Year award, 10 of which have been awarded to Kentucky ball players. Female basketball teams from the SEC are also very powerful in collegiate play. Ladies teams from the University of Tennessee Volunteers have appeared in the final round of the SEC Tournament an impressive 17 times, resulting in 12 SEC Tournament titles since the launch of the women’s version of the event in 1980.

SEC In The NBA

Pete Maravich, Charles Barkley, and Shaquille O’Neal are common household names for basketball fans. Legends like these gained their skills during their college days at SEC schools and thrilled fans in SEC (and NCAA) Tournament play. Maravich still holds the NCAA record for career points scored, and most points scored in a single season. He averaged 44.2 points a game during his college career, and went on to play for three different NBA teams. Shaquille O’Neal (once the tallest basketball player in the NBA), attended Louisiana State University, just as Maravich had done. After his career in the SEC, O’Neal went on to play in four NBA championships, and is still active as a professional ball player.