Gators help fuel SEC’s sweet NCAA run
GAINESVILLE — Football is king in the SEC and a year-round obsession in the Deep South.
Basketball often becomes a way for many fans to pass the time between bowl games, National Signing Day and spring practices.
UF small forward Devin Robinson knows the score.
“We don’t really get talked about a lot, basketball-wise,” he said Tuesday. “They talk about a lot of football and things like that.”
But this week, the nation’s top football conference has become one of the darlings of the NCAA Tournament.
The SEC has three teams — UF, Kentucky and South Carolina — in the Sweet 16. No conference has more, while the hoops-crazy ACC has just one team and the Big East two teams still alive in the Big Dance.
Nick Saban and Jim McElwain step aside. Quarterback competitions during spring drills take a backseat.
John Calipari and Mike White have teams playing like Final Four material. South Carolina stunned national powerhouse Duke, winners of five national championships since 1991, including the 2015 title.
From this point, anything can happen. White and his players enter Friday night’s matchup with Wisconsin feeling the their 18-game SEC schedule prepared them for everything.
“The SEC is a tough league,” Robinson said. “It’s a great battle in that conference. That conference got us ready to play against anybody.”
The Gators (26-8) split their games with both Kentucky and South Carolina this season. UF’s two wins were impressive — by 22 points against Kentucky and by 15 against South Carolina.
Those performances also give the Gators confidence.
“Just knowing that the two teams left in it besides us, we’ve beaten both of them and they’re still in the Sweet 16, that means we can beat anybody,” backup point guard Chris Chiozza said. “That’s a big boost.”
The SEC’s strong showing is a testament to a concerted effort by league decision-makers to raise the conference’s profile in men’s basketball.
The nation’s undisputed heavyweight in college football was essentially a midmajor in college basketball, save Kentucky and Florida.
The Wildcats and Gators had enjoyed plenty of shining moments during March Madness. But the 14-team SEC hit a low point in 2013. Kentucky did not qualify for the NCAA Tournament and seven conferences had more teams selected for the 68-team field.
During the late spring that year, former SEC Commissioner Mike Slive mandated schools upgrade their nonconference schedules to better prepare them for postseason play and improve their postseason résumés.
Last year, new SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey hired Mike Tranghese as a special advisor. Tranghese was former Big East Commissioner Dave Gavitt’s right-hand man when the conference became a basketball behemoth in the 1980s.
“I think the SEC’s in a good spot,” White said.
Just three SEC teams reached the NCAA Tournament during three of the past four years. Now the league has three teams in the Sweet 16, and Arkansas nearly knocked off North Carolina during the second round.
“It shows that the SEC is, if not the best in the country, is definitely in the top three,” Chiozza said. “We have three teams [remaining], almost had four.”
Advancing will not be easy for any of them. But whatever happens this weekend, White said the SEC’s future is bright.
“We’re 99.5 percent on Wisconsin,” he said. “But when you’re staring at the computer screen for a couple straight hours, sometimes I’ll jump up and I’ve got to get an ADD break and go grab my tea. And you have those little 20-second impromptu hallway staff meetings, and we talked about, ‘Wow, how good will the SEC be next year? It’s incredible. All these teams.’
“The SEC’s got a lot of momentum in my opinion.”