The SEC has fought back a little bit at least. Want to know why they at least have a bunch of teams on the bubble? Schedule. Right now, they're projected to finish, as a conference, with the toughest non-con SoS in the country. A few years ago, they were much worse, and they actively went out and said they needed to fix the scheduled. And they did it. Only 1 team (the irrelevant Mississippi St) has a non-con SoS above 200. Brilliant.
The Lockbox
Kentucky (22-0) (9-0) RPI 2 SoS 9
Vital signs: 7-0 R/N, non-con SoS 6, 10-0 vs. Top 50, 13-0 vs. Top 100
Signature wins: N-Kansas, @L'ville, UNC
Bad losses: lol
The real question is what happens if they lose a couple times. Those 10 top 50 wins are daunting.
Bubble
Arkansas (17-5) (6-3) RPI 24 SoS 58
Vital signs: 3-4 R/N, non-con SoS 70, 3-2 vs. Top 50, 7-5 vs. Top 100
Signature wins: @SMU, Dayton, @Georgia
Bad losses: @Clemson?
The flaw with this team is always losing too much on the road. 3-4 isn't great, but by winning two big roadies already, they've given themselves a bit of breathing room. They're hardly safe, but they would have to lose a few marginal games to fall out at this point (which they're capable of doing, easily).
Georgia (14-7) (5-4) RPI 25 SoS 18
Vital signs: 4-6 R/N, non-con SoS 40, 2-3 vs. Top 50, 5-7 vs. Top 100
Signature wins: Seton Hall, Ole Miss, @K-State?
Bad losses: @South Carolina, @GaTech
This is a tricky profile. On the one hand, you're going to need a better signature win. On the other hand, no vital sign looks bad. On the other other hand, no vital sign looks great either. The result is a rather bland bubble profile, where the key is amassing wins over the other SEC bubble teams. Work to do.
Texas A&M (15-6) (6-3) RPI 32 SoS 62
Vital signs: 5-5 R/N, non-con SoS 118, 0-4 vs. Top 50, 2-6 vs. Top 100
Signature wins: @LSU, @Tennessee
Bad losses: N-K-State, @Bama
Only 2 top 100 wins is a major problem, but at least they were roadies. There's obvious deficiencies with this profile, and they're not easily fixable in this conference because of the lack of signature win chances. On first glance, it seems they'll have plenty of chances to at least accumulate wins, so they need to start with that.
Ole Miss (15-7) (6-3) RPI 42 SoS 40
Vital signs: 7-3 R/N, non-con SoS 86, 3-3 vs. Top 50, 6-5 vs. Top 100
Signature wins: N-Cincy, @Arkansas, @Oregon?
Bad losses: TCU, Charleston Southern
Well, they've got the signature wins, at least compared to most of the conference. They also have a couple catastrophic losses. Do they cancel each other out? Not sure. But if they post 2nd place in the conference, that will cancel out the losses, probably. I've been dismissing them most of this year, but it seems like I'll have to pay attention now. I wasn't expecting a lot of substance behind those 2 big wins, but profile help has been coming in conference play so far.
LSU (16-6) (5-4) RPI 51 SoS 94
Vital signs: 6-4 R/N, non-con SoS 124, 3-2 vs. Top 50, 6-3 vs. Top 100
Signature wins: @WVU, Georgia, @Ole Miss?
Bad losses: @Mississippi St, @Mizzou, Auburn
Really tough to figure this profile out. On the surface, the vital signs look average-to-great. The signature wins look, not great, but good enough. But several catastrophic losses has this team in trouble. If they can avoid them, and maybe pick off one or two quality wins, they'll make the field, but those losses are frustrating. This profile should be so much better than this.
NIT watch
Florida (12-10) (5-4) RPI 68 SoS 25 - The bubble has to get cut off somewhere in this conference. As for Florida, they just lost too much, and their signature wins are Arkansas and Yale at home. Not good enough for the NCAAs. Need major help.
Alabama (13-8) (4-5) RPI 67 SoS 43 - That win over UCLA looks better, and 6 of the 8 losses are Top 35 losses. So this isn't a completely dead profile, but it is one which is too far away right now. Especially because they're done with Kentucky and Arkansas for the season, so signature win chances are gone.
Tennessee (13-8) (5-4) RPI 79 SoS 52 - Wins over Arkansas and Butler will go to waste. A couple too many marginal losses.
South Carolina (10-10) (2-7) RPI 100 SoS 27 - I want to hold a memorial over this profile. Wins of N-Iowa St, Georgia, Oklahoma St...they were building towards something, before they lost to the entire world in conference play.
CBI/CIT watch
They don't play in this thing.
No postseason
Missouri is the one team that's gone in the tank, record-wise. But the other three are still hovering around .500 overall. This is really helping the RPI numbers of the conference, and you can see the effect of it above with Arkansas and Georgia maintaining top 25 numbers in this conference. Big improvement. Auburn actually scheduled up a bit and are acquitting themselves well. Vanderbilt is a bit down, but that's fine. Mississippi St is a lost cause, perhaps, and them having 4 conference wins already isn't great, but whatever.
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