How good will the SEC be this season?

[Wildcat-in-STL]

On paper the SEC got decimated except for UK and Arkansas but no one expected UF , Auburn, Missouri and Tenn to be as good as they were so who knows, maybe some of the lesser transfers also turn out to be much better than we all thought or maybe refs let the SEC brutally beat the sh*t out of teams again so we can all have injury fest 2026 ugh. But On paper the SEC should be below the Big 12 and Big 10 this coming year.

 

[Edgarman]

Completely disagree with Bama. They’ve been in the losers category for the portal and lost some excellent talent. They desperately need Philon to come back to have a chance at being good, let alone top tier. I expect a significant drop for them

I disagree that Vandy and TN are bubble teams. Both will be a tough out and long ways from bubble. TX will be a handful as well.

 

[bucsrule8872]

All-SEC first team?

I’ll say:

Oweh- UK
Hubbard- Miss. St.
Condon- UF
Pettiford- Auburn
Mitchell- Mizzou

 

[UKBB4Ever]

My hope is that there is only one SEC team to make the NCAA tournament.

 

[HamuelLJackson]

Def see Hogs and Cats in top ten, maybe top five.

Growing Sentiment that Thiero withdraws and comes back.

 

[GermantownDawg]

Our haul isn’t going to get anyone but the sickos excited, but I expect us to make the tournament again. Really like what we did getting Catchings from BYU. Think he’s super high upside. Went out and got the ACC’s 6th man in Cal freshman Jeremiah Wilkinson, a Georgia native, who averaged 15 a game. Mike really wanted to prioritize outside shooting, so we bring in Justin Bailey from Wofford and Smurf Millender from UTSA who were both fairly low usage, high volume ~45%ers from 3. Then we bring in Jordan Ross a former top 100 kid who started at St. Mary’s. Then of course we’re bringing back Cain, James, Cyril, and Abson from last year. Freshmen coming in is ‘Nique’s son Jacob, Kareem Stagg, and Jackson McVey a 7 footer. Jacob is an insane athlete like his dad. Kareem will play quality backup minutes behind Somto. McVey is a project. I’m excited. Feels like we’re on stable footing as a program.

 

[Wildskatfan]

I disagree that Vandy and TN are bubble teams. Both will be a tough out and long ways from bubble. TX will be a handful as well.

Not sure about Vandy. I'm going over SEC teams one by one and haven't got to them yet. I have checked out Tennessee.
Tennessee is sneakingly building a pretty solid team. Gillespie at point is a stud with experience. They aren't losing a whole lot at point in terms of ZZ being gone.
Ament is a 5 star that is going to get some points, and they just signed Amaree Abram. He's a decent defender and shooting guard.
Supposedly, they for sure getting Clarence Massamba from overseas. He is a solid guard who can shoot.
They brought in Carey from Vanderbilt to be more solid at the 4, and they have Okpara and Cade Phillips coming back in their front court/at the 5. They also get back big man JP Estrella this year. From what I here, he's got game.
If they add another shooting guard that pans out, then watch out....they going to be a hard out as usual. Definitely don't see them being a "bubble team". Far from it.

 

[Padsfs07]

I disagree that Vandy and TN are bubble teams. Both will be a tough out and long ways from bubble. TX will be a handful as well.

Yeah they now have Abram from Louisiana Tech, which is big for them. They still need another guard or two, but have largely filled out their main rotation. I think they are safely inside the 5-7 seed line now.

I'll have to see how the pieces fit for Vandy before I would put them safely in the tourney. It's been almost 15 years since they could be considered safe on Selection Sunday. Their transfers are a little weak to me other than Collins.

 

[Fox2monk]

Also, people won't have to complain about our center missing bunnies when he could have dunked. JQ acts like the rim insulted his Mom...

That is true and I love big men like that. I get having post moves and different scoring options but if I was 6’11” 250 of pure muscles and could jump out of the gym I would dunk everything I could.

 

[Padsfs07]

Our haul isn’t going to get anyone but the sickos excited, but I expect us to make the tournament again. Really like what we did getting Catchings from BYU. Think he’s super high upside. Went out and got the ACC’s 6th man in Cal freshman Jeremiah Wilkinson, a Georgia native, who averaged 15 a game. Mike really wanted to prioritize outside shooting, so we bring in Justin Bailey from Wofford and Smurf Millender from UTSA who were both fairly low usage, high volume ~45%ers from 3. Then we bring in Jordan Ross a former top 100 kid who started at St. Mary’s. Then of course we’re bringing back Cain, James, Cyril, and Abson from last year. Freshmen coming in is ‘Nique’s son Jacob, Kareem Stagg, and Jackson McVey a 7 footer. Jacob is an insane athlete like his dad. Kareem will play quality backup minutes behind Somto. McVey is a project. I’m excited. Feels like we’re on stable footing as a program.

I missed the Jordan Ross commitment and Smurf committed after my post. Those two probably pick UGA up into the tournament mix. Both are solid ball handlers too, which was missing from the roster I was looking at. Yall will need Cyril to step up though to really be a menace. He is the key.

 

[Friedas_Boss]

I disagree that Vandy and TN are bubble teams. Both will be a tough out and long ways from bubble. TX will be a handful as well.

Yeah, Vandy is going to be very good.

Byington isn’t trying to build bubble teams and we saw what he did last year with limited time and resources.

I’d be pretty surprised if Vandy wasn’t a top 20 team all year.

We have a really good 9 man rotation, looking to pick up another shooter.

Travis Perry rumored to be interested and that’s a good pickup for the bottom of the rotation as a shooter. He would be 2nd or 3rd shooting guard and be our 3rd point guard in the rotation. If you recall, we wanted Perry out of high school, so maybe that works out for him to be able to stay close to home. I’d take him and hope he stays until he’s a senior (rare these days).

 

[rdgtr]

According to Tarvik's projection of talented returning rosters for 2026, the top SEC teams would be the following: https://barttorvik.com/trankpre.php?&conlimit=

1. Arkansas (Calapari can still recruit)
2. Tennessee (No UT player had transported out)
3. Kentucky (Pope added much talent to his roster)
4. Florida (if Condon returns, Gators will have 4 veteran players in the frontcourt)
---------------------------------------------------------
5. Vanderbilt
6. Missouri
7. Oklahoma
8. Auburn
9. Georgia
10. Texas
11. Alabama
12. Mississippi St
13. Texas AM
14. Ole Miss
-------------------------
15. LSU
16. S.Carolina

Note: If you click on any team of the tarvik poll, one can view who the top 10 players will be for a given team.

 

[CRZ4UK]

I feel like Florida, Auburn, Alabama, and Tennessee had built their roster to make their run this past season. All four had a bunch of Super (fifth year) Seniors and Seniors that had been with their programs for multiple years. They all had younger players, but the rosters were built around those older guys, with portal and HS recruits filling in the blanks as complimentary players. Those veterans won’t be easy to replace.

Meanwhile, Pope has his second year guys (Oweh, Garrison, Chandler, Noah) and adds the best recruiting class in the SEC.

Pope competed against programs led by superstars like Clayton, Broome, Sears, and Zeigler. Those guys are gone and I don’t see that caliber of player on any of the rosters in the SEC. Those were first team SEC guys.

Second team returnees like Oweh and Hubbard could be the front runners for SEC POTY. Condon maybe, but we will see how he handles being the focal point of the offense now that their guards are all gone.

Auburn also lost their next superstars with Baker-Mazara and Pettiford leaving.

Bama has a few really good players back but lost several to the portal and NBA draft.

Tennessee looks to be in total rebuild mode.

It looks to be wide open in the SEC. No clear cut favorite and on paper, UK looks like the top team. Arkansas is right there too, but until Cal proves he can win tight games down the stretch, I have a hard time putting them on top.

How much will the league office try to control the officials is my biggest question. It was clear they were trying to get as many teams in as possible last year. The officiating was criminal in some games to allow parity and get a record number of teams in. What will the Commish do now??? Will they allow the cream to rise to the top or have criminal parity??? We will see.

 

[TFCats11]

OP, sorry, but Chandler will be ahead of both JJ and Noah, and quite possibly Williams.

 

[GermantownDawg]

I missed the Jordan Ross commitment and Smurf committed after my post. Those two probably pick UGA up into the tournament mix. Both are solid ball handlers too, which was missing from the roster I was looking at. Yall will need Cyril to step up though to really be a menace. He is the key.

Correct. We prioritized ball handling with our last two pickups. I like them both. We also prioritized bringing in “makers” which I hope pays off. Somto will definitely have to take a step forward. I think he’s capable. Still raw but you could see the offensive game coming on some last year. Excited about him.

 

[HogFan2012]

Any projection at this time means absolutely nothing. You got teams waiting on the NBA draft or for players to drop out, and portal players that are still deciding on a team.