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The Committee Basically Admitted...

Conference Tournaments ONLY matter for bid stealers. Even Mississippi State and Texas A&M, who both got big wins over UT and UK on Friday, didn't need them to get a bid, based on their seed.

Kentucky finished 2nd in the SEC...they got the 2nd best seed from the SEC.

We WAY overvalued the SEC Tournament. It literally doesn't matter.

Florida made the finals, beating Alabama and A&M, and still got a 7-seed.
I said this and got killed for it
 
Everyone always overrates the affect of the conference tournaments. There's only so much a few games at the end of the year can do to change a team's entire season. It is why Cal has his view of the SEC tournament.
I don’t think anyone overrates the affect on conference tournaments at all. Are you talking about seeding in the Ncaa tournament? Are you talking about a Coach that justifies it’s ok to lose in a conference tournament? So is this the mentality we’re so supposed to get used to?? Blame everyone else??
 
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The SEC tournament doesn’t matter. That’s the big picture. And that’s what Cal has always said.

Not just Cal. Pitino, Sutton, Nolan Richardson, Donovan, etc all said they didn’t like it.

It’s just a money grab by the SEC.

They play the games with junior high level officials with a crazy schedule.

Fl had a serious injury today in this meaningless tournament.
It’s easy to say it doesn’t matter if you’re pretty much guaranteed a halfway decent seed or a top seed in the NCAA regardless of the conference tourney outcome. So it really only matters to teams like NC St. Or other bubble teams who might have been looking at an NIT bid if they didn’t win their conference tournament.
 
Remember 2008 SECT? Georgia had no business in the NCAA Tournament period, even winning the conference tournament.
 
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NCAA Selection Committee probably just asked ChatGPT on Wednesday what the field should look like and then just chilled and drank some brews and watched games all day in a swank conference room. Couple of minor adjustments and voila March Madness.

Wouldn’t shock me if hookers and blow were involved.
 
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The sec tournament will always matter as long as our fans travel and spend their hard earned on it. I was gutted for those fans Friday night. I actually talked to a buddy of mine right before he hit the road. They had an itenerary for the whole weekend and had rented a house. Spent a lot of money and took off work. Brutal.

Sounds like he got to add to his itinerary lol.

Idk.. I think someone buying tickets for a multi-day tournament where your team could be bounced in the opening round.. You're asking for trouble. Texas AM wasn't some bad team that had no chance to beat us.

You see the way the SEC officiated our games. If you spent hundreds or even thousands on this single elimination tournament, knowing what we know about this team and the SEC.. that's kind of on you. Even UKs BEST teams, if I'm buying tickets to this, I'm doing it with part of me thinking "they could lose first game, what then? Is this worth it?"
 
Conference Tournaments ONLY matter for bid stealers. Even Mississippi State and Texas A&M, who both got big wins over UT and UK on Friday, didn't need them to get a bid, based on their seed.

Kentucky finished 2nd in the SEC...they got the 2nd best seed from the SEC.

We WAY overvalued the SEC Tournament. It literally doesn't matter.

Florida made the finals, beating Alabama and A&M, and still got a 7-seed.
so you are saying Calipari was correct
 
It's actually foolish to play it at all if ppl don't wanna play in it. It's all about the money now. Years ago that's how you got in the NCAA tournament and about the only way you got in was to win your conference tournament. Its kind of ashamed the way ppl have become to view things. It's like everyone wants to play the least amount of basketball now that they can get by with so why even play a conference tourney? Give these players and coaches 15 sick days (or games) a year now so they dont have to play in the reg season lol. Hell, they don't many of them truly wanna play no basketball anymore for real.
The only coach in SEC that has voiced that opinion is Cal. Everyone else VALUES trying to win any tournament they are in. The season and Kentuckys WINNING tradition is MORE than just the NCAA tourney, we have only won that 8 times in about 100 years. Titles are the ultimate goal but UK basketball is about so much more,it's about excellence, tradition. Treating every game,especially the conference you play in as critical games ,where we expect to win,it's about tradition. Cal has sold so many on the line that only the big dance matters especially in the last 4-5 years. What else CAN he do ,he hasn't sniffed at winning anything else in years. Come to think of it he hasn't won but 1 game in the " tourney that matters" in 4 years either.
 
IMO, it should be given more weight because it shows (or could show) how well you are playing at the end of the season. In reality, it gives every team a chance to get in (the automatic bid). Other than that it carries very little weight with the committee. If you are secure with your position, it gives no advantage to play any extra games. Use it to experiment with a zone, a press, etc.
Of course, for those of us who are accustomed to winning the SECT, it leaves a bad taste.
 
Conference Tournaments ONLY matter for bid stealers. Even Mississippi State and Texas A&M, who both got big wins over UT and UK on Friday, didn't need them to get a bid, based on their seed.

Kentucky finished 2nd in the SEC...they got the 2nd best seed from the SEC.

We WAY overvalued the SEC Tournament. It literally doesn't matter.

Florida made the finals, beating Alabama and A&M, and still got a 7-seed.
Yeah, it's always very tough to make any case for conference tournaments having a significant impact on seeding. And when you look at the seeding this year, it may be the strongest case ever for those tournaments meaning almost nothing to the committee. Years ago, the committee said they made it a point to consider last 10 games as a measure for momentum and late improvement, but I haven't heard any mention of that at all in many years.

It seems to me the 1st game of the season counts just as much as the title games this weekend. I'm sorry, but that's ridiculous. We all know those early games mean almost nothing compared to the later games. Teams are just barely figuring things out at that point. It's not uncommon at all for teams to drop early games and be a completely different team by February and March.

But yeah, the conference tournaments mean almost nothing, other than winning it and getting the auto-bid. Conferences should just forgo the conference tournaments and give the auto-seed to the regular season winner.
 
Sounds like he got to add to his itinerary lol.

Idk.. I think someone buying tickets for a multi-day tournament where your team could be bounced in the opening round.. You're asking for trouble. Texas AM wasn't some bad team that had no chance to beat us.

You see the way the SEC officiated our games. If you spent hundreds or even thousands on this single elimination tournament, knowing what we know about this team and the SEC.. that's kind of on you. Even UKs BEST teams, if I'm buying tickets to this, I'm doing it with part of me thinking "they could lose first game, what then? Is this worth it?"
Is it worth it? Not to me. By the sound of it, not to you either. But I dont besmirch anyone who does.

Live and let live brother.
 
Bullshit. The SECT matters, our acolades and trophies, matter. So sick of this attitude that Cal has brainwashed fans with. How much longer do we have to go, before he's saying ''The NCAAT, doesn't really matter, it's about the draft''. And I gurantee some of our fans would eat it up. ''Cal's right, it's about these kids, not our selfish desire of wanting to win. Who do we think we are, wanting to win basketball games. Yeah, Cal is right. It's about these kids and their dreams''.
 
Sounds like he got to add to his itinerary lol.

Idk.. I think someone buying tickets for a multi-day tournament where your team could be bounced in the opening round.. You're asking for trouble. Texas AM wasn't some bad team that had no chance to beat us.

You see the way the SEC officiated our games. If you spent hundreds or even thousands on this single elimination tournament, knowing what we know about this team and the SEC.. that's kind of on you. Even UKs BEST teams, if I'm buying tickets to this, I'm doing it with part of me thinking "they could lose first game, what then? Is this worth it?"
I would have to have the mentality that I’m going for the experience, independent of what Kentucky does. I would have to plan some other things around the SEC T to make it worthwhile. I’ve thought about going to Pittsburgh, but it won’t work with my schedule. If it was Indy, I probably could swing the Saturday game. I would definitely go to SEC T if it was in Louisville or Cincy, because I wouldn’t need a hotel.
 
Yeah, it's always very tough to make any case for conference tournaments having a significant impact on seeding. And when you look at the seeding this year, it may be the strongest case ever for those tournaments meaning almost nothing to the committee. Years ago, the committee said they made it a point to consider last 10 games as a measure for momentum and late improvement, but I haven't heard any mention of that at all in many years.

It seems to me the 1st game of the season counts just as much as the title games this weekend. I'm sorry, but that's ridiculous. We all know those early games mean almost nothing compared to the later games. Teams are just barely figuring things out at that point. It's not uncommon at all for teams to drop early games and be a completely different team by February and March.

But yeah, the conference tournaments mean almost nothing, other than winning it and getting the auto-bid. Conferences should just forgo the conference tournaments and give the auto-seed to the regular season winner.
The committee chair literally said that tonight. Games at the beginning of the year mean just as much as the end. And that's the way it should be. Full body of work.
 
The only coach in SEC that has voiced that opinion is Cal. Everyone else VALUES trying to win any tournament they are in. The season and Kentuckys WINNING tradition is MORE than just the NCAA tourney, we have only won that 8 times in about 100 years. Titles are the ultimate goal but UK basketball is about so much more,it's about excellence, tradition. Treating every game,especially the conference you play in as critical games ,where we expect to win,it's about tradition. Cal has sold so many on the line that only the big dance matters especially in the last 4-5 years. What else CAN he do ,he hasn't sniffed at winning anything else in years. Come to think of it he hasn't won but 1 game in the " tourney that matters" in 4 years either.
Hold a sec. I agree with you. You can go back and look at my posts the past couple of days where I've talked about it is important to win the SECT. Cal doesn't have me brainwashed. I was just being a little bit sarcastic when talking about if ppl don't want to play in them then it's a waste of time. I do feel like a lot of guys don't want to play anymore as much as they once did and that goes for regular season, SEC, SECT or NCAAT.

You're right though when you say Cal is the only coach who has voiced his displeasure having to play in them. I hate it that we can't even say anymore that we won 32 tournaments by ourselves and now the rest of the league caught up and tied us today with Auburn winning it giving the league 32... We supposed to win the SEC, SECT and make it look easy. I probably could have worded it a little different.
 
Conference tournaments matter for bubble teams. Going on a run vs dropping an early game to a bad opponent can sometimes be the difference between getting a bid and being a first four out type of team. For teams who already have an at-large bid locked up, it makes sense that it doesn’t matter much. At the end of the day, it’s still just somewhere between 1-4 more conference games at the end of the year. Nobody is going to completely change their tournament resume with that.
This definitely wasn’t true for St. John’s this year. They were in by every metric system before the tourney. They just were not supposed to have a devastating loss in the opening game. They won two games and played UConn to a 5 point game.

Now it is pretty obvious that the regular season is pretty much all that matters.
 
Duquesne at 46 overall proves that the committee put them as an 11 seed because they had slated that spot for VCU, who Duquesne beat in the championship game yesterday. There is no way they are an 11 seed and that spot was predetermined prior to tip off.
 
The SEC Tournament is a Money Grab...PERIOD!

Kentucky passed the NCAA "Eye test" over the last month. Beating Alabama, Auburn and Tennessee and two of those on the road.
 
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It was so egregious that Pat effin Forde wrote an article calling out the committee cause we'd beaten Florida twice in two weeks. That guy's tried to get dirt on UK for decades.
... and yet we still have several people here every year claiming if UK can beat ______ in the title game, they can get _____ seed.

It has never mattered unless you need it to qualify.

Perhaps this obvious fact will actually be remembered next year.
 
This definitely wasn’t true for St. John’s this year. They were in by every metric system before the tourney. They just were not supposed to have a devastating loss in the opening game. They won two games and played UConn to a 5 point game.

Now it is pretty obvious that the regular season is pretty much all that matters.
St John’s was never comfortably in. They were one of the last four teams in by most projections before the conference tournaments. Winning two games probably would have been enough to hold off the other pure bubble teams, but their problem was that the unusually high number of bid stealers this year bumped them out of the field. That can happen, but as a general rule, I think it’s still true that conference tournaments matter to bubble teams.
 
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Here’s a novel concept…

How about we stop looking at the SECT as a seeding mechanism for the NCAAT, and start looking at it for what it is…

A separate Conference Tournament that should be taken seriously, like any other game or event?

Shocking, I know right 🙄
 
We’re Kentucky, every game matters. If they don’t matter tell the thousands of UK fans who travel to the SEC Tournament every year not to waste their time or money.
 
There were some mild effects. But a lot of teams got little to no bump in either direction.

Illinois was a 4 and moved to a 3 with their run.
Duke was probably a 3 going in and got knocked down to a 4.

But we lost and held onto a 3.
UT lost and still wound up as the top 2 seed (I assume they were a 2 after losing to us and UNC beating Duke to end the regular season).
 
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