ESPN may need to find new branding for its SEC/ACC men’s basketball “challenge” next season. Because what transpired Tuesday and Wednesday was anything but a fair fight.
The final tally? SEC 14, ACC 2 … a count that almost assuredly caught the eye of the two leagues’ conference commissioners in between College Football Playoff ranking politicking. If ACC commissioner Jim Phillips doesn’t like how his football teams are being viewed compared to their SEC counterparts by the College Football Playoff committee, just wait until the disparity between the leagues on basketball’s Selection Sunday.
What was once as feared a hoops league as any is now a power-conference punching bag. After the 2–14 challenge showing, the ACC is now 3–26 against SEC teams and 14–45 against power-conference teams this season. The lone winners this week? The Duke Blue Devils, who avenged early-season losses to the Kentucky Wildcats and Kansas Jayhawks with an impressive win against the No. 2 Auburn Tigers, and Clemson Tigers, which delivered a court storm–worthy win over No. 4 Kentucky. Otherwise, it was disaster after disaster for the league in its clearest chance of the season to prove it measured up well against top competition.
The North Carolina Tar Heels started the offseason on proverbial third base, with an electric backcourt trio led by RJ Davis returning and two five-star freshmen wings incoming. The Heels’ work in the transfer portal was a strikeout of epic proportions though, and the results of the last 10 days have made that abundantly clear. After whiffing on their top targets to replace Armando Bacot at center, the Heels have turned to a platoon of returner Jalen Washington and Vanderbilt transfer Ven-Allen Lubin, with last-ditch add Ty Claude from Georgia Tech also sneaking into the rotation Wednesday. That center position is a liability, and has led to the Heels’ defense getting torched in all five games against top-100 KenPom teams. Then there’s Belmont transfer Cade Tyson, who has been largely unplayable after being added as a potential starter at the 3/4. It’s early yet, but watching the Heels get thoroughly outclassed in consecutive games against the Michigan State Spartans and Alabama Crimson Tide lends itself to the theory that the Heels are closer to a bubble team than a serious contender.
The other potential Duke challengers (other than Clemson) didn’t do much better. The Pittsburgh Panthers, riding high off a buzzer-beating win over the Ohio State Buckeyes and a top-10 mark in the first iteration of the NET, got boat raced in Starkville by a Mississippi State Bulldogs team picked 10th in the SEC preseason poll. The Louisville Cardinals, off two somewhat middling wins at the Battle 4 Atlantis, got smacked at home by the Ole Miss Rebels … and to make matters worse, lost two projected starters for the year with season-ending injuries this week. Wake Forest had its preseason fans, but the Demon Deacons’ offense continues to sputter, failing to top 60 points in three straight games including a 44-point whimper at the Texas A&M Aggies. The Miami Hurricanes have lost five straight and look unrecognizable from the team that was in the Final Four less than 24 months ago. The Virginia Cavaliers have lost their last three high-major games by 22, 25 and 18 points. The list goes on.
To be fair, there’s as much credit due to the SEC as there should be blame to the ACC. The SEC is a juggernaut, with six teams in KenPom’s top 12 and 13 in the top 50. The league features a handful of future Hall of Fame coaches on the sidelines, while the ACC sits in flux with inexperienced coaches leading Duke, North Carolina, Louisville and the Syracuse Orange into new eras. And the SEC has flexed its financial muscle in more than just hiring coaches, using its superior NIL operations to become perhaps the leading conference in player acquisition both out of high school and the transfer portal. Exact figures aren’t known, but of the 16 matchups in the challenge, back-of-the-envelope math suggests the SEC had the higher-priced roster in 13 or 14 games. In at least a few, it wouldn’t be crazy to suggest the SEC team’s roster might cost double that of the ACC squad. That’s not everything, but it’s certainly not nothing, and it’s not likely to go away anytime soon with revenue-sharing on the horizon.
This changing of the guard had been coming for a while, with the SEC sending eight to the NCAA tournament in back-to-back years, while the ACC grinded its way to five. But this two-day demolition by the SEC suggests that this season’s final bid count could be even more lopsided. Outside of Duke, you’d like to think Clemson, Pitt and North Carolina dance, but there are few reasons for optimism for the other 14 teams in the league. Meanwhile in the SEC, it wouldn’t be a shock if 10 to 12 squads make the tournament. Auburn, Tennessee, Alabama, Florida and Kentucky all look like they could contend for No. 1 seeds in the NCAA tournament … and while a few of those squads will undoubtedly fall off by beating up on one another, the top of this league looks rather daunting.
The bigger question at this point is whether the SEC can claim to be the best conference in college basketball. The numbers, at least KenPom’s conference rankings, say yes rather unequivocally, though the Big 12 track record gives it some benefit of the doubt. Still, while the SEC was running up the score in its showdowns with the ACC, the Big 12’s somewhat slow start to the season continued with some stumbles against the Big East. No. 1 Kansas got rolled in Omaha by the Creighton Bluejays, the Baylor Bears couldn’t steal one against the slumping UConn Huskies and a popular sleeper team, the Cincinnati Bearcats, lost to a bad Villanova Wildcats team Tuesday night. That’s after the Houston Cougars and Arizona Wildcats, a pair of preseason top-10 teams, took not-great losses during Feast Week and are a combined 8–8 on the season.
Narratives on conference strength are crafted this time of year, before conference play begins in earnest after Christmas. And the message from the last two days couldn’t have been any clearer. The SEC is officially a college basketball beast, and the ACC is a shell of a once-great basketball conference.
