ESPN commentator falls for troll, points to SEC’s .500 conference record on broadcast

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The SEC has certainly been dominant in the 2024-25 men’s college basketball season, as the conference has four teams in the top five of the USA TODAY Sports Coaches Poll and another four schools in the top 25.

Unfortunately a broadcaster for “College Basketball on ESPN,” Karl Ravech, had the right idea but used very much the wrong statistic when trying to paint the dominance of the conference this season.

Ravech, who was on the call for Alabama’s 105-80 win over Texas on Tuesday night, said SEC teams have an 82-82 record since Jan. 4. He was trying to compare the record with the SEC’s combined nonconference record of 185-23 to the .500 combined record.

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Well, every conference in college basketball has a .500 record in conference play. For every conference win, another team loses, of course.

“So think about it,” Ravech said. “We know how dominant (the SEC) were in the nonconference season. The SEC, they were 185-23. Since Jan. 4, into Tuesday, the SEC teams are 82-82. It’s not as if one team, or two teams or three teams, they’re 82-82. There’s been no ability to pull away. There’s no dominant group of teams.

It’s likely nothing more than an honest mistake by Ravech, who didn’t appear to be joking in his assessment of the conference. Ravech has worked for ESPN since 1993, and primarily calls baseball as a play-by-play commentator for MLB games on ESPN, including “Sunday Night Baseball.”

In Ravech’s defense, the statistic has floated around social media after a post went viral of pointing out ESPN’s “SEC bias,” where an X user wrote, “Wow. The “best conference in the history of college basketball” is 54-54 since January 4th. ESPN once AGAIN showing their SEC bias for some teams that can’t even get above .500.”

The post was nothing more than a bit of college basketball trolling, which many have fallen for over the last few weeks. The post has 3.2 million impressions,…

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Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/espn-commentator-falls-troll-points-161530887.html

Author : The Tennessean

Publish date : 2025-02-12 16:15:00

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