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Kentucky basketball’s dominance over the SEC has come to an end.
Oh, the Wildcats will still win league championships; that’s not what this is about. They’re just no longer the gatekeeper for basketball in the league.
The rest of the SEC has caught up.
There were pockets of challengers back in the day. Arkansas had its run in the 1990s. Under Billy Donovan, Florida was always a worthy adversary. But, by and large, each time there was a challenger, Kentucky outlasted those uprisings.
What we’re seeing now might be the revolution that finally knocks the crown off UK.
Auburn epitomizes why that’s the case.
Say what you want about Bruce Pearl, he was the right coach at the right time for the Tigers. Before Pearl, Auburn had gone 12 consecutive years without making the NCAA Tournament, and it had only been three times since 1997.
Pearl has taken the Tigers to the Big Dance in five of the last six tournaments held, captured the SEC’s regular-season title in 2022, won conference tournament titles in 2019 and 2024 and reached the first Final Four in program history.
UK last won the league’s regular-season title in 2020 and hasn’t won the conference tournament since 2018.
Should the Cats fail to capture this season’s conference tournament, it would mark their longest run without a title in the history of the league tournament that dates back to when UK won the inaugural one in 1933. (It should be noted, the SEC did not field a tournament from 1953-78.)
The basketball culture at Kentucky still reigns supreme.
None of the other 15 teams in the SEC will ever enjoy the spectacle of a standing room-only crowd in their arena for the introductory news conference of a new men’s basketball coach. UK showed why it’s a special place when fans turned out in droves for new coach Mark Pope last April.
So, no, Kentucky hasn’t fallen off.
Pope in his first season has exceeded expectations with a roster he put together in the 11th hour of last season‘s recruiting cycle.
With a healthy roster,…
[ad_2]Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/article/brown-kentucky-reign-over-sec-101606913.html
Author : The Courier Journal
Publish date : 2025-02-28 10:16:00
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