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The Southeastern Conference sent three men’s basketball teams to the 2016 NCAA Tournament. Same as the Atlantic-10. Only one of those SEC squads, Texas A&M, reached the Sweet 16, and the Aggies got there via only a miracle comeback against Northern Iowa.
Did anyone care? Outside of Kentucky, basketball success or basketball failure often was met with shrugs before thoughts turned quickly back to football. Offensive coordinator openings. Quarterback derbies.
Hotel prices at SEC Media Days. But someone cared. Several someones.
And today the SEC is the best conference in college basketball. The Wednesday ScissorTales introduce you to an OSU football player, list the odds of each NBA franchise winning the championship and ask why Colorado football is retiring a certain football jersey. But we start with SEC basketball.
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That’s a good news/bad news development for the Sooners, who got to ride the wave in their first SEC season. They also got swamped by a tsunami of a schedule that included one powerhouse after another during repeated gauntlets. But OU knows the value of living in the high-rent district.
The Big 12 wore the crown earlier this decade, and you’d much rather be in a league like the 2025 SEC than the 2016 SEC. So how did it happen? How did the SEC stop telling old gridiron stories and checking football recruiting rankings in the winter long enough to turn terrors on the hardwood? SEC associate commissioner Garth Glissman, a former NBA employee hired two years ago to oversee SEC hoops, has some theories. Glissman, a Nebraskan by birth and bred, has a unique perspective.
He came into the job as the league was getting better and better, and soon it was on top. Glissman knows he rode a wave, too, and credits a variety of people and factors for this SEC crest. The economic and population growth of the southern United States that also has sparked the SEC football explosion.
The football dominance has lifted every SEC athletic program economically and competitively. It’s not just basketball that is soaring. Baseball, softball, women’s gymnastics, women’s basketball.
Combine that with the leadership from commissioner Greg Sankey, and the SEC is in a position of strength. “Our schools, with some encouragement of Commissioner Sankey, started to utilize the advantages and increasingly have invested in basketball,” Glissman said. “That has manifested itself most notably in the quality of our head coaches.
” Seven of the SEC’s 16 head coaches have reached a Final Four: Alabama’s Nate Oats, Auburn’s Bruce Pearl and Florida’s Todd Golden at their current schools; and OU’s Porter Moser with Loyola-Chicago; Tennessee’s Rick Barnes with Texas; Arkansas’ John Calipari with Massachusetts, Memphis and Kentucky; and Ole Miss’ Chris Beard with Texas Tech. “You see the quality of coaching take effect at programs that traditionally haven’t had a lot of basketball success,” Glissman said. “The two most obvious are Auburn and Alabama.
” Pearl and Barnes were known commodities. Oats and Golden came from mid-major programs (Oats from the University of Buffalo, Golden from San Francisco U.).
So credit athletic directors Greg Byrne (‘Bama) and Scott Stricklin (Florida) for inspired hires. “We have the resources to attract and retain those coaches,” Glissman said. “We also have some athletic directors that have made some bold hires that have paid off immensely.
” This off-season example: Texas hired Xavier’s Sean Miller, a huge coaching name; Texas A&M hired Samford’s Bucky McMillan. Don’t automatically assume that UT got the better deal. The SEC also has the resources to pay basketball players, if its schools choose to do so, and they have.
Resulting in Florida emerging as a champion. And the SEC is scheduling better. Tougher non-conference games, in general.
When the SEC produced glittering records last winter, before conference play, it was legit. The SEC was 59-19 against fellow power-conference schools. SEC schools have not followed a set blueprint.
Auburn, Ole Miss and Texas have built new arenas. But Florida, Kentucky and others have not. Some have gone all New York Yankees and spent huge in the transfer portal, but Florida did not.
The college hoops world did not stop when the Gators signed Walter Clayton out of Iona. Yet Clayton led Florida to the top. “Special ending to a special season,” Glissman said.
“Couldn’t have written it even better. The challenge now is keep it going. That’s my task.
What I’m working on starting today. “I think the SEC is proof you can win different ways, in the sense maybe you don’t have to check every box, but you have to check some important ones.” Could Shotomide-King shine for OSU? If you’re looking for an underdog to get behind in the 2025 college football, you could do no better than Ayo Shotomide-King.
Who’s he? Some OSU fans know. But not all. Shotomide-King is an anonymous Cowboy receiver who could be headed for a big increase in playing time.
Shotomide-King is a fourth-year junior from Chula Vista, California, who has had quite the circuitous route to Stillwater. He was a soccer player until age 14, then picked up football, too, and by his sophomore year decided football could take him further. But the pandemic hit late in that school year.
California football was reduced to Zoom practices, and Shotomide-King’s team played all of four games. Then in the fourth game of his senior season, Shotomide-King suffered a major knee injury. Shotomide-King calls it a “miracle” that he got a call from Snow Junior College in Utah.
At Snow, Shotomide-King redshirted, then played as a receiver. In spring 2024, Shotomide said he figured, “OK, if I get a good offer, I might take it. If I don’t, I’ll just go to school and be a normal student.
” His offers came from Morgan State and Texas A&M-Commerce. But last July, then-OSU offensive coordinator Kasey Dunn stopped by Snow and saw Shotomide-King run pass routes. Two weeks before reporting date in Stillwater, Shotomide-King got a scholarship offer from Dunn.
“I already knew the history of Oklahoma State,” Shotomide-King said. “Winning. From high school, I already knew I wanted to play in the South, either Big 12 or SEC.
I got that call and I knew I had to take it.” Shotomide-King played sparingly but had five catches for 48 yards, including three catches against Arizona State. Now he’s in the OSU receiving rotation.
He’s 6-foot-3, 215 pounds. Nebraska transfer Jaylen Lloyud, Purdue transfer Shamar Rigby and holdovers Gavin Freeman, Tayln Shettron and Da’Wain Lofton are among the receivers battling for playing time. But don’t count out Shotomide-King.
He sounds like a survivor. The List: NBA championship odds The Thunder is the odds-on favorite to win the NBA championship. The play-in tournament began Tuesday night, and here are the odds, according to ESPN, for each team to win the NBA title, with my short assessment: 1.
Thunder 9:5: A little low. No team should be less than 3-to-1. 2.
Celtics 19:10: Same with Boston. A little low. 3.
Cavaliers 23:4: Almost 6-to-1? That’s about right. 4. Lakers 13:1: Should be lower.
Betting fans are drawn to the Lakers, so 10-to-1 seems better. 5. Warriors 15:1.
Should be higher. Golden State is incredibly flawed. 6.
Nuggets 30:1. A little high. Denver probably is a 25-to-1 team.
6. Knickerbockers 30:1. About right.
8. Clippers 33:1. A little high.
More like Denver. 9. Timberwolves 40:1.
Too high. I’d rank Minnesota with the Clippers and Nuggets. 10.
Pacers 66:1. Too high. Indiana made the Eastern Conference finals last season.
I’d go about 50-to-1. 11. Rockets 80:1.
Too high for a 2-seed in the West. 12. Bucks 150:1.
Again, too high. Giannis Antetokounmpo still hangs his hat in Milwaukee. 13.
Grizzlies 250:1. Too low. This looks like a ghost ship of a ballteam.
13. Pistons: 250:1. Too high.
Too soon for Detroit. 15. Magic 750:1.
About right. 16. Hawks 1,000:1.
I guess 1,000-to-1 is the fallback slot for all hopeless teams. 16. Bulls 1,000:1.
I would rank Chicago last on this list. 16. Mavericks 1,000:1.
I would rank Dallas last in the West. 16. Heat 1,000:1.
It’s an abomination that Miami is listed equal with the likes of Atlanta and Chicago. The Heat ought to be at least 800-to-1. 16.
Kings 1,000:1. Fun to watch, but no chance. Mailbag: Career grand slams I messed up in the Tuesday ScissorTales, and one of my readers noticed, pertaining to the list of the major golf winners.
Steve: “Rory (McIlroy) is the sixth player to reach the career grand slam. You forgot to include Gene Sarazen, who won the second Masters in 1935.” Berry: Steve is correct, of course.
I did omit Sarazen. I even knew it, since I listed Sarazan farther down the list and mentioned his Masters victory in 1935. But man, what a class guy, Steve.
He wrote “rare error” in the subject line. That kind of grace is needed in society. Colorado retiring two jerseys The University of Colorado announced Monday that it will retire the jerseys of Travis Hunter and Shedeur Sanders, who led the Buffaloes’ revival under Deion Sanders.
Wait, what? Hunter, I get. He won the Heisman Trophy and was a revolutionary talent, playing the vast majority of Colorado snaps, on both sides of the ball, as a cornerback and wide receiver. But Sanders? A good quarterback.
Maybe even a great quarterback. But retire-his-jersey great? I know Colorado football had been in the desert for dang near two decades. But the Buffs had a glorious history before the dropoff.
Here are the Colorado players who have NOT been so honored: Alfred Williams, the great defensive end on Bill McCartney’s 1990 national title team; Joe Garton, a two-time consensus all-American under McCartney; Matt Russell, the 1994 Butkus Award (linebackers) winner; Jim Thorpe Award (defensive backs) winners Deon Figures (1992) and Chris Hudson (1996); and John Mackey Award (tight ends) winner Daniel Graham (2001). Colorado has four retired numbers: Byron Whizzer White’s 24, Joe Romig’s 67, Bobby Anderson’s 11 and Rashaan Salaam’s 19. White was a great halfback in the pre-World War II days; he went on to become a Supreme Court justice.
Romig was a great offensive lineman in the 1980s. Anderson was a halfback/quarterback star in the 1960s. And Salaam, a tailback, won the 1994 Heisman Trophy.
Does Shedeur Sanders rank above all those guys? Sanders was incredibly valuable and instrumental in the Colorado surge. But he was not all-American. Cam Ward and Dillon Gabriel were the first-team selections on the variety of all-American teams that dole out such honors.
Retire numbers at Colorado? I’d say Hunter, yes. Sanders, no..
