Mark Wiedmer: SEC basketball down but not out of title talk

SEC Southeastern Conference

Whenever some haughty national media type – are you listening, Digger Phelps? – has bashed the quality of Southeastern Conference basketball in recent years, I’ve merely pointed to the three NCAA titles the league has won since 2006 and said, “Top that.”

Because no league can. America’s Cockiest Conference — the ACC — has won two championships (North Carolina in 2009, Duke in 2010), the Big 12 has won one (Kansas, 2008), and the Big East also has one (UConn, 2011).

Everyone else — Big Ten, where have you been? — has zero. But not the SEC. After watching Florida go back-to-back in 2006 and ’07, Kentucky followed up its 2011 Final Four appearance by winning it all last April in New Orleans.

Those achievements may not match the league’s seven straight football titles, but it’s still the most NCAA titles won over the last seven years.

And in case you want to look at a bigger picture, since 1994 the SEC has six championships — one more than the ACC, two in front of the Big East and at least four ahead of everyone else in the past 19 years.