First-year Georgia men's basketball coach Tom Crean pleads his case to a referee after one of his players was called for a technical foul at LSU on Jan. 23. Crean said this season's sellout crowds at Stegeman Coliseum were unexpected, but he believes that shows the Bulldogs' fans want them to succeed on the court despite little tradition of doing so.
South Carolina men's basketball coach Frank Martin took the Gamecocks on a Final Four run two years ago that brought attention to the progress the SEC had made in the sport.
First-year Ole Miss coach Kermit Davis has helped the Rebels, historically the worst program in SEC men's basketball, surprise many this season.It's getting tougher and tougher to determine the toughest coaching job in Southeastern Conference men's basketball.
South Carolina has won just one SEC championship since joining the league before the 1991-92 season, but two years ago Frank Martin took the Gamecocks all the way to the Final Four. Auburn went 15 years without an NCAA tournament appearance until Bruce Pearl's Tigers captured a share of last season's SEC regular-season title. Even Ole Miss, which has topped Auburn in terms of owning the league's shiniest new arena, has been ranked this season.
"Every job has its challenges with its strengths and weaknesses, whether it's with the tradition, facilities or the recruiting base," Pearl said. "Some jobs in every league are tougher than others. Some jobs come with greater expectations than others.
"I try to focus on the strengths of the job and not let the weaknesses be an excuse."
The SEC has experienced a basketball resurgence in recent seasons, placing three teams in the Elite Eight in 2017 and producing a league-record eight representatives in last year's 68-team NCAA field. Last week, the SEC had six teams in the Associated Press Top 25.
Conference strength often can be judged from top to bottom, and the SEC has sent 13 of its 14 members to the NCAA tournament since 2015. Mississippi State is the lone exception, but Ben Howland's Bulldogs are ranked No. 22 this week.
"What I think has happened is that the SEC took a deep breath and realized that some things weren't taking place on campuses as far as basketball goes and that everybody now is paying a little more attention to exposing basketball to their own communities," Martin said. "Because that's happened, coaches are being given more of an opportunity to succeed now. A lot of campuses had basketball facilities that had not been updated in a long, long time, and that's changed since I've been here in the league.
"When we made the run we made, I think it opened a lot of eyes about the SEC as a whole around the country. Sindarius Thornwell playing the way he played in that NCAA tournament made people realize that the SEC has a lot of good players and that they're not all at Kentucky."
The SEC has a coaching lineup in men's basketball that surpasses its football lineup when it comes to success across the board. Every men's basketball coach in the league has made multiple trips to the NCAA tournament except Alabama's Avery Johnson, who guided the Crimson Tide there last season and owns more of a professional background, having coached the Dallas Mavericks to the 2006 NBA Finals.
Five SEC coaches have Final Four experience - Martin, Howland, Kentucky's John Calipari, Tennessee's Rick Barnes and Georgia's Tom Crean - with Calipari having led the Wildcats to the 2012 national championship and a runner-up finish in 2014.
"Every job in this league is hard," Calipari said. "It's just hard in different ways. What you're seeing right now is the investment from TV into men's basketball, and the commitment from (SEC commissioner) Greg Sankey into men's basketball is paying off. We have terrific coaches, and we have great venues and great fan bases, but every job is hard.
"If you think Kentucky is an easy job - it's a hard job, but it's great job. Tennessee is a hard job, but it's a great job. It's the same thing with Florida. They're just hard in different ways."
The Kentucky job certainly comes with greater expectations than at other league programs, as the Wildcats run circles around their SEC counterparts when it comes to tradition. The Wildcats have won or shared 48 regular-season league championships compared to 52 from the rest of the conference combined, and they have won more SEC tournaments (31) than they haven't (27).
As for the bottom of the SEC's historical barrel, Ole Miss entered this season with an all-time league record of 512-823, while Georgia's mark wasn't much better at 547-773. The Rebels have never won an SEC regular-season title, while Georgia's lone such crown occurred in 1990.
Andy Kennedy, who is now an SEC Network analyst, coached Ole Miss for 12 seasons and won 20 or more games nine times, but the Rebels made just two NCAA tournament trips during his tenure.
"I think they're all difficult," Kennedy said. "Everything changes, and everything has its challenges. South Carolina is a perfect example this year, because they had lost five in a row and were really struggling to find an offensive identity, but they got to Christmas break and were able to get off to a strong start in the SEC.
"At the end of the day, it's college basketball, and the shot clock and the 3-point line are great equalizers. You have to be locked and loaded every game."
Georgia reached the NCAA Final Four in 1983, but its last recognized NCAA tournament win occurred in 1996. Despite that drought and despite this season's Bulldogs being 10-10 overall and 1-6 in league play, Crean already has coached before several sellout crowds during his first season inside Stegeman Coliseum.
Crean directed Marquette to the Final Four in 2003, but now he's harboring those aspirations at a school known much more for its football.
"I think Rick Barnes has done a great job of discounting that belief and wanting to put his program at the highest of levels year in and year out," Crean said of the fourth-year Tennessee coach, whose Vols are currently ranked No. 1 in the nation and shared the SEC regular-season title last season. "That's exactly what they've done, and that's exactly what we want to do here.
"My biggest surprise here so far has been our crowds. I thought we would get good crowds, but I didn't know we would have the sellouts we've had at this point. It all comes down to the passion of the fan base, and I don't think there is any question they want to have a successful basketball program here."
While those teams traditionally at the bottom of the league standings have experienced more success in recent seasons, there remains a gap when compared to those annually in the hunt, most notably Kentucky. This week provided evidence of that, as Calipari's Wildcats traveled to Vanderbilt on Tuesday and built a 45-15 halftime lead before cruising to an 87-52 win.
Kentucky isn't about go away, but neither are those seeking to challenge the Wildcats and enhance a history that might have been more mediocre than stout to this point.
"I know the Auburn Arena has helped us narrow the gap," Pearl said, "and I know our fan base and the support we receive at home and on the road has helped as well. It's helped us breaking into the Atlanta recruiting market and getting some really good kids who have developed and improved and graduated.
"Obviously winning the championship here last year helped, too."
Contact David Paschall at dpaschall@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6524.