The SEC's long national nightmare is over. OK, that may be overstating the case just a bit, but still, the news filed by ESPN's Andy Katz Wednesday night was nothing but positive for the Southeastern Conference and its basketball denizens. In 2011-12, the conference will ditch its divisional format and become one 12-team league going forward. The league will still use its old scheduling mechanism in the coming season -- teams will play a 16-game schedule with two games against old divisional foes and one against non-division opponents -- but a change in coming seasons is likely on the way.
Even better news? Never again will the SEC conference tournament will be seeded according to divisional record. The SEC's athletic directors also passed the coaches' plan to seed the allot the four first-round tournament byes to the teams with the best overall league records. The old, confusing, imbalanced system awarded byes to teams based on divisional records, which wasn't exactly fair to those from the much deeper and more successful SEC East.
Of course, the SEC East isn't the only winner here. The SEC West will also benefit in the long run. Beginning in 2012-13, when the SEC overhauls the regular-season schedule to align with the new division-free format, SEC West teams will play more games against the SEC East, and will therefore have more opportunities to get big, marquee wins during the conference season. (If you don't think this matters, ask the 2011 Alabama Crimson Tide.) And as Kentucky coach John Calipari told Andy, the boost in perception should only help the league as a whole.
So there you go, SEC. It was a long time coming, but finally, your regular-season schedule and conference tournament are going to make sense. And you didn't even have to seed by RPI to do so. High-fives all around.
Source: http://espn.go.com/blog/collegebasketballnation/post/_/id/31584/sec-coaches-ads-do-the-right-thing
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