SEC in NCAA Tournament: Who has the easiest path to title among conference schools?

Florida now appears to have the easiest path to a national championship among the record-seven SEC teams standing among the Sweet 16.

Florida’s No. 1 West Region seed is only part of the reason the Gators’ path to what would be their first national title since coach Billy Donovan’s back-to-back champs in 2006 and 2007 looks so promising.

And of all people, Florida has former rival John Calipari, in part, to thank for that. Calipari’s 10th-seeded Arkansas team erased the West Region’s No. 2 seed, St. John’s, after disposing of Big 12 blue blood Kansas in the opening round.

The Gators next matchup on Thursday (TV: 7:39 p.m., TBS) is against No. 4-seed Maryland, which needed a last-second shot to advance over No. 12 seed Colorado State on Sunday.

A Florida win over the Terps — the Gators are a 5.5-point favorite at the time of this publication — would set up a game against the winner of Thursday’s game between No. 3-seed Texas Tech and Calipari’s Razorbacks (10:09 p.m., TBS).

No easy task, for sure, but Florida’s region is the only one lacking a No. 2 seed still standing.

Auburn, the SEC regular-season champ and the NCAA tournament’s overall No. 1 seed, faces Big Ten tournament champ Michigan on Friday (approximately 9:39 p.m., CBS) in South Region action at State Farm Arena. In the other game Friday in Atlanta, No. 6-seeded Ole Miss will meet No. 2-seed Big Ten regular season-champion Michigan State (7:09 p.m., CBS).

The SEC’s No. 2 seeds, Alabama and Tennessee, have powerfully built No. 1 seeds between them and the Final Four.

Tennessee must overcome SEC-rival and No. 3-seed Kentucky on Friday (7:39 p.m., TBS) before a probable meeting with No. 1 seed Houston in the Midwest Region.

Alabama must face a high-scoring BYU team Thursday (7:09 p.m., CBS) before a likely meeting with No. 1 East Region seed Duke, an ACC regular-season and tourney champ featuring projected No. 1 overall NBA draft pick, Cooper Flagg.

It does seem amazing that the ACC – which in 2016 sent a then-record six teams to the Sweet 16 – has only one team still dancing in the tournament while the SEC features seven.

The SEC motto, “It Just Means More,” has been on display for all to see in what has become a historic season, with a record-14 SEC teams granted bids into the 68-team NCAA field.

An opening round that saw six SEC teams lose — another record, for most teams eliminated before Round of 32 play — cast some doubt and fodder for critics earlier in this tournament.

But with Calipari’s Hogs and Beard’s Rebels scoring upset wins, and the league’s top four teams all advancing, the SEC has a good chance of winning its first NCAA Tournament championship in 13 years, when Kentucky won a title with Calipari at the helm.

The story of the SEC’s elevation in basketball — dating to Mike Slive’s era as commissioner (2002-15) — has become cliché, with heavier investments into coaching, facilities and more recently, players.

Florida, perhaps more so than any of the remaining SEC contenders, represents that final turn of the screw — talent acquisition — in the conference’s recent run of dominance.

The most recent NBA.com draft projections revealed six SEC players in the first round — from six schools — notably, none from basketball factory Kentucky.

With power-conference teams making up the entirety of the Sweet 16 — seven from the SEC, four each from the Big 12 and Big Ten, and the ACC royalty that is Duke — March Madness followers note the absence of a Cinderella.

But a closer look at Florida’s roots reveals four of the Gators’ five starters had mid-major origins from schools that once provided the lifeblood of past David versus Goliath matchups.

There was a Walt Disney-like charm seeing Final Four runs on the most competitive of basketball hardwoods from such Cinderella programs from the past as Butler (2010-11), Wichita State (2013), Loyola-Chicago (2018), or more recently, San Diego State and Florida Atlantic in 2023.

Indeed, coach Todd Golden’s Gators feature Alijah Martin, who helped lead Florida Atlantic to the Final Four two years ago.

At that, clutch Gators’ scorer Walter Clayton Jr. began his basketball career with two seasons under Rick Pitino at Iona, while fellow backcourt mate Will Richard began his career at Belmont.

Auburn, which held the No. 1 AP Top 25 ranking for a school-record eight consecutive weeks, saw Morehead State transfer Johni Broome win SEC Player of the Year and Sporting News National Player of the Year honors.

The Tigers, like the Gators, feature four starters who began their collegiate careers elsewhere, as in addition to Broome, Miles Kelly (Georgia Tech), Chad Baker-Mazara (Northwest Florida State) and Denver Jones (Florida International).

And yet, ESPN’s most recent odds suggest Florida (second behind Duke) and Auburn (fourth behind Houston among the betting favorites.

That Tennessee and Alabama are fifth and sixth in those same odds reflects the exciting times ahead for SEC basketball, into this weekend and through the tourney, as well as the future.