Does Southeastern Conference football overshadow basketball?

By: LARRY VAUGHT

Does football’s perception in the Southeastern Conference overshadow basketball, even with five SEC teams including No. 1 Kentucky, getting set to start play in the NCAA Tournament.

Vanderbilt coach Kevin Stallings, who has his team in the NIT, thinks so and said that on the SEC coaches teleconference Monday.

When asked what he thought about Stallings’ comment, Kentucky coach John Calipari joked that the SEC should “got to Division II” in football.

“I really believe that. But I'm not sure that's going to happen,” said Calipari. “I think we all have to use football to our benefit. Use that the SEC is so good at this that we can be good at anything.”

He’s hoping new commissioner Greg Sankey can continue to promote SEC basketball.

“You're talking about a bright guy, you're talking about a forward thinker, you're talking about a guy that uses logic, not emotion. He is really – you're going to see. You're going to say, 'Wow, how did we do this?' But we lost a commissioner. He was the leader for two leagues that I've been in. Maybe the best commissioner in college sports ever,” Calipari said.

"To come into situations and understand – and I laugh with him all the time. I said, 'He's the best politician I've seen since Bill Clinton.' The best. Would get us to do things that we didn't want to do and make it feel like it was our idea. Unbelievable. But you're talking about a guy that said, 'We're going to do this, we're going to do it right and we're going to win championships.' And you know what? That's what's happening in our league.

"We need to use this (SEC) television network, and we are. But we can still use it to another degree. How do we make this all about these players? How do we know that players come in here, wherever they go in this league, they're highlighted. It's about them. You know what? We've got our own network, and this network is off the chain. It's started so fast. And again, it really started — you understand what drove this thing. The Bahamas trip (by UK in August for exhibition games). This thing that we have, we've just got to feed off of football."

Calipari has openly campaigned for months about the strength of the SEC and was glad to see Arkansas, Georgia, LSU and Mississippi all included in the NCAA field. He noted Texas A&M would have made it if not for a key late-season injury to its top scorer.

“I'm anxious to see how our teams advance and how we play in this tournament. Last year, we had three teams in the Sweet 16, two teams in the Final Four and we had a team (Kentucky) in the final game,” Calipari said. “We had eight teams in the top 50 (of the RPI). It's really a great thing for our league. I was a little bit worried that maybe (only) four would get in, but when the fifth team got in, we were going crazy.”

Calipari said despite having Tennessee in the Sweet 16 and both UK and Florida in the Final Four last year the national perception was “the league’s not good in basketball” and he doesn’t think that is fair.

“I know it's tough to mention another coach's name but we should stand up for each other and not let it happen. I think it's important that they know. The league, we had eight top 50 teams. Eight. Now, would I like all five teams to advance and three of us in the Final Four? Yeah, but what we're doing and what we did a year ago when you look at the number of wins I think there are only a couple conferences that had more NCAA Tournament wins than we had,” the Kentucky coach said.