SI:AM | A Rough Night for the SEC

The opening night of the college basketball season didn’t go so well for one of the top conferences.

UCF’s upset of A&M headlined a bad opening night for SEC hoops. / Screenshot via ESPN+

Good morning, I’m Dan Gartland. Look, I think we can all agree that the results often favor the rich and powerful and the process could be more democratic, but we should accept the outcome no matter what. I’m speaking, of course, about the initial College Football Playoff rankings that will be released Tuesday night.

In today’s SI:AM:

😅 Chiefs escape with a win
⚾ MLB free agent rankings
🏆 CFP rankings preview

November madness

One day into the college basketball season, there’s already a ton to talk about.

Monday’s marquee matchups mostly lived up to the hype. The top-ranked South Carolina women eked out a 68–62 win over unranked Michigan; the No. 3 USC women earned a tough 68–66 win over No. 20 Ole Miss; star UCLA center Lauren Betts had 18 points, 13 rebounds and four blocks in a win over Louisville; Duke freshman Cooper Flagg stuffed the stat sheet with 18 points, seven rebounds, five assists and three steals in a win over Maine; and No. 6 Gonzaga thumped No. 8 Baylor, 101–63, in the biggest men’s game of the night.

But the biggest story has to be the struggles of one of the top conferences in the nation: the SEC. Only 11 teams from power conferences (men’s and women’s) lost their season openers on Monday. Eight of them were from the SEC. Yes, that list includes Ole Miss’s loss to a higher-ranked USC team, but that’s an outlier. The rest of the conference’s seven losses all came against unranked teams. In fact, SEC teams were the only power-conference teams to lose on Monday to unranked opponents.

On the men’s side, No. 13 Texas A&M lost, 64–61, to UCF, No. 19 Texas lost, 80–72, to Ohio State, Missouri lost, 83–75, to Memphis and South Carolina lost, 74–71, to North Florida. On the women’s side, Missouri lost to Vermont, 62–46, Arkansas lost to Fairfield, 81–67, and Texas A&M lost to Texas A&M Corpus-Cristi, 62–56.

It was a stunning showing for a conference that sent eight teams to the men’s NCAA tournament last season and eight to the women’s. It wasn’t a surprise that Mizzou continued its run of horrible results (both Tigers teams finished last in the conference last season, and neither team has won a game since Jan. 18) but several more successful programs also faltered. The South Carolina men reached the NCAA tournament last season for the first time in eight years and finished with a 26–8 record, but they lost at home to a North Florida team that has not finished above .500 since the 2019–20 season. The Texas A&M women also went dancing last year but lost to an A&M-Corpus Christi team that had only previously beaten one SEC team in its history. It was a similar story for the Aggies’ men’s team, which qualified for the tournament but was defeated by a UCF team that hasn’t played in March Madness since 2019.

UCF storms the court after stunning No. 13 Texas A&M‼️ pic.twitter.com/7zfvr5fJrb

— SportsCenter (@SportsCenter) November 5, 2024

The SEC’s struggles on Monday are perhaps indicative of a trend we’ve seen in college hoops in recent years. There haven’t been many dominant teams—at least on the men’s side. Last year, three power-conference men’s teams finished with five or fewer losses (UConn, Houston and Purdue) for the first time in a non-shortened season since 2017–18. The power conferences are only growing more powerful, but there’s still plenty of parity in college basketball.

If you want evidence of that, look no further than Fairfield’s win over Arkansas. Fairfield is a small Jesuit university in Connecticut that has never won a men’s or women’s NCAA tournament game in its history. But the Stags ran the table in the MAAC last year (20–0) and were ranked in the AP top 25 for the first time in school history. They went 31–2, the fewest losses of any team in the nation other than the undefeated South Carolina women. On Monday in Fayetteville, there was no doubt as to who the better team was. Fairfield led for the final 33 minutes of the game and was ahead by as many 24 points in the third quarter. It was a convincing way to begin a season with high expectations.

The SEC won’t struggle as much this season as it did on Monday, but the conference’s issues on opening night were a reminder of what makes college basketball the best. You never know what can happen in any given game.

Juan Soto will be the most coveted free agent this MLB offseason. / Brad Penner-Imagn Images

The best of Sports Illustrated

• Will Laws and Nick Selbe ranked the top 50 available MLB free agents and predicted where they will land.

• Even though they’re still undefeated, the Chiefs dropped a spot this week in Conor Orr’s NFL power rankings.

• Gilberto Manzano wrote about why Kansas City’s tight win over the Buccaneers shows that the Chiefs are far from invincible.

• Elsewhere in the AFC West, Manzano thinks the Chargers are a real threat.

• Pat Forde has an excellent breakdown of what the College Football Playoff committee will be keeping in mind as it releases its first rankings on Tuesday night.

• Chris Mannix broke some news about an undercard match on the Nov. 15 card headlined by Jake Paul and Mike Tyson.

• The Lions have finally traded for a pass rusher, adding Za’Darius Smith from the Browns.

• Gerrit Cole will remain with the Yankees after exercising his opt-out clause.

The top five…

… things I saw yesterday:

5. Isaiah Stewart’s emphatic block on LeBron James.
4. Domantas Sabonis’s game-winner for the Kings.
3. Patrick Mahomes’s little flip pass for a touchdown.
2. Baylor freshman VJ Edgecombe’s monster dunk (right on top of Gonzaga coach Mark Few’s son).
1. Ja Morant’s acrobatic layup.