How will the SEC being elite in basketball this season affect the Kentucky Wildcats?

Kentucky is going to have a tough time in SEC play this season.

The SEC logo in the hallway at the Hilton Sandestin in Destin, Fla. on Tuesday May 31, 2022 at the annual SEC spring meetings. / Marc Weiszer/Athens Banner-Herald / USA TODAY NETWORK

The SEC is going to be absolutely loaded this season in basketball, which will make it tough for each team in the conference to have a good record. Joe Lunardi just updated his Bracketology, and he has ten SEC teams making the NCAA Tournament. This number ties the SEC with the Big 10 for the most teams from a conference in the tournament.

The SEC improving in basketball is a good thing and a bad thing at the same time for the Kentucky Wildcats. For a while, the SEC wasn't great at basketball, and the Wildcats would walk their way through conference play. This would lead to the Wildcats not getting as much preparation as they needed for the NCAA Tournament.

Now that the SEC is one of the best conferences in college basketball, the Wildcats are getting a ton of preparation for the NCAA Tournament, but they also have more losses on their record. These losses could lead to the Wildcats dropping one or two seed lines compared to if the SEC was still weak like it used to be.

The point is that the SEC taking a step in the right direction competition-wise is a good and bad thing for the Kentucky Wildcats. It is going to be an absolute gauntlet this season, and the team that wins the conference might have five losses in conference play.

Coach Pope has coached in the Big 12 before, so he is used to a tough conference schedule, but this year will be even more challenging for the Wildcat's new coach.