re: What a 21-9 hoops record used to mean vs its current SEC worth

There was a time not extraordinarily long ago -- after the last major expansion of the tourney field -- when a 20 win season was almost a guarantee of going dancing if you were in a major conference, regardless of the competition. In the '90s, 20 wins was pretty much the target threshold that pundits and fans alike set as the point where a team could start breathing easy. If a team with 20 wins in a major conference didn't make it, people would be discussing it for weeks afterwards. But the expanded seasons, growth of early season tournaments, and burst of parity between the major and mid-major conferences has whacked that paradigm pretty hard.