re: SEC basketball ranked by various criteria

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This is not "apples to apples." If we are discussing Southeastern Conference it is imperative to recall that until 1975 only one team from a conference could participate in the NCAA tournament. In the 1960's and 1970's Vanderbilt and Tennessee had some outstanding teams but their second place finish precluded them from the tourney. Its highly likely that many of the Arkansas and Missouri teams that made the tournament through the 1974 season would have come in second behind Kentucky.

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Well first of all, we only made 1 tournament before the 1974 season you speak of. So that argument doesn't really apply to us. 25 of our 26 appearances are post 1975 expansion.

Second of all, we had the same situation in our conference as you did in the SEC. You know of kansas, who is the Big 12 equivalent of Kentucky, but Oklahoma, Oklahoma state, and kansas state were also tough teams back then. So Mizzou had a lot of great teams that didn't make the dance as well. Case in point: our 71-72 and 72-73 teams both went 21-6, finished 2nd in conference, and didn't go to the dance. So that caveat is not unique to Vandy and Tennessee.