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his is true to an extent. If your conference is really good as a whole though, then you are gonna get looks regardless. Take football for example. Why was USCe able to pull as many 4 and 5 stars this year?

Because kids want to play in this conference anyway they can get in it. Georgia's main prolbem in basketball isnt Tenn, its Tech. They, for the most part, own Atlanta inner city. Which is by and large, the best place to pull basketball prospects from. Not just Atlanta inner city, but pretty much ANY large city is gonna produce most its stars from those areas.

Why? Well, its a stereotype but it fits. Those kids have one chance of getting out of the area they live in, and thats sports. And a lot of inner city schools dont even have football teams because they dont have a place to put a field, leaving basketball their meal ticket.

As long as the ACC is head and tails above the SEC, Tech is gonna get first dibs on those kids.

The bottomline is that you can afford to be magnanimous about the strength of the SEC when you are in the top tier already. Bama is going to get theirs until and unless someone drives the program into the ground. I'm not saying that UGA is not a historically top tier program (that's a different argument), but they have slipped a little in all areas and are fighting to get back. Yeah, I'm on a little tangent now, but hear me out.

Those of us trying to get a leg up and scratch and claw out way into the top half of the SEC do not want other SEC programs to flourish. It harms our recruiting, scheduling and fanbase. The money distribution rule plays a small benefit to lower tier schools from TV and post season, but in terms of direct efffects on a single school, Auburn winning an NC last season hurt everyone else in the conference's recruiting. LSU, Bama and UF barely felt it (if at all) but the rest of us had a very hard time convincing kids to come to our school when Auburn had expressed interest.

The same lessons are applicable in Basketball. We recruit memphis pretty hard. So does Arky, Vandy and the other less talented SEC teams. With UT taking a plunge, we will definitely benefit. Maybe not the 5* kids who can play anywhere they want, but we might grab an extra 4* or two who want to stay closer to home.

Therefore, I'm with the UGA fans, TUCK FENNESSEE.