re: SEC basketball programs ranked by all time AP poll rankings

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I don’t understand Alabama fans’ obsession with consistency. No one said Alabama isn’t a respectable program historically. That doesn’t mean Kentucky, Arkansas, LSU, Florida, Missouri, and probably Tennessee would ever trade their basketball history with Alabama. Always a strange vibe in these threads

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These lists and discussions of all time program stats aren't meant as a knock against any of the other good to great SEC basketball programs.

Historically, Kentucky (obviously) is far and away the greatest SEC (and likely overall) program of all time. Arkansas historically is clearly the second best SEC and best SWC program of all time. Florida with their 2 national titles, Final 4 appearances, and overall record is right there with Kentucky as the best SEC program of the last 25 to 30 years and close to and not far behind Arkansas all time. They would likely be the 2nd best SEC program historically if they had accomplished anything of note prior to the early 90s. Personally, I think LSU is the 4th best SEC program historically being consistently good to at times great throughout most of their history. LSU's combination of conference championships, NCAA tournament success, and handful of legendary college and NBA players (Pistol Pete, Shaq, etc) put them a level above Tennessee, Missouri, and Alabama historically.

I think you could flip a coin when it comes to Tennessee, Missouri, and Alabama though. All 3 have very similar all time wins, winning percentage, conference championship, and NCAA tournament success numbers. From there there's a drop off to Vanderbilt and Mississippi State as the next two best programs historically and an even larger drop off after that to the next best SEC programs historically.

I don't think Alabama fans are knocking any of the programs you mentioned and they would also concede that Arkansas, Florida, and LSU are a class above the rest of the conference while Kentucky is obviously the gold standard for all college basketball programs. Neither I nor any sane Alabama fan would suggest those 4 programs or even Tennessee or Missouri to a lesser extent would trade basketball histories with Alabama.

The argument I and other Alabama fans make is in response to the lame idea that Alabama basketball is a lower end SEC program historically and a clear step below Tennessee and Missouri and doesn't care about basketball at the level those 2 programs or even LSU for that matter does. The overall numbers (all time wins, win percentage, conference championships, conference tournament championships, average attendance, NCAA tournament record, historical AP poll ranking, etc) don't bear that out at all. Yet the sentiment of many whether they're serious or just trolling is that because Alabama is a football school they haven't had any success in basketball historically and don't really give a shite about basketball. Granted, there are a lot of Bama fans that don't give a shite about basketball but there are enough who do that Alabama historically has been in the Top 40 in national attendance almost every year the last 50+ seasons.

quote:

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I don’t understand Alabama fans’ obsession with consistency. No one said Alabama isn’t a respectable program historically. That doesn’t mean Kentucky, Arkansas, LSU, Florida, Missouri, and probably Tennessee would ever trade their basketball history with Alabama. Always a strange vibe in these threads

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This. Tennessee has been head and shoulders better than Alabama in basketball since the turn of the century. Interesting the ranking in the OP ends right when Tennessee has been a mainstay in the AP rankings for 3 of the last 4 seasons.

In terms of objective perception: Alabama has definitely been a step below LSU, Tennessee and Missouri for the last 20 years. They're closest with Missouri out of those 3, but they're a still a step behind.