SEC Blitzed and Blue

The SEC benefited from a plethora of postseason basketball tournaments this year. So many men's and women's teams from the conference (17) received bids from the NCAA, NIT, or WNIT, that it's easier to list the few teams which did not:

Women Uninvited:   Alabama, South Carolina

Men Uninvited:   Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Mississippi, Vanderbilt

 

But SEC teams were eliminated rapidly over a 12-day interval (listed below). As of the evening of Saturday, March 28, not a single one of those seventeen participants remained in competition.  The SEC basketball postseason came to an early and embarrassing end, with only 16 wins to go with those 17 losses.  The conference couldn't even break even.

 

Five SEC teams lost in their first postseason game, surprisingly including the Tennessee women in the NCAA.  Eight SEC teams won their first postseason game, only to lose their second, including the conference's highest-seeded NCAA squad, the Auburn women.

 

Only four SEC teams won two postseason games before being eliminated, the most significant such accomplishment being that of the Vanderbilt women in the NCAA.  The other three were all in the men's NIT, where Auburn, Florida, and Kentucky each fell just short of Madison Square Garden.

 

Here's the chronology of that wicked series of losses for SEC basketball, no day worse than "Blue Tuesday," March 24,  when four went down:

March 17:      South Carolina men lose to Davidson in NIT first round

March 19:      Mississippi State men lose to Washington in NCAA first round

March 20:      Tennessee men lose to Oklahoma State in NCAA first round

March 21:      Georgia women lose to Arizona State in NCAA first round

                        Louisiana State men lose to North Carolina in NCAA second round

March 22:      Tennessee women lose to Ball State in NCAA first round

                        Kentucky women lose to Wisconsin in WNIT second round

March 23:      Auburn women lose to Rutgers in NCAA second round

                        Mississippi State women lose to Ohio State in NCAA second round

March 24:      Louisiana State women lose to Louisville in NCAA second round

                        Florida women lose to Connecticut in NCAA second round

                        Auburn men lose to Baylor in NIT quarterfinals

                        Florida men lose to Penn State in NIT quarterfinals

March 25       Kentucky men lose to Notre Dame in NIT quarterfinals

March 26       Arkansas women lose to Kansas in WNIT third round

                        Ole Miss women lose to South Florida in WNIT third round

March 28       Vanderbilt women lose to Maryland in NCAA third round

 

Wait 'til next year?  More likely, wait until 2012 or 2015 or 2020.