For the past several years, John Calipari has been preaching the strength of SEC Basketball. Last Friday, he said the SEC is the best league in the country, to the point eight teams deserve an NCAA Tournament bid and the committee should place the top four teams — Auburn, Kentucky, Arkansas, and Tennessee — in different regions. A day later, he doubled down, tweeting that any SEC team with a 9-9 conference record deserves to be in the tournament.
Not surprisingly, those comments have made Calipari a popular man down here in Tampa.