Greetings, BBN!

Conference play has come at last in the Southeastern Conference, where after a historic November and December, the league will be forced to take some losses. How evenly those losses get distributed among the 16 contenders will determine whether they claim a historic number of bids in the NCAA Tournament.

Currently, several projections include 12 SEC schools, which is one more than the all-time high of 11 set by the old Big East in 2011.

Here are your SEC standings as of January 10th:

SEC Standings (January 10th)

Notes:

• Four teams are 14-1, and of those, only Mississippi State isn’t in the AP Top 10.
• Nine teams are currently ranked in the AP Top 25, and of those only Kentucky has more than two losses.
• Scheduling varies quite a bit from league to league. The Big Ten is broadcasting conference games every night of the week most weeks, while the SEC is a Tuesday, Wednesday, and Saturday-only schedule. Spread the action out or load a day up.
• Three teams in all of Division 1 were undefeated on the morning of January 4th. After January 7th, SEC conference play had knocked that down to zero: Florida, Oklahoma, and Tennessee are playing in the toughest league in the country.
• In nonconference play, the SEC won over 88% of its games. Almost nobody who had to play one of its 16 schools escaped the night with a win. The most any team coughed up was three—even the ones who’ll likely finish in last and second to last will have impressed in the non-con!
• Biggest games of the weekend: Alabama @ Texas A&M and Kentucky @ Mississippi State