Michigan's emphatic NCAA tournament win over Alabama reinforces Big Ten's takeover of SEC's mantle
NCAAF College Football News, Photos, Stats, Scores, Schedule & Videos...
CHICAGO — Off the field, the future of college athletics is being shaped by the ongoing battle of wills between the SEC and the Big Ten. From the format of the College Football Playoff to what the rules should be around NIL and tampering, there is significant disagreement, hurt feelings and massive egos unwilling to give an inch.
But on the fields of play that matter most, there’s no question who’s winning the battle in the new era of college athletics.
It’s the Big Ten’s world. And in this NCAA tournament, they’re delivering a humbling to the once-mighty SEC.
Just like football.
“College basketball has been cyclical forever,” Michigan basketball coach Dusty May said after his team delivered a second-half knockout to Alabama and ran away with a 90-77 victory in the Midwest regional. “Hopefully this is a long cycle for us in the conference. I think now that the playing field has been leveled out as far as finances and things like that…”
May, who spent three years in the SEC as an assistant at Florida, didn’t quite finish the thought.
He didn’t have to.
As the SEC grew into the nation’s dominant athletic conference through the first two decades of the 2000s, the Big Ten had little ability to answer outside of complaints and cope. Its insistence on being the league that followed rules — aside from an Ohio State scandal every now and then — would allow university presidents to give each other pats on the back. But when championships were on the line, it didn’t amount to much when Big Ten fans and players were being serenaded with chants of “SEC! SEC!”
Times have changed.
After three straight football titles won by Michigan, Ohio State and Indiana, the Big Ten now has basketball bragging rights, too. The Big Ten is 4-0 against the SEC in this tournament, is guaranteed of at least one Final Four berth when Iowa plays Illinois in the South regional and could deliver two more if Purdue can upset Arizona in the West final and Michigan can beat Tennessee in Sunday’s Elite Eight matchup.
“Man, it means a lot,” said Michigan forward Yaxel Lendeborg, who was a one-man wrecking crew against Alabama with 23 points, 12 rebounds and seven assists. “Those guys are always a power conference in basketball, football, whatever. Those guys are super big time. But this year, I feel like the Big Ten might have been the best conference in the nation and being in a dogfight every game, the Big Ten really prepared us for moments like this.”
Lendeborg is probably a good avatar for why this shift has taken place. For two seasons before this one, he was arguably the best player in the American Conference at UAB — right in the heart of SEC country, less than an hour drive from Tuscaloosa.
Maybe the entire SEC was just asleep at the wheel and ignored an NBA-level talent right under its nose. More likely, they couldn’t pay what Michigan did to get him. Lendeborg, for what it’s worth, told the Associated Press a couple weeks ago that Kentucky offered him between $7 and $9 million to transfer. Kentucky coach Mark Pope eventually denied the number, but it’s clear the Wildcats made a serious attempt to get him out of the transfer portal.
Now that the financial factor in recruiting is a (somewhat) legal (for now) fact of life, it shouldn’t be a surprise that Michigan could outbid an SEC blueblood for an elite athlete. It’s happening all the time, across a variety of sports.
For decades, the SEC’s advantage was proximity to talent, climate and passion. That’s been turned on its head by Big Ten schools that have been around longer and, as a result, have bigger and wealthier alumni bases. According to Almabase.com, seven of the top 10 largest alumni associations in the country reside in Big Ten country.
No wonder the SEC and commissioner Greg Sankey are starting to make threats about breaking away and playing by their own rules if Congress doesn’t do something to rein in the currently ungovernable NIL environment.
“Yeah, it means something to us,” said Michigan guard Nimari Burnett, who spent two years at Alabama before transferring in 2023-24. “Seeing the teams that we played in the Big Ten have success [in the tournament], it shows us that our conference is probably the best in the country.”
The Big Ten has famously and frustratingly been shut out from a men’s basketball national title since Michigan State in 2000, but May made an interesting point about why this might be the year it changes.
For a long time, the Big Ten had a reputation for playing pound-the-paint slog ball with big bodies who could win a wrestling match but not a track meet. That is no longer the case, especially after the league added UCLA, USC, Oregon and Washington in the most recent round of expansion.
“I think we’re developing a different type of basketball identity with the West Coast schools joining us, and I think some of the newer coaches have brought a different flavor,” May said. “I think at times it seemed like the Big Ten was kind of cut-and-paste. You turned on one game and it looked pretty much like the other three that are going on at the exact same time. I know our league is incredibly tough. The coaches are off the charts, but I want to give the administrations a lot of credit. There are a bunch of well-run athletic departments in the Big Ten.”
To be fair, it was only a year ago that the SEC earned a record 14 NCAA tournament bids, had seven in the Sweet 16 and two in the Final Four, including national champion Florida.
This year, however, the SEC was clearly overvalued. Though it received 10 bids — the most of any league — it will have just one Elite Eight team, No. 6 seed Tennessee. And outside of regular season champion Florida losing to No. 9 seed Iowa in the second round, none of those results felt like a fluke.
Hey, maybe the $7-9 million Kentucky offer for Lendeborg was exaggerated. But after watching him wreck shop against Alabama in Michigan blue rather than Kentucky blue, maybe Pope should have offered even more. While much of college athletics spent this week giggling and shaking its head at LSU for luring Will Wade back to Baton Rouge with massive NIL promises on the heels of Lane Kiffin’s alleged $40 million roster for the football team, at least the Tigers are clear-eyed about how the game is being played.
As May said Friday night when he was asked about what advantages the Big Ten has now that the rules have changed: “You’d have to catch me off the record to answer that question.”
More at NCAAF College Football News, Photos, Stats, Scores, Schedule & Videos