March Madness: It's time to talk nice to the SEC as Mississippi State's run boosts conference's strength

If the SEC compiled a “talk to me nice” list of the people who counted their conference out, the papyrus scroll of names wouldn’t seem to end. In modern terms, it wouldn’t fit into a TikTok video.

South Carolina went wire-to-wire as the No. 1 team in the country and is the heavy favorite to win its second consecutive title. No one questioned that. But while they rattled off conference wins to a hum of 26.1 average points per victory, the chatter around the strength of the rest of the SEC was constant. It’s a down year for the SEC. The competition isn’t as high. Ho...