No. 3 Florida opens as SEC favorite after NCAA-title run from league that had 14 March Madness bids

Battling through the Southeastern Conference turned out to be tougher than anyone could’ve imagined last year.

The league routinely had half or more of its 16 teams ranked in the AP Top 25 and ended up claiming a record 14 bids to March Madness. And it certainly had Florida prepared for its run to the program’s third NCAA championship.

Matching that haul is a big ask. It also doesn’t seem out of the realm of possibility for a league that opens this season with six ranked teams: the third-ranked Gators, No. 9 Kentucky, No. 14 Arkansas, No. 15 Alabama, No. 18 Tennessee and No. 20 Auburn.

“I think the thing you have to have, when you’re in a league this loaded, there’s got to be some resiliency with your team through tough times,” Oklahoma coach Porter Moser said.

The Gators went from ranked 21st in the preseason to winning the SEC Tournament and edging Houston for the national title. Yet Auburn also made the Final Four, Alabama and Tennessee made the Elite Eight, and a total of seven SEC teams reached the tournament’s second weekend.

To Moser’s point, 11 of the 14 teams to reach the NCAAs had at least nine losses.

Florida is the preseason favorite despite losing AP first-team all-American Walter Clayton Jr., and backcourt-mate Alijah Martin. Florida went into the transfer portal to land Xaivian Lee (Princeton) and Boogie Fland (Arkansas), while 6-foot-11 Alex Condon and 6-10 Rueben Chinyelu return to offer familiar size.

“You don’t get a lot of time in the moment to enjoy (the title) because you finish up, then that whole week you’re stressed about making sure you can bring the guys back that helped you get to that point,” Florida coach Todd Golden said.

“You don’t get to sit on your couch for a week and watch highlights and enjoy it,” Golden added later. “We wanted to make sure we put ourselves in position to compete at a high level again this year.”

Top players

Kentucky’s Otega Oweh is preseason league player of the year. The 6-4 senior had spent two years at Oklahoma before moving to play for Mark Pope’s Wildcats and averaging 16.2 points.

With Texas’ Tre Johnson in the NBA, Mississippi State’s Josh Hubbard is the league’s top returning scorer (18.9), while Auburn’s Tahaad Pettiford returned for his sophomore season after averaging 11.6 points in the Tigers’ Final Four run. Alabama also returned a guard with star potential in sophomore Labaron Philon Jr. (10.6).

Top transfers

Kentucky ranked fifth among transfer-portal classes according to 247Sports to lead the SEC ahead of Florida.

Pope added 6-10 sophomore Jayden Quaintance, who averaged 9.4 points, 7.9 rebounds and 2.6 blocks at Arizona State. The Wildcats also bolstered the backcourt by landing Pittsburgh’s Jaland Lowe (16.8 points) and Florida reserve Denzel Aberdeen (7.7).

Tennessee also helped its roster by adding 6-1 senior Ja’Kobi Gillespie, who played his first two years at Belmont before averaging 14.7 points at Maryland last year.

Top freshmen

Tennessee’s Nate Ament and Arkansas’ Darius Acuff Jr. are the top-ranked incoming freshmen.

The 6-10 Ament, ranked No. 4 by 247Sports, has a lean frame but offers ballhandling and shooting range. The 6-2 Acuff is ranked No. 5 and joins Ament as potential top one-and-done prospects.

Two other McDonald’s all-Americans enter the league this year: 6-5 guard Meleek Thomas at Arkansas and 7-footer Malachi Moreno at Kentucky.

New coaches

The league has three new coaches: Auburn’s Steven Pearl, Texas’s Sean Miller and Texas A&M’s Bucky McMillan.

Pearl, 38, will have been head coach for six weeks by opening night after the surprise retirement of his father, Bruce. Bruce Pearl had led the Tigers for 11 seasons, including Final Fours in 2019 and last year. His son had been on the staff throughout that tenure, but has never been a head coach nor coached elsewhere in college.

Miller’s arrival from Xavier comes with the Longhorns hoping to find some stability. He replaced Rodney Terry, who led the program to the Elite Eight in 2023 when he took over that program at midseason after then-coach Chris Beard was arrested on a felony family violence charge — later dismissed — and was fired.

At the time, Beard was only in his second season at Texas.

And at Texas A&M, McMillan takes over after Buzz Williams left for Maryland to end a six-season run in College Station. McMillan had spent five season at Samford, a run that included throwing a first-round scare into Kansas during the 2024 NCAA Tournament.

Preseason picks

Champion: Florida; 2) Kentucky; 3) Tennessee; 4) Alabama; 5) Arkansas; 6) Auburn; 7) Missouri; 8) Mississippi; 9) Texas; 10) Mississippi State; 11) Vanderbilt; 12) Oklahoma; 13) Texas A&M; 14) Georgia; 15) LSU; 16) South Carolina.

___

Get poll alerts and updates on the AP Top 25 throughout the season. Sign up here and here (AP News mobile app). AP college basketball: https://apnews.com/hub/ap-top-25-college-basketball-poll and https://apnews.com/hub/college-basketball