ESPN’s Karl Ravech did the math and found out when two SEC basketball teams are playing against each other, there’s one winner and one loser.
After dominating college basketball the first couple months of the season, a facetious narrative has emerged on social media in recent weeks about the SEC only being .500 since conference play began. And during Tuesday night’s call of Alabama’s win over Texas on ESPN, Ravech fell for the narrative.
Karl Ravech…oh no
“Since January 4, into Tuesday, the SEC teams are 82-82…there’s no dominant group of teams” pic.twitter.com/TEn1QzPs1A
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) February 12, 2025
“We know how dominant they were in the nonconference season, the SEC,” Ravech said late in the second half of the broadcast. “They were 185-23. Since January 4, into Tuesday, the SEC teams are 82-82. It’s not as if one team or two teams or three — they’re 82-82. There’s been no ability pull away, there’s no dominant group of teams.”
Technically, Ravech is correct. SEC teams did have an 82-82 record from January 4th into Tuesday. But it seems like Ravech may not have grasped the fact that SEC teams have a .500 record since January 4th because they’ve been playing against each other.
For the sake of accuracy, the record is now 87-87 after Tuesday’s slate of games and it will go to 90-90 after Wednesday’s games, regardless of who wins and who loses. Because when two SEC teams play against each other, one team wins and one team loses. Thus the .500 record. The same .500 record that every conference has.
The narrative gained traction last month after the social media account @pickle07 sarcastically posted about the SEC having a 54-54 record since January 4th. Rhode Island men’s basketball coach Archie Miller fell for the narrative shortly after, citing the 54-54 record during a press conference.
Miller wasn’t trolling the narrative when he cited it and it didn’t seem like Ravech was either. The ESPN announcer was just attempting to make the point that the SEC’s record has leveled off since they started playing conference games. Which in defense of Ravech is accurate; he just didn’t appear to understand why.
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