Behind-the-scenes of the SEC basketball rebirth: Is there a blueprint for the Pac-12?
Three years ago, Pac-12 basketball was near the top of the Power Six, the SEC near the bottom.
The self-proclaimed ‘Conference of Champions’ received seven bids to the 2016 NCAA Tournament while the league known for football placed just three team in the field — one of them a First Four participant.
Greg Sankey, in his first year on the job as commissioner of the SEC, refers to Selection Sunday ’16 as “one of the rougher experiences in my time as commissioner.”
Speed dribble to this month, and the conferences have flipped positions:
The Pac-12 received just three bids (one of them a First Four entry), while the SEC corralled seven — and has placed four teams in the Sweet 16.
The SEC’s turnaround is not by happenstance. The conference took dramatic steps to improve its basketball product after bottoming in March ’16. In that story of a rebirth, might there be lessons for the Pac-12?
“Greg looked around and said, ‘We have a problem,’’’ said Mike Tranghese, the former commissioner of the Big East who serves as a special advisor to the SEC on basketball matters.
“As a commissioner, sometimes it’s hard to do that. But until you do that, it’s hard to fix it.”
(Sankey and Tranghese declined to comment on the Pac-12 or draw any comparisons between the conferences in interviews with the Hotline.)
While the unquestioned king of college football this century, the SEC fared reasonably well in basketball through the first decade.
It sent six teams to the NCAAs in 2003 and ’04, Florida won back-to-back national titles (2006-07), LSU made a Final Four run (2006), and Kentucky received a No. 1 or 2 seed five times.
But the foundation was quietly eroding. Sankey noted a lack of investment in facilities — not just arenas but weight rooms and training and support staffs.
In addition, “the onset of the APR affected men’s basketball,” he said of the Academic Progress Rate, which penalizes programs for failing to meet certain academic thresholds.
Even before the bottoming in March ’16, the conference had reassessed its approach to scheduling.
Sankey said his predecessor, legendary commissioner Mike Slive, convinced the schools to grant the conference office a voice in decisions about non-conference opponents — to the point that it gives “yes or no approval, subjectively applied” on each program’s schedule.
“It used to be that you have 20 wins, and you’re in,” Sankey said. “But that’s changed.”
But upgrades to the schedules — the previous year’s RPI was used to establish baselines — and infrastructure on campus weren’t enough.
The SEC received five bids to the tournament in 2015, but only one team, Kentucky, survived the opening weekend.
The 2016 postseason offered overwhelming evidence that more work was needed: The SEC sent the same number of teams to the field (three) as the Atlantic 10 and one less than the American:
Texas A&M, the conference’s newcomer, received a No. 3 seed; Kentucky grabbed a No. 4; and Vanderbilt earned the third bid — barely — as a No. 11 in the First Four.
(Their success, or lack thereof, mirrors the Pac-12’s performance this month with Arizona State, Washington and Oregon: The Commodores were bounced immediately, the Wildcats lost in the second round, and the Aggies advanced to the Sweet 16.)
“That initiated more conversation,’’ Sankey said. “We had focused a lot of the metrics issues and not had a broader conversation about culture.
“Look at SEC football, or baseball, or women’s gymnastics — the expectation for all sports is that we compete for national championships. We weren’t meeting our own expectations (in basketball).”
Two days after the Selection Sunday debacle, Sankey appointed Tranghese, one of the most respected college basketball minds of the modern era — a former selection committee member and key figure in the founding of the Big East — as a special advisor.
“Greg says to me, ‘We have a problem.’ I said, ‘I know, but don’t tell me anything. Let me observe, and I’ll come back to you,’’’ Tranghese recalled. “I came back to him and said, ‘Greg, your culture is the problem.’
“I was blindsided by the fact that the fans and media didn’t think the SEC could win in basketball. And I’m not sure the (athletic directors) thought they could. The head coaches were beaten down by the negativity.
“It was preposterous. I told them, ‘It’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.’ The SEC has won at everything. Everybody had excuses. I told Greg, ‘You’ve got to address the culture.’’’
Tranghese instructed the head coaches to use what he called the “Big East model,” by which the coaches became marketers for the conference, promoting each other, focusing on positives, keeping their complaints and frustrations private.
As Tranghese worked to transform the culture, the two-year-old SEC Network, with its reach into 60 million homes (approximately), spread the word.
“We were already visible, but that brought a greater level across the country,” Sankey said. “People were talking about SEC basketball in a more mature way.”
In the conference office, Sankey made crucial personnel moves:
He hired Mark Whitehead, who has worked five Final Fours, to oversee the conference’s officiating program; he added a video specialist to provide in-season teaching material; and he brought in Bob Delaney, a former NBA official, as a special advisor for officiating (training, development and evaluation) across all SEC sports.
“He’s a resource for the officials to look from the outside in,” Sankey explained.
But that wasn’t all. Sankey also hired Dan Leibovitz as associate commissioner for men’s basketball.
A former college coach (Hartford) and NBA assistant (Charlotte), Leibovitz understood the challenges faced by the SEC coaches in a way Sankey and his leadership team could not.
“Dan allowed us to have conversations with the head coaches in a different way,’’ Sankey said. “It was a different form of trust.”
So great is the trust, in fact, that the SEC has taken an unprecedented step.
The engagement between conference office and campus administrators that Slive began (with the non-conference scheduling) has expanded to include the hiring process for head coaches.
The schools have the final word, but the conference office plays an active, formal role. Leibovitz and Tranghese have a working list of candidates at-the-ready. When a job comes open, they offer names that suit that school’s particular needs and provide feedback on candidates.
(The Pac-12 office plays no formal role in the hiring process. Deputy commissioner Jamie Zaninovich oversees the sport and is well-regarded in basketball circles, but he also handles the conference’s day-to-day operations.)
“Every time there’s a coaching opening, we’re involved, we’re offering input,” Tranghese said.
“I talk constantly with (Leibovitz) about head coaches to keep tabs on. I’m looking all the time at coaches from leagues that I think (the SEC) can draw from.
“There’s no reason the SEC shouldn’t win. But you have to hire good coaches.”
In reality, the SEC’s turnaround unfolded a year ahead of schedule.
Sankey had identified 2019 as the season the changes would produce a March Madness bid bounty, but the conference sent eight teams to the tournament last year.
“It was a pleasant surprise,” he said. “Our goal had been five.”
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