Over the past five years, the SEC has essentially been the conference of SC.
South Carolina won six of the eight titles contested over the previous four seasons, falling one game back of the 2021 regular-season crown and losing in the final seconds of the 2022 SEC tournament championship game. The Gamecocks have lost only four conference games (counting the conference tournament) since the start of the 2019-20 season, a truly ridiculous stretch of dominance in one of the country’s strongest leagues.
Even the teams that recently have challenged South Carolina won in fluky fashion. Missouri beat the Gamecocks in overtime to deliver the Gamecocks their lone regular-season loss of 2021-22, but the Tigers didn’t even make the NCAA Tournament. Kentucky was on its way to a similar fate before beating South Carolina in that SEC tournament, and then the Wildcats lost in the first round of the NCAA Tournament as an automatic qualifier anyway.
The South has belonged to South Carolina, and Thursday’s come-from-behind victory over LSU was a reminder of that fact. But it was also a sign that the Tigers might be further along than they were a year ago, during a season that ended with LSU celebrating its first national championship. If ever a real rival were emerging to threaten the…
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