SEC's Stock on the Rise

In these tough economic times, safe and secure investments can be hard to come by. I submit to those looking for a stock that is on the rise, you should look no further than Southeastern Conference Basketball. SEC Basketball has seen its stock slip in recent years, but is on the verge of rivaling the success normally reserved for the gridiron. The nature of college basketball dominance is a bit more cyclical that the perennial dominant SEC Fooseball, but those cycles of success are about to feature the SEC more prominently.

Every power conference starts with at least one blue-chip program that can bring in the best players and generate the most fan support. In my estimation there are only a handful of programs that can claim to be true Blue Chippers: UK, UNC, Duke, UCLA, Indiana, and Kansas. Don't believe you need a flag bearer to carry a conference to national prominence? The SEC and Big Ten's decade of decline just so happened to coincide with the decline of Kentucky and Indiana basketball. These are good examples of the Blue Chip theory.

These power brokers can't carry a conference on their own, but they serve as a measuring stick to second tier programs. These second tier programs come and go. Some are more relevant than others. At the top of this group are programs like UConn, Louisville, Syracuse, Pitt, Michigan State, Texas, Arizona and Florida. These programs are fully capable of winning at the highest level, and are capable of challenging the top tier teams on a consistent basis. The quality of these programs will end up determining the overall strength of the conference. The shear size of the Big East has afforded them the ability to stave off down years and makes them somewhat of an exception to the rule. They have seven or eight programs that can feel this role any given year, and are almost always going to have legitimate Final Four contenders. Give any other conference four quality BCS teams and you would see the same result. An example would be the SEC adding Memphis, Louisville, Cincinnati, and West Virginia. That would make for a perennially stacked basketball conference similar to the Big East.

I think everyone agrees that Kentucky is now fully capable of carrying the torch for the SEC year in and year out during the Calipari Era. It is the programs around them that are just as much a part of this rising stock. Florida was dominant for a stretch, but they still weren't equipped to win on the same level as the Blue Chip programs. They are perfectly casted as the Robin to our Batman. Or maybe the Scarecrow... I will have to let one of the Lee Brothers hammer out the details on that analogy. But the Cats are definitely Batman. We will be breaking down the SEC in detail a little later. Coaching, fertile recruiting grounds, the new television deal with ESPN, and the arrival of Batman (aka Calipari) are just some of the reasons the SEC is back in a big way. In the days that come I will provide a little insight into each school's future prospects... Not as detailed as our preseason preview, but something to talk about in the meantime.