South Carolina and Texas appear like two of one of the best groups within the nation in ladies’s faculty basketball. Every are within the high 5 of the latest AP Poll, every have paths to safe No. 1 seeds in the NCAA Tournament, and each rank extremely nationally in offensive and defensive metrics.
However the Gamecocks and Longhorns ended the common season with similar data, 15-1, in Southeastern Convention play. South Carolina beat Texas in Columbia, then the Longhorns bought revenge over the Gamecocks in Austin.
So, there was a tiebreaker protocol to observe in figuring out who would get the No. 1 total seed within the SEC Tournament, which begins in Greenville, S.C., later this week. Some conferences have a number of steps and metrics to get via earlier than they offer solution to likelihood and destiny to find out the seeding. The ACC, for instance, has 5 tie-breaking scenarios it makes use of for soccer. The Huge Ten has a few parameters laid out for its basketball tournaments too.
In the meantime, the SEC has only a two-step course of within the occasion of a two-team tie atop the standings:
- Head-to-head outcomes
- Win-loss report of the 2 groups versus the No. 1 seed (and continuing via the No. 14 seed, if vital)
That’s it. And since South Carolina and Texas didn’t lose another SEC video games, the convention instantly moved to its third choice, which was:
- A coin flip.
Sure, actually. Right here’s the way it performed out on Sunday:
Predictably, South Carolina celebrated whereas Texas felt robbed. Particularly, Longhorns coach Vic Schaefer was miffed by SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey’s declare that he practiced the coin flip for 2 hours.
“So what was he practising? Was he practising for South Carolina to be heads up or Texas to be heads up?” Schaefer told the AP. “I imply, why do you must observe for 2 hours? What are you making an attempt to get achieved?”
Utilizing a coin flip to find out the No. 1 total seed in a Energy 4 convention match in 2025 feels lazy, on the very least. There are numerous qualifiers and statistics that would’ve been used to find out the end result.
Right here’s a couple of eventualities the SEC might’ve used to determine this factor out as an alternative:
- Total report (Texas wins)
- Margin of victory (South Carolina wins)
- Report in opposition to Quad 1 opponents (South Carolina wins)
- Successful proportion in opposition to the highest 100 groups within the NET (Texas wins)
As an alternative of doing all that math although, Sankey and the SEC did what they do greatest: they made everybody listen. They turned a easy coin flip right into a tv spectacle. For a couple of minutes on Sunday, the SEC commanded consideration. Ladies’s basketball followers tweeted in regards to the coin flip and speak radio hosts had rants about it.
Certainly, it simply means extra.
So, mission achieved, Mr. Sankey.
However if you happen to actually wish to drive up the scores subsequent time, don’t simply accept a coin flip. Give us a free throw contest or recreation of HORSE between the coaches of the 2 groups tied on the high. Let on-line sportbooks run betting strains on it.
After all, the favourite would’ve been Daybreak Staley.
Possibly the coin flip turned out the way it was alleged to in any case.
