For the spin doctors out there, you'll hear that this year's SEC tournament was one of the most remarkable ever. A #6 seed, Georgia, ran the table (including winning two games in one day) to win the tournament. They'll tell you how balanced the league is and they'll talk about how there were three overtime games and several others that went down to the wire. They'll even point to the fact that the SEC got 6 teams into the tournament.

But the reality is, the quality of play was poor in the SEC this year. The NCAA confirmed it with their seedings:

Tennessee (Regular Season Conference Champion) - #2 Seed. And the lowest two seed at that!

Vandy - #4 Seed

Mississippi St. - (Western Division Champ) - #8 Seed

Arkansas - #9 Seed

Kentucky - #11 Seed

Georgia (Your SEC Tourney Champs!) - #14 Seed

The Georgia Bulldog run through the tournament was an incredible story. But they were fortunate that they didn't get a charging call on the inbounds play against Kentucky. And Alabama showed them that Mississippi St. couldn't hit a shot from outside to save their life. They also avoided Vanderbilt and Tennessee.

Look who Georgia had to beat to get win the tournament - Ole Miss, Kentucky, Mississippi St and Arkansas. There's several teams in other conferences that would have killed for the chance to have that "Murder's Row" of teams to play.

As for conference savior Tennessee. All year long that have shown that they will allow their opponent to make a run sometime during the game. For a 5-10 minute stretch, they play awful. Obviously, this will not work in the tournament. Look for them to struggle against Louisville.

(Side note. What does this say about Memphis? They couldn't beat the top team from a weak conference on their home floor. I'll have more about the team that will upset them tomorrow.)

So how did the SEC get so bad. There are a couple of factors for this year.

1. Florida had to start all over. When you lose all 5 starters from the defending champs, you're not going to be very good.

2. Kentucky has been down for a couple of years. You're finally seeing the effect of Tubby's poor recruiting.

3. Several teams suffered injuries this year. Auburn, LSU and Alabama lost key players for the year. Although, Alabama should not have been counting on Ron Steele, he should have been in the NBA. However, the fact remains, if he were playing this year, Alabama would be much better.

4. The SEC didn't seem to bring any "big time" freshmen into the conference this year. Patrick Patterson for UK is good, but there was no one as good as O.J Mayo, Michael Beasley, Derrick Rose and Kevin Love

Just remember this when you're filling out your brackets.