Southern Hoops: A History of SEC Basketball

Adolph Rupp comes to the University of Kentucky in 1930, two years before the SEC is formed, and his Wildcats go on to dominate play in the conference for decades. Meanwhile, a future coaching legend later known as Pat Summitt is born in Tennessee.

Texas Western's historic win over Adolph Rupp's Kentucky team in the 1966 NCAA final marks a turning point in the SEC. Vanderbilt's Perry Wallace becomes the conference's first Black player, while at LSU, Pete Maravich rewrites the record books.

Dale Brown, a North Dakota native, brought an infectious personality and ferocious competitiveness to LSU men's basketball. In 1974, the incomparable Pat Summitt began her legendary coaching career at Tennessee at the age of just 22. (2023)

There may not have ben two more entertaining and electrifying players in the SEC than Dominique Wilkins and Charles Barkley. The duo headlined the conference’s successes in the early 1980s, and here is how the SEC was a national power from 1980 to 1989.

In 1991 and 1992, a young Dawn Staley was finishing up a stellar college basketball career – earning Naismith College Player of the Year honors in her junior and senior seasons even meeting Coach Pat Summitt’s Lady Vols in the 1991 NCAA title game.

Kentucky entered a new century led by their first Black head coach, Tubby Smith, who had taken the Wildcats to the national championship in his first season in 1998. Later in the decade, Florida’s back-to-back titles in 2006 and 2007. (2023)

The past decade has seen the expanded SEC continue to thrive at the center of the story of college basketball in America. John Calipari has continued the tradition of excellence at Kentucky, leading the Wildcats to four Men’s Final Four appearances.