On this final day of 2025, with college basketball’s conference season already upon us, the time is literally now to squeeze in a big story of reflection and appreciation for this ridiculous sport and what it’s given us in the past year. College hoops just endured a dizzying 2025, with major headlines reliably hitting our feeds by the week. This list wasn’t hard to build out at all: so much transpired over the past 365 days!
There’s no need for a long intro from me here. We’ve got an incredible second half of the 2025-26 campaign to gear up for, starting this weekend, so I’m getting right to it. Here were the 25 biggest stories of 2025 in men’s college basketball.
25. Rutgers’ record-setting flameout (January-March): One of the first things I wrote in 2025 was a Court Report that led on then-8-7 Rutgers staring down a dismal season, which unfortunately for the Scarlet Knights wound up playing out. Steve Pikiell’s program set the kind of record you never want to be associated with. Despite Dylan Harper and Ace Bailey being top-five high school prospects and top-five 2025 NBA picks, RU became the first team to ever have two players taken in the top five of the same draft and miss the NCAA Tournament in the same year. The ’24-25 season was supposed to be one of the best in Rutgers history. Instead, it was a cautionary reminder that recruiting for talent, and flipping your entire program’s blueprint in the process, guarantees nothing.
24. Indiana undergoes its sixth coaching change since 2000 (March 18): The Hoosiers have fallen out of blue blood status in the past quarter century due to just 10 NCAA Tournament appearances and only three Sweet 16s (and nothing better) since their 2002 national championship loss to Maryland. With the exception of just two or maybe three seasons, IU has routinely underachieved or been an average program for more than two decades. Reason being: Indiana hasn’t been able to find a comfortable long-term fit to run its men’s basketball program since firing Bob Knight in 2000 (which was a clear-eyed decision, and at the same time, feels like it’s become something of a curse).
Mike Woodson’s four-year tenure ended rather predictably, with a February announcement that the sides would sever at season’s end. Despite getting a head start on its coaching search, IU still took longer than expected to land Woodson’s successor. It finally scooped up West Virginia’s Darian DeVries in the cover of night, doing so only after WVU surprisingly missed the NCAAs.
23. Louisville immediately bounces back after its worst two-year run in history (most of 2025): Speaking of historically proud programs in a rut, it’s nice to see that’s no longer the case with Louisville. If anything, I don’t think we’ve given enough conversation to Louisville being good again and doing so in a relative snap. The 2022-24 Kenny Payne Era of Disaster saw the Cards go 12-52, a nosedive into the program’s nadir. Pat Kelsey immediately flipped the Birds, though. The Cards finished tied for second in the ACC last season and earned a No. 8 seed in the NCAAs. In the offseason, Kelsey landed one of the five best portal classes and got Louisville to No. 11 in the preseason AP Poll, its first appearance in the preseason rankings in six years. Louisville’s 30-5 record since Jan. 1 was one of the best in all of college basketball. The program’s darkest days are now long gone.
22. Michigan’s mighty emergence under Dusty May (most of 2025): I’ve unintentionally put Louisville and Michigan back-to-back, an interesting coincidence considering how May turned down Louisville for Michigan in March of 2024. It’s worked out wonderfully for both sides since, with Michigan morphing into a monster on the hardwood. The majority of this story ties to the first eight weeks of the 2025-26 season, but keep in mind the Wolverines finished tied for second in the Big Ten back in March and finished 27-10 with a Sweet 16 run in Year 1 under May. That was a fabulous start, followed by the Wolverines signing the No. 1 player in the portal, Yaxel Lendeborg, who is one of the three best players in the country so far this season. Even though Arizona is No. 1 in the AP Top 25, the 12-0 Wolverines comfortably rate as the best team in predictive metrics going into 2026. Michigan’s won six games by 40-plus points this season, a record for any Big Ten school … and we’re not even to January. That’s your 2026 national title favorite.
Getty Images
21. Kentucky spends $20 million-plus on roster but is a huge disappointment to start season (November-December): If not for wins over Indiana and St. John’s (neither of which is a fortified squad at this stage) in mid-December, this story would rank even higher. Because for the first six weeks of this season the Kentucky Wildcats and their uber-expensive roster were massive underachievers. When you’ve got a reported $22 million payroll and a team that goes from preseason top-10 to not even ranked, it’s a huge college basketball story. When that team is KENTUCKY, it’s even bigger.
The Wildcats were handled by rival Louisville, then beaten down by Michigan State, lost at home to North Carolina and then walloped in Nashville by Gonzaga. By the end of the first week of December UK was 5-4 and the sky was falling. But now it’s 9-4, Jayden Quaintance (key big man) and Jaland Lowe (pivotal point guard) are in the lineup, and things may well be steadying for Mark Pope’s program going into January. Kentucky will remain one of the biggest stories in college hoops in January, regardless of which direction it goes.
20. Bruce Pearl retires, replaces Jay Wright as CBS/TNT analyst (Sept. 22): An ill-timed retirement from a prominent coach that pops as one of the biggest stories of the offseason: I guess this is where college basketball is going to be every year moving forward. Pearl gave up coaching six weeks from the start of the season, handing off the job to his son, Steven. He walked away after a Final Four run, which is how Wright did it when he retired in April of 2022. Wright’s summertime decision to leave TV after three years was catalyzed by a devotion to Villanova. Pearl’s the best coach in Auburn basketball history. Two Final Fours, multiple SEC titles.
Big TV jobs like the one Wright had don’t come up often, and Pearl had previously worked in TV, so he saw a window and made the move. It wasn’t a stunner (and there were rumors Pearl might go into politics), but it was a big story nonetheless. Pearl’s a natural on TV, and I expect he’ll become one of the game’s most prominent commentators by the end of the 2020s.
19. Will Wade parlays McNeese NCAA Tournament run into NC State job/Amir „Aura“ Kahn goes viral (March 23): From NCAA renegade who was fired at LSU to a bounce-back into the ACC, Wade’s charted one of the most interesting head-coach arcs of the past 30-or-so years. In 12 years as a head coach, he’s been at five schools. He hopes NC State can be the long-lasting endeavor. Wade was sent to the outpost of McNeese, in Lake Charles, Louisiana, after the early 2020s fallout from the FBI investigation and subsequent NCAA probe that led to him losing the LSU job. He went 58-11 at McNeese, the highlight coming this year when his Cowboys beat Clemson 69-67 in the first round of the NCAA tourney.
Wade was open and honest about his job prospects even before the season was over, a refreshing bit of honesty. And let’s not forget that this story’s presence was increased all the more by Amir Khan, the team manager nicknamed „Aura,“ who made national news and burned quickly with his 15 minutes of fame. Khan’s attachment to Wade amounted to one of the biggest headlines in college basketball this year, no doubt.
18. Kansas hits its roughest stretch since the 1980s with turbulent 2025 (January-March and November-December): Kansas has lost 13 games in a calendar year in back-to-back years, marking the worst run for the school since the early 1980s. Now, it’s Kansas, so the bar is way, way higher than just about any other program in college hoops. Still: Bill Self’s program found itself in a lot of undesirable spots over the past 12 months, and this being Kansas, that’s big news.
On Feb. 1, it blew its biggest lead in school history in a loss to Baylor. It finished last season 21-13, and as a No. 7 seed, the worst season ever under Bill Self. KU also had its worst two-season record in more than 35 years. It finished outside the top 20 in KenPom in back-to-back seasons as well. Good news was coming in the fall with the arrival of Darryn Peterson, the top-ranked prospect in 2025. But Peterson’s played just four of KU’s 13 games this season because of an injury. Hopefully his return is imminent and he won’t miss any more time, but his hamstring troubles have lingered as a problem for the Jayhawks while doubling as one of the bigger stories of the first eight weeks of this season.
17. Baylor adds former NBA pick to its roster in the middle of the season, sets college sports world aflame (Dec. 24): Just like last year, when Miami coach Jim Larrañaga retired the day after Christmas, we have a story that sneaks in before the buzzer. I don’t know how impactful James Nnaji will be for Scott Drew’s Bears, but I do know that a college team bringing on someone who was drafted No. 31 overall more than two years prior has turned into a story spreading like wildfire in the past 72 hours, so much so that it prompted a holiday-week statement from the president of the NCAA.
I’m trying to strike the balance between big-picture impact and not being a prisoner of the moment here, because the story prompted some of the game’s biggest coaches to react with some powerful statements, including Dan Hurley telling me Monday night that it’s past time for college basketball to find a commissioner. Then there is this epic rant/plea from John Calipari, also prompted by the Nnaji news. College basketball is at an inflection point, and this story’s impact will no doubt carry heavily into 2026 and likely be represented on this list again a year from now.
16. Todd Golden’s sexual harassment Title IX investigation closes (Jan. 27): An explosive story that first surfaced in November 2024 and made this list a year ago. Some in college basketball circles expected real fire after the smoke that was publicized by the Independent Alligator, a student-run newspaper at the University of Florida. Typically, Title IX investigations are not disclosed to the public in an effort to not affect the probe and smear the people attached to it before all the facts are found. That wasn’t the case with Golden, whose reputation took a major hit as a result of the story being released.
But after more than four months of interviews and case review, Florida’s Title IX office did not find that Golden violated the terms of his contract. What, explicitly, was or wasn’t true was never made clear, and the story still carries a haze over it almost a year later. To have the waiting game play out while Golden was coaching — never being suspended, even privately, by Florida — was awkward and atypical. He has rarely spoken about it since, as nothing tied to the story has resurfaced since the case closed in January. Golden and the Gators obviously made even bigger headlines later in the year, and all of that is detailed much further down in this story.
Getty Images
15. Rick Pitino coaches St. John’s to its best season in a generation (January-March): Rick Pitino was hired to finally flip the vibes at St. John’s and in two years he did just that. While the second-round exit to Arkansas in the NCAA Tournament was a major bummer, the bigger picture was the Red Storm’s resurgence in the Big East and on the national stage. SJU spent the majority of January through the end of March as a top-10 team. It swept the Big East’s regular-season and tournament titles for the first time since 1986. It earned a No. 2 seed with a 31-5 record, those 31 wins tying the school’s single-season best. The Johnnies were an elite defensive unit and one of the most ferocious teams in college basketball. The Pitino Effect made them compelling and, finally, nationally relevant for the first time since the turn of the century. It was one of the three or four most enjoyable story arcs of last season.
Memory Lane: Norlander’s best-of-year lists from previous years
14. Threat of NCAA Tournament expansion refuses to die (peppered throughout 2025): Folks, I utterly hate this story, and in classic NCAA fashion, its drawn-out nature will ensure that it makes a spot on my list FIVE YEARS IN A ROW. A year ago, I thought we’d have a final decision on the long-term format of the tournament at some point in 2025, likely in the summer. Instead, the can was kicked again and we merely got one more year of a 68-team field for 2026.
Now, allegedly, the final-final call is coming in the first half of 2026. I’m bracing for the annoyingly unnecessary: a 76-team tournament starting in 2027 and staying that way for a decade-plus thereafter. But there is still time to NOT do this, selection committee. In July, I wrote an extensive, data-driven piece about why there is no justification for expanding March Madness. Many high-profile coaches told me over the summer they are more than OK with 68. In February, NCAA VP of Basketball Dan Gavitt told me expansion was „not a done deal.“ We’ll finally — allegedly! — see if that’s true in the upcoming months.
13. Sister Jean dies at 106 (Oct. 10): From my obituary in October: „College sports teams are normally represented by the young men and women who compete and the coaches who lead them, but Sister Jean came to represent something that transcended the typical college success story. The Ramblers’ 2018 Final Four run was one of the most shocking in the history of college basketball, and thanks to Sister Jean’s presence, the story had a touch of divinity to it that had no match before or since.“ To see this woman live to 106 was a gift. She was a global news story in 2018 and again upon the news of her passing. Her presence, a blessing. Her memory and spirit will live forever in Chicago.
12. College basketball has its best start to a season in ages (November-December): As we ready our turn to January, let’s give one more round of applause to what college basketball has given us through the first two months of this season, specifically more ranked-on-ranked non-con games than ever before (the count: 48). And not just great matchups, but great teams too. I detailed this right before Christmas, but if you missed it, check out the data dive that proves how this season is shaping up to give us the deepest pool of national title contenders in more than a decade. We seem to be in the midst of college basketball’s best season in a long time. There’s a lot of things messed up about this sport in unnecessary ways, but the on-court product hasn’t been this good in many a year, and I haven’t felt as revved up about a college hoops November—>December like what we just experience in a long time. Don’t you agree?
11. NCAA faced with point shaving and game manipulation scandals (sporadic throughout 2025): Every and any sports league’s nightmare. The NBA and MLB have dealt with it, and now so has the NCAA. This would be a top-10 story with a high-profile player or really good team, but fortunately for college basketball, that’s yet to happen. Still, 2025 saw a variety of players banned from ever playing college basketball again after investigations turned up evidence that those players (at Arizona State, New Orleans, Mississippi Valley State, Fresno State and San Jose State) were manipulating games to varying degrees. In some cases, it was to throw them for a loss. In others, to tamper with their own stat lines for prop-bet purposes. I would argue that these cases didn’t get quite as much attention as they should have as the headlines hit in 2025. I’m placing the story this high on the list because of the seriousness of the issue and my expectation that we will have more on this topic in 2026.
Must-read 2025 features
Some Norlander longform if you missed it the first time around:
10. February Madness: History-making run of upsets gives us the wildest basketball day of 2025 (Feb. 1): If you’ve forgotten about how nuts Saturday, Feb. 1 was, I’m here to remind you of everything that happened over the course of 12 hours on that batty, madcap day.
- A record: 11 ranked teams lost in one day, with 10 losing to lower-ranked or unranked opponents
- Another record: Five top-15 teams lost at home in one day
- Kansas, North Carolina and Kentucky all lost by double digits, joining March 3, 2018 as the only other day that ever happened with those three schools
Here’s everything of note from Feb. 1:
1. John Calipari returns to Rupp Arena and wins with an unranked Arkansas team, beating No. 12 Kentucky 89-79. Arkansas was 1-6 in the SEC going into the game. The result changes the direction of Arkansas’ season.
2. No. 8 Tennessee wallops No. 5 Florida 64-44. It would wind up being Florida’s penultimate loss of the season. Tennessee and Florida both beat each other by 20-plus points in the same season while both teams were ranked, marking only the second time ever that happened between any two teams in college basketball. (Oklahoma and Villanova in 2015-16 the other.)
3. No. 22 Texas Tech wins 82-81 at No. 6 Houston, giving Houston its penultimate loss of the season and seeing the longest home winning streak (33 games) come to an end. Ironically, TTU won despite losing its coach and best player (JT Toppin) to ejections in the opening minutes.
4. Middling K-State (10-11) wins at No. 3 Iowa State 80-61. ISU’s 29-game win streak is over, giving college basketball the most shocking result of the regular season. The Wildcats’ 19-point win is the largest by a sub-.500 road team over a top-five opponent ever.
5. Unranked Baylor roars back from 21 down to beat No. 11 Kansas 81-70 by scoring 60 second half points. It’s Kansas’ largest blown lead in school history and a clear sign that the Jayhawks aren’t a Final Four contender.
6. St. John’s wins a two-point thriller on CBS over middling Providence after Kadary Richmond hits a winner from 15 feet with three seconds to go.
7. Sub-par USC beats No. 7 Michigan State 70-64, ending the second-longest winning streak in college hoops on that day.
8. Unranked Oklahoma eviscerates No. 24 Vanderbilt by 30 points, 97-67.
9. No. 20 Missouri wins at No. 14 Mississippi State by 17 points, 88-61.
10. Another upset: No. 25 UConn wins at No. 9 Marquette 77-69, stabilizing its season for good.
11. No. 13 Texas A&M loses 76-72 against the only bad SEC team, South Carolina.
12. A bad Georgia Tech team wins 77-70 over No. 21 Louisville, as the Cardinals gave up 50 second-half points.
13. The second-most hyped matchup of the day is a dud: Duke rolls North Carolina at North Carolina 87-70, heating up Hubert Davis’ hot seat for the ensuing 10 months
14. Saint Mary’s beats Gonzaga 62-58, bringing SMC to 20-3 and dropping GU to a surprising 16-7 record
And then, while still on Feb. 1 in Central, Mountain and West Coast time zones … the Luka Dončić/Anthony Davis trade leaks and detonates, totally overshadowing everything that preceded it in college basketball in the previous 12 hours. What a weekend!
9. Players Era pays out more than $20 million, sets a record by hosting 18 teams in a single regular-season event (November): The event was groundbreaking in 2024, but actually emerged as a viable entity with real marketing power in 2025. Nothing was talked about more in November than Players Era, that’s for sure. Some college basketball fans hated it, so many coaches wanted in on it, and because of that and a lot more, Players Era made headlines multiple times prior to the event actually being played. Now it’s got a Big 12 deal that will have that league guaranteed at least eight of its teams in the event over the next five years.
The Players Era Championship has altered November multi-game events moving forward and has affected how the schedule of the sport is built out (provided the payout system can remain in place given the new governance structure with NIL Go and the House case settlement). It’s also had a major impact on Maui and the Battle 4 Atlantis, with those events facing serious threats to their sustainability into the back end of the 2020s. With plans to go to 32 teams and four eight-school pods in 2026, Players Era is probably going to make this list again next year. Let’s just hope the format is fixed from the wonky setup that led to widespread criticism in 2025.
8. Kevin Willard, Sean Miller criticized for coaching exits (March 24 and 30): It was Willard way more than it was Miller, but both took it on the chin and made a lot of off-court noise for their job switches amid the NCAA Tournament. Willard’s was especially high-profile because his Maryland team made it to the second weekend after Derik Queen cashed the tournament’s only buzzer-beater (vs. Colorado State). Willard publicly discussed his concerns with the Maryland job and its lack of NIL funding for basketball, he lost his AD to another school, and then the reporting around his candidacy for the vacant Villanova job became one of the more awkward job transitions in college basketball in the past 10 years, if not longer.
Then there’s Miller, who was given another chance at power-conference coaching by Xavier after he was fired at Arizona. Miller took the job, had a solid run with two NCAA Tournaments in three years, then took the Texas job in the cover of night and left a lot of Xavier fans pissed off at how he handled it. Both are now persona non grata at their former schools.
7. The best freshman class, maybe ever, showcases itself early and often (November-December): From 2020-2024, college basketball underwent a sea change that saw freshmen matter less on the whole than they had at any point in the previous two decades. But freshmen matter again in a major way. You can include last season’s group, led by Cooper Flagg, Derik Queen, VJ Edgecombe and Kon Knueppel, but it’s this class in 2025-26 that is on an unprecedented level. The best of them so far: Cameron Boozer, AJ Dybantsa, Caleb Wilson, Kingston Flemings, Koa Peat, Darryn Peterson, Darius Acuff Jr., Mikel Brown Jr., Braylon Mullins and still plenty more. This is a loaded freshman class that has uplifted college basketball and will help build out one of the best seasons the sport has seen in a decade-plus. It’s a big story for 2025 and will almost definitely be an even bigger one in 2026.
6. UConn fails its three-peat quest; Dan Hurley can’t help but make noisy headlines (scattered throughout 2025): There was the „two rings, baldy!“ quote for the ages and the confrontation with a Creighton fan. There were the high-profile losses to St. John’s and conceding the Big East to Rick Pitino, his biggest rival. There was the loss to lowly Seton Hall on the road, which dropped UConn to 17-8 and permanently put them outside of the Final Four contender conversation. Hurley referred to the bus ride home afterward as a „coffin on wheels.“ And there was the caught-on-camera incident as Hurley walked through the tunnel after the end of UConn’s season. Following a thriller of a game against Florida, Baylor was up next, its players waiting to walk out for warmups. „I hope they don’t f— you like they f—– us,“ he told Baylor’s players. Hurley also released a book in September, wherein he revealed that he briefly but semi-seriously contemplated taking a year away from coaching, with a pivot to broadcasting.
In October, Hurley told me: „I had a shit year. I didn’t coach my best, I didn’t lead my best. I didn’t put together a group that could compete for the things we wanted to compete for. … „It was all my doing. I’m not a victim.“ Now UConn is back as a national title contender, and Hurley’s been making headlines for much better reasons over the past two months.
5. Cinderella’s MIA: NCAA Tournament has almost no mid-major charm (March): The NCAA Tournament is built in no small part on the attractiveness of Cinderella. In 2025, she was almost entirely locked out. Not a single mid-major program made the Sweet 16, which marked only the second time in the 64-/68-team era that was the case, and for the first time ever, the entirety of the Sweet 16 in the modern era came exclusively from power conferences (ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, SEC). It was the first tournament since 2017 that no 13s, 14s, 15 or 16s won a game. McNeese’s 12-over-5 first-round win vs. Clemson was the only mid-major upset of the tournament.
The only double-digit seed to make the second weekend was 10th-seeded Arkansas. The 2025 NCAAs had the fewest upsets of any tournament ever. All top four seeds won their first-round game. Fifteen out of the 16 Sweet 16 teams were seeded No. 6 or better. The Elite Eight had all four 1-seeds, one of the only times that’s ever happened — with all four 1s making the Final Four for just the second time in history. The Big Ten and SEC alone made up 16 of the 32 teams still alive in the second round.
So gross.
I hope this never happens again.
4. Cooper Flagg beats Johni Broome for NPOY (late March-early April): It was one of the best NPOY races of the past 30 years, and I’m here to remind you that Flagg didn’t have it in the bag until basically mid-March. Even then, check how close these two were.
- Flagg: 19.2 ppg, 7.5 rpg, 4.2 apg, 1.4 spg, 1.4 bpg, 38.5 3-point percentage and 53.3 eFG% and a 30.4 PER in 37 games for a No. 1 seed, 35-4 Duke team that lost in the Final Four
- Broome: 18.6 ppg, 10.8 rpg, 2.9 apg, 2.1 bpg, .9 spg, 27.8 3-point percentage and 53.4 eFG% and a 30.9 PER in 36 games for a No. 1 seed, 32-6 Auburn team that lost in the Final Four
Broome was the clear leader after his Auburn team won the most loaded Maui Invitational ever. He still had the lead on Flagg after December. At the end of January, it was a toss-up, and then by mid-February I knew we were in special territory with these two. Because Flagg starred for Duke, because he led his team in all five statistical categories, because he was the obvious No. 1 pick, because his game popped more on TV, he wound up winning almost all of the NPOY awards, but Broome got one as well. Hopefully this year can give us another race just as compelling.
3. Portal player prices skyrocket, then the House settlement turns recruiting into an even bigger quagmire (spring-into-summer): This is a combo story of sorts. The portal prices went nuts in April and May because of the looming House settlement. By my estimation, we have at least 18, maybe more than 20 schools this season paying out $10 million or more to their rosters. It’s gotten bigger each year, but this past spring truly was total portal pandemonium. When the House case settlement went official on July 1, with a revenue-share cap at $20.5 million for the 2025-26 fiscal year, it led to uncertainty across the sport.
Schools with high-end football are obviously dedicating 75-80-85% of their revenue share to football. Where does hoops fit in? That prompted paranoia to this extent from some coaches: Is the Big East working on a different tier? Are collectives banned or not? What will it take to pay players? Is under-the-table cheating coming back, and if so, to what degree will you be able to break the rules and not face consequences? I would argue this story is actually The Biggest in college basketball this season in many ways because the gears and levers that maneuver the sport are working against each other and it still doesn’t seem like calm, pragmatic resolution is in sight.
Imagn Images
2. Duke’s epic season, and Flagg’s brilliant freshman year, ends with Final Four collapse vs. Houston (April 6): The 2025 Final Four is an all-timer because of having four 1-seeds but also two incredible comebacks/collapses. For as big as Florida’s title win was, Houston’s escape job vs. Duke also ranks in the annals of all-time Final Four battles. With 8:17 remaining, Duke led 59-45. Then the No. 1 offense in the sport — and the most efficient in KenPom history — managed ONE field goal in the final 10 minutes and 30 seconds.
Duke never grabbed a rebound after 3:24 remained. Houston outscored Duke 9-0 in the final 33 seconds, with Jon Scheyer going to Flagg to win it late, only to have shot fall short because Houston’s ultra-vet J’Wan Roberts had it read the whole way. The best team doesn’t always win the NCAA Tournament. Flagg was amazing and Duke was loaded: five NBA picks in the starting lineup. A great team that was undone in an unforgettable way. And to think, two nights later, Houston would fall victim in similar style.
1. Florida’s national title cements the SEC having the best season in college basketball history (April 8): The SEC’s hot start was the No. 9 story on my list a year ago. Even before we get to the Florida championship piece, consider what the league pulled off by the end of the 2024-25 season.
- The SEC lost only 23 non-con games last season, and by going 21-7 in the regular season vs. non-con ranked competition, it broke the ACC’s previous record by eight victories
- We had No. 1 vs. No. 2 Auburn against Bama in February, remember
- The SEC’s 23 NCAA Tournament wins broke the ACC’s record of 19 in 2019
- The SEC’s +22.09 KenPom rating was the highest rating in history, breaking the ACC’s +21.37 record in 1997
- Fourteen teams to the NCAA Tournament, a record smashed by the previous mark of the Big East’s 11 in 2011
- The SEC sent a record seven teams to the Sweet 16
- It sent four teams to the Elite Eight, just the third time a league had done that (2016 ACC, 2009 Big East)
It was fitting for Florida to win the whole thing. It was the least discussed of the No. 1 seeds and least buzzed about Final Four team. But it beat No. 1 overall seed Auburn, then came back from 12 down in the second half to Houston to win its third championship. Florida never led by more than two in the title game. Walter Clayton Jr. became a program legend and cemented himself as the third-best player in the sport that season with his MOP performance. They finished the season 17-1 in their final 18 games.
Golden won a title under the age of 40, becoming the first coach to do so since Jim Valvano in 1983. And the SEC cemented its 2024-25 status as the greatest season by any league ever. Having a team win the whole thing was the last necessary piece to make it permanent. I don’t think we’ll see a league ever have a better year than what the SEC did in 2025.
Imagn Images
