Mark Story: You know who else the SEC isn't doing any favors? It's Mark Pope.

Mark Story, Lexington Herald-Leader on Jun 20, 2025

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LEXINGTON, Ky. — If the college hoops talking heads are right, there are five SEC men’s basketball teams that will be the league’s creme de la creme in 2025-26.

That quintet of Southeastern Conference squads — Arkansas, Auburn, defending NCAA champion Florida, Kentucky and Tennessee — are the only league teams to be included in all four of the men’s college hoops “Way Too Early Top 25s” produced, respectively, by ESPN.com, CBSSports.com, SI.com and On3.com.

So when the SEC league office announced the 2025-26 men’s hoops conference opponents for each of its league schools Wednesday, it provided an opportunity to gauge which of the league’s expected “big five” for next season has drawn the toughest league slate.

On paper, it is Kentucky — and it is not close.

For Mark Pope’s second season as top Cat, UK will be the only team from the SEC’s expected “big five” who will play home-and-away games with two of the other projected top five league teams.

The Wildcats will face both Florida and traditional border rival Tennessee twice in 2025-26.

Arkansas (which will play Auburn twice), Auburn (Arkansas), Florida (Kentucky) and Tennessee (Kentucky) will all play home-and-home with only one of the league’s predicted top five.

In fairness, Alabama was projected in the Way Too Early Top 25s by three of the four national outlets cited above, excluded by only SI.com. Both Auburn and Tennessee are also playing home-and-away with Nate Oats’ Crimson Tide, which won’t be any picnic.

For UK, two games each with the Bull Gators and the Rocky Toppers are only part of the challenge the SEC has cooked up for the Wildcats in 2025-26.

Of the five teams projected to be the SEC’s best in the coming season, Kentucky is the only one that will play road games against all four of the others (and the Wildcats will also face Alabama in Tuscaloosa).

Auburn (at Arkansas, at Florida and at Tennessee) and Tennessee (at Arkansas, at Florida, at Kentucky) will both play three such games.

John Calipari and Arkansas will face only two (at Auburn, at Florida) of the SEC’s other top five teams on the road.

As Florida guns for an NCAA title repeat, Todd Golden’s Gators will play only one game on the road against another of the SEC’s projected top five teams — and that, of course, will be at Rupp Arena.

Circumstances, not an anti-Big Blue conspiracy in the SEC office, are the main reason Kentucky’s league road slate looks so daunting for 2025-26.

As we know, the SEC alternates home-and-away sites in back-to-back years for teams that do not face each other twice in a given season. So UK road trips to Arkansas and Auburn in the coming season are return dates for games that were played in Lexington in 2024-25.

Under the SEC scheduling format in effect since Oklahoma and Texas joined the league in 2024, Kentucky annually plays home-and-home with Tennessee and Vanderbilt.

Only UK’s double-dip with Florida this season is discretionary scheduling. One can surmise that ESPN, the SEC’s media rights holder, was beyond keen at the idea of telecasting two games pitting the reigning national champion and the Southeastern Conference’s traditional men’s hoops kingpin.

We’ll see if the teams projected by the national basketball gurus to be the five best in the SEC right now turn out to be so next winter. As viewed presently, however, Kentucky’s path to an SEC regular season title in 2025-26 looks far more arduous than those faced by the teams that figure to be the Wildcats’ toughest challengers.

That matters because part of Pope’s assignment in attempting to restore the luster to UK basketball is to get the Cats back to winning Southeastern Conference championships.

As UK backers are all too aware, Kentucky has not won an SEC regular season crown since 2019-20.

The Wildcats have not cut down the nets after claiming victory in an SEC tournament since 2017-18.

For a program that has won or shared in 49 previous SEC regular season championships and claimed the SEC tournament title 32 times, those championship droughts feel of biblical proportions.

If the men’s college hoops analysts are correct, the SEC overall will not be as formidable in 2025-26 as it was during 2024-25’s historic season for the league.

Last year, as you well know, the SEC put a record 14 teams into the NCAA tournament, filled seven of the slots in the Sweet 16, had half of the Elite Eight, two of the Final Four and produced the national champion.

This year, CBSSports.com projects “only” seven SEC teams in its Top 25; ESPN.com and On3.com each have six; SI.com has a mere five.

Nevertheless, given how many of the SEC’s other projected top teams Kentucky must play on the road in 2025-26, this is a certainty for Pope’s second season on the UK bench:

If the Wildcats, at long last, reclaim the SEC crown in the coming season, they will have earned it.

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