RebKell's Junkie Boards

[beknighted]

I was curious about how often conferences have gotten 5 teams into the Sweet 16. As it turns out, one conference has done it a lot (guess) and only two others have done it at all - this year's Big East and the Big XII in 2002 (which a lot of you might have guessed). The record, so far as I can tell, is 6, which has been accomplished twice. Here's the list:

6 teams

SEC 1990 - Auburn, Vandy, South Carolina, Arkansas, Mississippi, Tennessee
SEC 1998 - Alabama, Tennessee, LSU, Florida, Vandy, Georgia

5 teams

SEC 1984 Georgia, Mississippi, Tennessee, Alabama, LSU
SEC 1986 LSU, Georgia, Tennessee, Mississippi, Auburn
SEC 1991 Arkansas, Tennessee, Auburn, Vandy, Georgia
SEC 1996 Auburn, Alabama, Tennessee, Florida, Vandy, Georgia
Big XII 2002 - Oklahoma, Texas, Texas Tech, Colorado, Kansas State
Big East 2008 - UConn, Rutgers, Louisville, Notre Dame, Pittsburgh

The Big XII in 2002 is notable because the conference actually had 7 teams with top 4 seeds.

It's also interesting to note how much rarer it's gotten to put 5 teams into the Sweet 16. The SEC did it 4 times in 8 tournaments from 1984 to 1991, then it didn't happen again for 5 years, and there was a 4 year gap, and now a 6 year gap. I think you can attribute this to two factors. The first is that talent is spread out more, and the SEC's dominance is a thing of the past. The second is that the tournament went from 32 teams in the early days to 40 in 1986, 48 in 1990 and 64 in 1994. Until 1994, the top-seeded teams needed to win only one game to get to the Sweet 16, and it was easier for them to do so as a result.

[ripleydc]

do you happen to know how many times one conf has had 3 teams in the final 4?

happened in '06...has it happened before?

[pilight]

[beknighted]

BTW, in the early days the tournament committee didn't have any problem putting two or even three teams from one conference in a bracket when they could have been spread out more. There are multiple examples of this in the Sweet 16 in the 1980s, mostly from the SEC, but also from other conferences. It stopped in the early 1990s. This probably is one reason why there aren't more examples of three teams from a conference in the Final Four - the brackets essentially prevented it.