Credit: Jeff Blake-Imagn Images
By Chris Marler
The SEC has fallen off and is no longer the most dominant conference in college sports.
That’s the not-so-little white lie and egregious embellishment that has been told the last few years around collegiate athletics. Getting the most teams in the CFP doesn’t matter if you don’t win the national title. Getting the most teams in the NCAA tournament for two years in a row if you don’t have a Final Four team in one of those years.
Nevermind that half the Final Four was from the SEC, not to mention the national champion, just a season ago. That doesn’t matter. Those goalposts are getting moved if it involves an argument about the SEC.
What’s wild about that argument is that fans from other conferences are telling on themselves when they say it. To be more specific, they’re telling on themselves for not watching women’s sports.
The SEC is dominating that. Again.
Dawn Staley’s 6 straight Final Fours puts South Carolina coach in rare territory https://t.co/PCaVLoqaAV
— The Greenville News (@GreenvilleNews) April 1, 2026
They do every year, but this year is another reminder of how great the competition continues to be around this league in women’s sports.
Look at basketball. This is the third time in the last four years that half the Final Four will be made up of SEC teams. The conference also got ten teams in the tournament, with half of those ranking in the top ten nationally at the regular season’s end, including four in the top six. It’s the second consecutive year Texas and South Carolina are both in the Final Four and the sixth consecutive year South Carolina has made it.
That seems pretty dominant. The league has also won four of the last eight national titles, but I digress.
Then there’s softball. As of today, 11 of the 15 teams in the league with a softball team are ranked in the Top 25. That includes the No. 1 overall team (Texas) and four of the top five. Oh by the way, 11 of the last 13 national champions reside in the conference as well. If that’s not good enough, how about the fact that the conference has been responsible for at least half the field of the Women’s College World Series in the last two seasons including five of the eight teams a season ago.
keep that ball 🥎@DevonEnergy | @KendallWells__ https://t.co/t6GNtdVte7 pic.twitter.com/RUZruKLu3W
— Oklahoma Softball (@OU_Softball) April 1, 2026
More important than all of the facts and conference bragging rights I just mentioned though, the teams, coaches, and players from this league have grown their games exponentially over the last several seasons.
Don’t be a casual. Watch women’s sports. Not just for the conference bragging rights either.
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