LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- Florida, once a program that produced shrugs in the Southeastern Conference, won the 2025 NCAA men's basketball championship.
Auburn, once coached for 10 seasons by Shug Jordan, the Tigers' football head coach, joined the Gators in the Final Four.
Alabama and Tennessee crashed the Elite Eight. Ole Miss and Arkansas joined Kentucky as part of a historic SEC contingent that claimed roughly 44% of the Sweet Sixteen.
Before you place that information in the Old News file, add this tidbit to the folder:
Nate Ament, a high school senior generally considered one of the five best prospects in the nation, picked Tennessee, a program that has never been to the Final Four, over (at least) four programs that have won national championships.
That would be Duke and Louisville and Arkansas (coached by John Calipari) and Kentucky.
Ament told Jeff Borzello one reason was UT coach Rick Barnes coached Kevin Durant for a one-and-done season at Texas before Durant left Austin to become an NBA MVP and perennial all-star. At 6 feet, 9 inches tall, Ament envisions himself playing the forward position the way that Durant has played it.
I wasn't there for the interview but I believe I would have asked Ament a follow-up:
Did Ament believe that Jon Scheyer did a reasonable job with Cooper Flagg and Kon Knueppel this spring at Duke?
Was he aware of the stories of Anthony Davis, John Wall, Julius Randle, Devin Booker or the likely 2025 NBA MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander who played for Calipari at Kentucky?
UK coach Mark Pope and Pat Kelsey of Louisville don't have a Kevin Durant card (yet) to play in their recruiting pitch, but Scheyer and Calipari certainly do.
If that really matters.
Maybe it does.
Or maybe it came down to the best package of tuition, room, board, books and spending money.
Anything goes today.
But my post-NCAA Tournament takeaways from the Ament decision is easy: With Ament snubbing Duke (as well as the Cards), U of L won't have to deal with him in the ACC next season. But, more importantly, SEC basketball programs are no longer bending a knee to Kentucky or any program that aspires to greatness in men's basketball.
What happened this season, when a record 14 of 16 SEC teams made the NCAA field, was more of a look at the future than a fluke.
There was a time when if Kentucky and Tennessee both wanted a basketball player, the Vols were resigned to settling for Plan B.
In the 1990s, Rick Pitino went into Nashville for Ron Mercer and Brownsville, Tennessee, for Tony Delk and added those two terrific players to the powerful UK 1996 national championship team.
Derrick Hord, the pride of Bristol, Tennessee, was one of the top prospects in the stacked 1979 high school class. Hord scored 1,220 points for Joe B. Hall at UK, not for a frustrated Don DeVoe at Tennessee.
Many players that Tennessee landed were guys that did not have the UK recruiting staff hyperventilating.
There was Allan Houston, who followed his father, Wade, to Knoxville. He was unavailable. There was Jermaine Brown, a state champion at Fairdale, who was undersized to be a great SEC player.
And, of course, there was Chris Lofton, a recruiting miscalculation by Tubby Smith. Lofton scored 2,131 points for the Vols and developed into a second-team all-American for the Vols after leading Mason County to the Kentucky 2003 state championship.
Nate Ament is not Chris Lofton. He ranks with Cameron Boozer (Duke), Darryn Patterson (Kansas) and A.J. Dybantsa (Brigham Young) among the nation's best prospects. According to 247Sports, Ament is the highest-ranked high school player to ever commit to Tennessee. His commitment bumped to the Vols No. 13 overall in the website's composite rankings of high school guys.
Get this: Five SEC schools rank in the top 15 and seven in the top 20. And, among high school prospects, Kentucky is not one of those seven schools.
The strength of Pope's incoming players is where it needs to be — in the transfer portal.
Kentucky ranks third, behind No. 1 Michigan and Louisville, with its portal class.
Combining high school and portal guys, 247Sports ranks the Wildcats' incoming group of players second, behind national runner-up Houston and one spot ahead of Calipari and Arkansas.
But Tennessee, with Ament, is ranked 10th, one of three other SEC programs in the top 15 and seven others in the top 26.
The days of the rest of the SEC bending a knee to Kentucky or any basketball program are over.
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