Call it a comeback?

Even the staunchest SEC homer would have to admit the last few years have not been good on the hardwood.  It's been Kentucky, Florida, and...well...not much else.  That seems to be changing:

“If you take into consideration our records, the wins that we have, it’s the No. 1 strength of schedule as a conference across the board, it’s No. 3 RPI . . . our league’s good,” South Carolina’s Frank Martin said. “I can care less what the popular opinion is.”

That Florida - highly regarded in the preseason - has struggled so far has masked the fact that, top to bottom, the SEC has quite a few quality basketball teams.  The general public may not have taken note yet, but the pundits are starting to:

ESPN analyst Joe Lunardi had five SEC teams in his bracket, including Georgia at No. 10. Jerry Palm of CBSsports.com also has Georgia at No. 10, and has four SEC teams in. Palm leaves out South Carolina, but Lunardi has the Gamecocks in.

For a team like Georgia, trying to play its way to an at-large berth, the news couldn't be better.  A weak conference means the margin for error is razor thin.  Last year, even 12 conference wins couldn't get Georgia to the dance (of course, 6 non-conference losses had something to do with that).  This year, 10 might do the trick thanks to overall league strength.

The flip side, of course, is that league wins will be harder to come by this season because of the resurgence.

The hope for the Bulldogs is that their veteran team gives them an advantage heading into conference play:

“This time last year, obviously we were still trying to find ourselves,” senior forward Marcus Thornton said. “This year, we kind of an idea of who we are, but feel like we can keep getting better.”

If Marcus is right, a second round game in Charlotte or Jacksonville becomes more real every day.