The Texas Longhorns and the South Carolina Gamecocks each did everything they could to stake their respective claim to be the No. 1 seed in the upcoming SEC Tournament. But ultimately, their fate ended up being completely out of their own hands, and instead in the hands of SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey.
South Carolina and Texas finished the season with a 15-1 conference record after both teams won their final conference game on Sunday, with each of their SEC losses coming against each other. This negated the first typical tie-breaker of the SEC, head-to-head record, when two teams are tied at the top of the conference.
The second tiebreaker that the SEC goes to in this situation is the respective results of the two teams against the highest seed in the conference other than themselves. But considering both teams only lost to one another in conference play, this tiebreaker was also negated.
As a result, the third tiebreaker, an entirely luck-based tiebreaker, came into play. To settle who would be the No. 1 seed, Greg Sankey flipped a two-sides coin with the logos of both teams during halftime of the SEC matchup between Ole Miss and LSU on the SEC Network Sunday. Ultimately, South Carolina would luck into the top seed.
Gamecocks win the coin toss!@GamecockWBB will be the No. 1 seed in the SEC women’s tournament 🤙 pic.twitter.com/ouJD6hkmVP
— SEC Network (@SECNetwork) March 2, 2025
For an entire regular season worth of conference play to come down to a coin toss is certainly not what Texas or South Carolina envisioned at the start of the season.
Naturally, there were plenty of media members who thought that the coin toss tiebreaker was ridiculous and other factors should have come into play before it came to this point.
“A coin flip? C’mon,” wrote longtime college basketball analyst Jeff Goodman in a post on X.
A coin flip? C’mon. https://t.co/pB3Oy1dxgi
— Jeff Goodman (@GoodmanHoops) March 2, 2025
“In a sports world driven more and more by data and metrics, it all came down to… a coin toss,” wrote Scott Hamilton of 107.5 The Game in Columbia, South Carolina. “And an awkward one at that.”
In a sports world driven more and more by data and metrics, it all came down to … a coin toss. And an awkward one at that.
— Scott Hamilton (@ScottHamiltonPC) March 2, 2025
However, some others believed that the coin toss was a positive considering it provided some entertaining drama to build interest for the SEC Tournament.
“This should be every conference’s No. 2 tiebreaker after head-to-head for every sport. It’s made-for-TV drama and it’s easy to understand,” wrote Chris Vannini of The Athletic.
South Carolina wins the coin toss to be the SEC WBB No. 1 seed.
This should be every conference’s No. 2 tiebreaker after head-to-head for every sport. It’s made-for-TV drama and it’s easy to understand.
“Ain’t no curses.” pic.twitter.com/rz6Zj2rkYu
— Chris Vannini (@ChrisVannini) March 2, 2025
On paper, it sure seems like there are other statistics that could be looked at the replace the randomness of a coin toss in the future.
In this situation where the first two tiebreakers do not apply, you could certainly look at the point differential in the head-to-head matchups between the two teams. Or even the point differential of the two teams throughout SEC play if you want a larger sample size.
Even if either of those two tiebreakers did come before a coin toss, South Carolina would have won on those tiebreakers and been the No. 1 seed over Texas anyways. So at least everything worked out the way that most believed that it should have.
