Dribble Handoff: Predicting SEC basketball champion as league play nears: Florida, Alabama among expert picks

Four members of our six-person expert panel picked Florida to win the SEC before the season. But after a 7-4 start marked by a 3-4 record against high-major opposition, the No. 23 Gators are clearly a work in progress. 

Could they still win the SEC? Absolutely. Thomas Haugh is playing like an All-American, and if transfer guards Boogie Fland (Arkansas) and Xaivian Lee (Princeton) can recover from abysmal 3-point shooting starts, the sky is the limit for Florida. But there's a long way to go.

The other team receiving first-place votes in our preseason SEC poll was Kentucky, and the Wildcats have been an injury-prone wreck so far. They finally picked up a win over a top-200 NET team against Indiana last weekend. But at just 7-4 and with some ugly performance on its ledger, UK has a lot to prove before it can be viewed as a league title contender.

Inside why Kentucky is struggling with an expensive roster and what coach Mark Pope can do to fix the issues

Adam Finkelstein

So who will rise above the fray in the SEC to win a league that appears more wide open than initially anticipated? There are plenty of intriguing candidates, including a Vanderbilt team that improved to 11-0 Wednesday with a win at Memphis. The No. 13 Commodores are the SEC's highest-rated team at KenPom and are building off last year's breakthrough debut for coach Mark Byington.

Cases can be made for No. 14 Arkansas, No. 16 Alabama and No. 20 Tennessee as well. And what about Auburn? Bruce Pearl retired, and the Tigers have been on the wrong side of a couple lopsided defeats. But they also have double-digit wins over Oregon, St. John's and NC State.

For this week's Dribble Handoff, our writers are making their second-chance picks for who will win the SEC in 2026

Alabama

Each year, the SEC hands out trophies for both regular-season conference championships and conference-tournament championships. So, over the past five seasons, between 14 and 16 different programs have been competing for a total of 10 SEC trophies.

Alabama has four of them.

I think the Crimson Tide will get another in March.

I agree with most others that the SEC is wide-open and could be won by any number of teams, considering there are seven league members currently ranked between 10th and 25th at KenPom.com -- and none in the top nine. I'm not certain any of the seven have the stuff to actually finish with the best record in the SEC, but most of them do, which is among the reasons the eventual champ could finish with five or six conference losses. Either way, my guess is that Alabama finishes with fewer than anybody else and wins the SEC's regular-season title for the third time in a six-year span while Labaron Philon, the Crimson Tide's star guard, walks away with SEC Player of the Year honors. -- Gary Parrish

Kentucky

A classic and irresistible buy-low opportunity while at the same time staying true to what I predicted two months ago? Sign me up. I had Kentucky as the firm top team in the SEC heading into the season. Since then ... it's been rough. Only last Saturday, when UK beat Indiana 72-60 at Rupp Arena, did Mark Pope's team finally earn a win over a high-major opponent. It's 1-4 overall, with its last non-con power-conference opportunity looming this Saturday at the CBS Sports Classic against No. 22 St. John's. 

We may well see a big corner turned by Big Blue. With Jaland Lowe now back and running the point AND with defensive menace Jayden Quaintance expected to make his Kentucky debut in the near future, I am taking the Cats to emerge from what I think will be the most competitive race of any power conference. Kentucky has been near the top of the list of the most disappointing teams through the first six-plus weeks of the season. Lowe and Quaintance are the two most important players, though, and I think they'll prove that true in a few weeks' time. -- Matt Norlander

Florida

My how things have changed in just over a month since we first laid out our SEC predictions. Kentucky looks listless, Tennessee's lost three of its last four and defending national champion Florida is 7-4 entering the weekend. The league feels wide open.

Because of that, I'm sticking with my original pick of Florida, with Vanderbilt second if I had to reconfigure my projections. For as ugly as the record is, the truth is that this Florida team is very close to being 11-0. Three of its losses were against top-10 teams, and all four of its losses were by an average margin of just 3.8 points. There's no consolation in losing close games, but there is solace to be had in knowing this Gators team is close.

They've also undeniably not played well, too, which, with a glass-half-full mentality, is encouraging. There is so much more juice to be squeezed from this roster. The Xaivian Lee-Boogie Fland backcourt continues to grow. Thomas Haugh remains a star. And the frontcourt of Alex Condon and Reuben Chinyelu is as consistent as ever. Micah Handlogten minutes as a change-up also remain effective.

There are very few holes on this team is what this pick boils down to. And the holes that have existed so far seem very capable of being plugged and fixed for good.

I'm not sure this Florida team can be run-away-from-the-league good or even repeat national champion good. But in a wide-open SEC it has the horses and the scheme to win games by pounding the offensive glass and destroying teams with its defense. That was most of the recipe that led it to 36 wins last season (missing only Walter Clayton Jr. and a top-two offense), but it might still be good enough to get the Gators league hardware by regular season's end. -- Kyle Boone

Vanderbilt

Believing in a non-traditional power requires faith, but that faith is easier to find when it's backed up by evidence. Vanderbilt has provided ample evidence of its championship potential during an 11-0 start. The Commodores, in Year 2 under coach Mark Byington, have diversified their offensive arsenal and are routinely racing past their opponents with a high-powered attack. It's led by a dynamic 1-2 punch at guard in Duke Miles and Tyler Tanner, who have helped Vandy to the nation's second-best assist-to-turnover ratio while filling it up at a prolific clip. Frankie Collins is also dishing out nearly five assists per game off the bench and hasn't even begun to find his outside shooting stroke yet.

Returning forwards Tyler Nickel and Devin McGlockton provide size, floor spacing and leadership. One knock is that Vanderbilt is still a bit lean on the interior, which means Jalen Washington will have to stay healthy and out of foul trouble if the Commodores are going to have legitimate rim protection. But no one in this year's SEC is perfect, and the Commodores are the sort of wagon that can pounce on the many vulnerabilities of the league's other title contenders.

This team bears similarities to the 2020-21 Alabama team that won the SEC in coach Nate Oats' second year. The biggest difference is that Vanderbilt has actually proven significantly more at this point in the calendar than that Crimson Tide team, which recovered from a 4-3 start in non-conference play to go 16-2 in the SEC. In what's been a season of struggle for the SEC so far, the Commodores are an outlier for all the right reasons.  -- David Cobb

Florida

Not all conference schedules are created equal, and Florida's looks significantly easier in mid-December than it did in the preseason. South Carolina, Kentucky and Georgia form Florida's double-dip opponents. South Carolina still appears to be an SEC bottom-feeder. Georgia is better than we anticipated, but the jury is still out on that point guard room, and the proverbial horse has been beaten to death with Kentucky. Florida only has to play Arkansas, Alabama, Auburn and Tennessee once … at home. Outside of Vanderbilt, the five other teams that Florida has to tangle with on the road (Texas, Ole Miss, Missouri, Oklahoma and Texas A&M) are all in hot water to make the NCAA Tournament and rate outside the top-40 nationally.

Florida's schedule has aged well, and the data supports the eye test. Bart Torvik has the Gators' SEC slate ranked 13th easiest.

That doesn't even factor in that this team is not far away from being really good. The Gators are still crushing teams on the glass and in paint points. They still play ridiculously hard and present real headaches for SEC foes. We've seen multiple instances of transfers finding their footing after a few months in their new homes. If the execution improves and Boogie Fland, Xaivian Lee and Alex Condon start shooting it better from downtown to give Tommy Haugh a bit more help, the Gators will be in fine shape to emerge from an SEC that doesn't have a flawless team this year.

If the Gators hold serve at home, they can certainly head to Rupp on the final Saturday of the regular season with title implications at stake. -- Isaac Trotter

Florida

My preseason pick to win the SEC and the national title was Florida. Although I'm not super confident on the latter still, I will double down and take the Gators to win the SEC. Florida has too much talent on the roster not to compete for the conference crown again. I trust Florida to turn things around once SEC play rolls around next month.

Part of my belief is that Thomas Haugh is playing like an All-American and transfer guard Xaivian Lee is showing signs of improvement after a lackluster start to the season. It's also no secret that Todd Golden's squad has played a brutal nonconference schedule. Three of Florida's four losses this season have come to top-five opponents (Arizona, Duke and UConn). The only loss to an unranked team came against TCU last month.

The Gators have a clear identity and strength: their frontcourt. During conference play and the NCAA Tournament, Florida was able to overpower teams because of it. Sure, Florida doesn't have a guy on the roster of Walter Clayton Jr.'s caliber anymore, but this is still a good team.

The SEC is wide open, so it doesn't hurt to pick the team that showed it can win at all, less than nine months ago. -- Cameron Salerno