SEC Media Days Takeaways: Florida's Rueben Chinyelu guarantees national title, LSU litigation saga continues

The SEC seems poised to be the best league in college basketball — again. Here Matt Norlander spent Tuesday and Wednesday in Alabama for the SEC's 2026 college basketball media days. He interviewed nearly 20 coaches and players — all of which you can watch on the Eye on College Basketball YouTube page. A few of those conversations are embedded below in this elongated notebook of takeaways, starting with the biggest talking point on the ground at the league's annual press event … MOUNTAIN BROOK, Ala. — The biggest story of 2026 SEC basketball media days was the school, and the coach, that never showed up. "Dense fog" Tuesday in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, precluded LSU's men's and women's teams from taking off in a timely fashion — and led to a Tigers no-show.

The school's private jet was, effectively, ineligible for takeoff. (This plot twist came under expected skepticism, but meteorologists in Louisiana were ready to provide viable evidence for the ground stop.) With an exhibition game awaiting Wednesday night for Will Wade's program, adjusting the interview schedule was evidently too difficult for LSU and the SEC to find a quick workaround, despite the approximate 25-minute flight from Baton Rouge to Birmingham. So, Wade no-showed and eventually hopped on a Zoom call with a handful of reporters as a make-good,