SOUTHEASTERN CONFERENCE BASKETBALL TIPOFF MEDIA DAYS

October 14, 2026

Greg Sankey

Commissioner

Media Day Press Conference

COMMISSIONER SANKEY: Good morning. I want to begin by thanking Garth and Tiffany for becoming the intro people during basketball media days. If you had followed me last year, the activity around videoconferences and conference calls, meetings, had me running down hallways while having left a videoconference that was still active introducing people and running back quickly, acting as if I hadn't missed any of the videoconference.

Their assistance is much appreciated. I know we fit a lot of activity into these couple days. Appreciate the opportunity to visit with you and your work and presence here.

Also thank our staff, Tammy Wilson and Craig Pinkerton on the women's basketball and men's basketball side for their work - none of this stuff happens by itself - the folks from the SEC Network and ESPN. Also one of the those difficult roles that are filled by two outstanding people, Lisa Mattingly in coordinating, officiating on the women's side and Mike Eades on the men's side.

It's been an interesting off-season. If you look back to last season with our combined total of 20 teams, 10 on the men's and 10 on the women's side, we led among our colleague conferences with access to the NCAA tournament. We led in attendance as a conference in both men's and women's basketball across the league. We had half of the Women's Final Four yet again, and in men's basketball, when you look at what happened in 2025 and 2026, 24 total teams, having led the nation with access into the NCAA tournament in men's basketball for both years.

Go back six, seven years, you wouldn't have predicted that type of performance and type of consistency, yet that's the kind of expectations that we have.

In that off-season, there's been plenty of NCAA decisions, plenty of waiver outcomes, some of which I still wonder what happened there. There's been plenty of litigation and a great deal of energy spent on legislation. Between our gathering in Destin, if you remember on Wednesday of the Destin meeting, the Protect College Sports Act was introduced, the week before the SCORE Act in the House of Representatives had been pulled from considerations.

Those actions really filled the summer months with a level of activity that it's always busy, but an even more active time.

I think at least the positive opportunities in front of us legislatively are that the Senate did act in a bipartisan way, a number that some hoped to achieve but didn't expect. We're now in an election cycle. The expectation and, in fact, the messaging has been that the House of Representatives, when it returns, will take up that piece of legislation. We don't know the direction obviously and don't know the outcome, but we'll continue in communication because if we're to expect and experience things like a Final Four on the men's basketball side and the women's basketball side, College World Series, College Football Playoff, we have to have national standards. This week probably illustrates how we continue to work through state-by-state issues.

If we want those national championships across all sports, given the diversity in Division I, small private colleges, the draw from a regional base to large public universities that can put 100,000 people in a football stadium, we need those national standards. So we'll continue to work at the Congressional level.

It also means that if change is not accessed or not achieved at that national level, there will be more and more conversation about how we as a conference function in our own decisionmaking. We have had rules in the past that apply only to our conference that are more restrictive generally than might happen nationally. That type of conversation has been initiated.

While I'd rather talk about basketball, I'll open it up to see what may be on your mind this morning.

Q. There was a vote of SEC presidents that was tabled recently that would enforce a one-year sitting period for players who transfer within the conference. What would your thoughts be on that?

COMMISSIONER SANKEY: I don't know that it will come back up. Those considerations are generated from dialogue with our membership. We had actually in this room in late August, a two-day meeting of presidents, chancellors and athletics directors really looking at a strategic framework.

One of the outcomes is, hey, draft up transfer policies that could apply to us as a conference, some of which we've had in the past. But also look at the legal landscape.

All of that combined, very healthy conversation. We gathered our athletic directors in mid-September to look even more deeply at the issues, resulted in the tabling, which means it's not right now. We'll see what happens with the Congressional activity.

We also have some court decisions on transfer issues that have existed that have to be considered. If you will, I'm agnostic on whether or not it comes back. I think tabling was the right action at this point.

Q. In regards to your response to the LSU motion to dismiss yesterday, the suit mentions RJ Luis, who Coach Wade said yesterday is not rostered. He does have two players, however, that had gone through the NBA Draft process and are still under consideration. What would be the consequence if those two players were to play?

COMMISSIONER SANKEY: We'll let our filings speak for themselves on these issues.

Q. A lot of baseball players potentially eligible under 5-in-5 to return from the pros; no real mention of baseball in the statements that the conference has released. We've heard from head coach Rob Vaughn that Greg Byrne is working to make that decision. Where does the conference stand on minor league baseball players potentially returning to play college baseball?

COMMISSIONER SANKEY: Similar stances on other sports. If you look at the statements, we were assigned the responsibility and the expectation with our universities that they communicate with us. We've continued to share information on how those issues would be handled.

I think when you look at the principles up front, somebody who enrolls in college and chooses to depart, that's where we've drawn the line, and we'll continue to develop those boundary lines.

What's interesting about these types of conversations, if we were here a year ago -- and I forget, there was one NCAA waiver that really became a tipping point for considerations.

The notion that we had people coming back from a professional experience, specifically minor league baseball players coming back, that issue has been dealt with before, and it hasn't happened. Same with the NFL circumstances. Same with the NBA circumstances.

Yet we find ourselves in this point of confusion. Part of what we've been charged with is to bring as much clarity, whether it's minor league baseball or other sports, as we can, given some of the circumstances around us.

Q. I understand there are legal filings and all those things. I'll ask generally, what do you want to see from LSU to feel better about their standing in the conference?

COMMISSIONER SANKEY: Well, I'd like to not be in court. But as I said, those legal filings speak for themselves.

Q. Are you concerned, I guess personally, that all these legal things that are occurring between the SEC and one of its founding members could damage the relationship for the foreseeable future?

COMMISSIONER SANKEY: Certainly concerned. We've had disagreements among our membership over time. So this is year 12 for me. I know that there's also a commitment to the league and a commitment to its members.

We have to work through some of these difficulties.

Q. What, if any, conversations have you had with Will Wade about the construction of his roster at any point this off-season?

COMMISSIONER SANKEY: I keep conversations to myself most frequently.

Q. We've talked a lot about College Football Playoff's 24 teams. You said you wanted to do a lot of research on where you see that going. What has that research found? Are you open to a 24-team model?

COMMISSIONER SANKEY: I think I've always communicated that we've never said no, that that won't happen, that won't be a point of support.

If we go back to my last media day visit, which would have been in Tampa, identified the considerations around media interest, around where the games are played, around impact on the regular season, noting that is a judgment that has to be made.

We've worked through and continue to consider and work through those issues. I think there's an openness to playoff expansion on our part. I certainly think there's an openness.

Attitudes change over time, and perspectives change. We'll see where that leads us from a final decision standpoint. But going through and trying to remember metrics and analytics and predictives that may have come from that is probably incredibly boring, and I'd be mostly wrong.

I think in general, we have achieved some of the progress we've expected on scheduling commitments. We'll see if we can finalize those across the nation.

We'll go from there, make some final decisions probably sooner rather than later is my expectation.

Q. There's been a lot of conversation about the officiating in the Alabama-Georgia game Saturday night. How does the conference decide when to comment on those situations?

COMMISSIONER SANKEY: I think we've indicated previously that we don't comment on judgment calls. We have a high expectation of performance for everyone involved: myself, our staff, officials. Our officials dedicate a great deal of time to preparation. Those bang-bang moments there are disagreements.

You saw us comment earlier on an error on the application of rule. Those are the standards. Sometimes we explain some context around why a particular decision was made.

But judgment calls are that. There's a lot of emotion and intensity around our games and officiating every week. There's a lot of respect for the work that officials do. There are going to be tough calls that happen. We want to get every one right. I mean that literally.

But it's a dynamic game with 22 players moving quickly and instantaneous decisions, not all of which are subject to replay. We're going to take from any experience the education and information and learn and prepare and work to get better.

THE MODERATOR: Commissioner Sankey, thank you very much.

COMMISSIONER SANKEY: Thank you. Back to basketball coaches. Hopefully that's more interesting than me (smiling).