SEC gets chance to make statement vs. ACC on Sunday

South Carolina's Sindarius Thornwell (0) reacts to making a basket against Marquette during the second half in a first-round game of the NCAA men's college basketball tournament in Greenville, S.C., Friday, March 17, 2017. (AP Photo/Chuck Burton)

— Sunday’s NCAA Tournament games at Bon Secours Arena have turned into the ACC/SEC Challenge.

Arkansas (26-9) will meet ACC regular-season champ North Carolina (28-75) in a South Regional game at 5:10 p.m., while South Carolina (23-10) and ACC Tournament champ Duke (28-8) will meet in an East Regional game around 30 minutes after game one finishes.

Those matchups come after the SEC finished 4-1 in opening-round action after the league got five teams in the Big Dance, two more than the previous season

“It's an opportunity for us,” Arkansas head coach Mike Anderson said of the SEC. “You've got to be in those situations in order to -- you talk about the brand, the SEC brand -- we talk about. And yes I think we had five teams, possibly (could have) had six or seven teams in the tournament. And it's what you do once you get into the tournament.”

Arkansas whipped Seton Hall 77-71 while South Carolina downed Marquette 93-73 in opening round games.

Kentucky and Florida also won their first-round games while Vanderbilt’s Matthew Fisher-Davis fouled Northwestern with his team up one - while thinking they were down one - and the Commodores lost.

“South Carolina had an outstanding game last night,” Anderson said. “Vanderbilt was probably one play away from winning as well.

But I think the commitment from the SEC has been awesome from the institutions, each institution with the coaches they're bringing in, I think they're really pulling into their programs and I think you're going to see a big difference.

“And we're seeing it right now. I think it's starting to scratch the surface, when you talk about recruiting, the coaches that are in place. And even this year, we had three last year… We got five this year. So I think it's just a sign of some great things to come and we'll be one of the better conferences in the country.”

South Carolina head coach Frank Martin sees this as a showcase for the SEC.

“Yeah, absolutely,” Martin said. “I mean, all of us in the SEC understand that we're carrying a banner that's a little bigger than just our own schools. We know we've got a real good league.

“It's unfortunate that there's been a message put out there -- I'm not saying our league's better than anybody's. I've been in other leagues. I comprehend how every league is. But we don't take a back seat to anybody.

“And that's the one good thing that -- I can't speak for the other SEC schools, I know they feel this way but I don't want to speak for them -- our guys are battle tested because of the games that we've had to play in our conference.

“Playing Vanderbilt, Kentucky, Florida, Arkansas, all them teams, our guys have been prepared for this moment. And we collectively, the coaches, we're taking pride in trying to change this whole message about the SEC being inferior to other leagues.”

North Carolina is likely to have far more fans in the stands than Arkansas, but the Razorbacks have fared well in hostile arenas this season.

“We've been playing at neutral sites,” Arkansas senior guard Manuale Watkins said. “They obviously had a lot more fans and Carolina is going to have a lot more tomorrow.

“But we don't really get into the fans and the atmosphere. We're just here to play basketball and do what we love to do. That's all our focus is is going to be just try to get a win in. They have five guys out there; we've got five guys out there. That's basketball.”

South Carolina - whose campus is just 120 miles from Greenville - had a majority of the fans in the arena on Friday night in its win over Marquette.

It’s expected it will be the same against Duke in a regional that was moved from North Carolina to South Carolina because of the state of North Carolina’s HB2 law.

That law is widely viewed as anti-LBGT and has cost the state ACC and NCAA Tournaments, the NBA All-star game, jobs and economic development.

Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski calls the law a bad one, but says his team just deals with it.

“You know, we're okay,” Kryzewski said. “We're fine. We usually always play in front of a packed arena. And when we're on the road, we're always in an arena where people want to beat us.

“We'd rather have an upbeat crowd. I don't think it will hurt us. It probably helps them because it's nice to hear people cheering for you. But it won't be intimidating to us.

“And it's just the way it is. I have no complaints. Let’s just play. We're okay. If we lose, it won't be because we couldn't -- because they had more people here than we did. It will be because they played better defense than we played offense, you know.”

Blue Devils guard Grayson Allen, who has become vilified on opposing teams’s courts, welcomes the challenge.

“It's another game for us,” Allen said. “And we like tough environments. We played in tough environments all year, really. And I did hear their crowd at the end of our game.

“When they were coming on to the court, they got a big standing ovation from their crowd. And they're going to be well supported. I mean, we know we're going to have Duke fans in the crowd, too. But it's really just another tough game for us.”