All 14 teams in the SEC will be participating in this year’s SEC conference tournament. Things are a bit different in the SEC this year to say the least., with Auburn and Tennessee at the top, and then Florida and Kentucky on the #3 and #4 lines. It may not matter for the Wildcats, who have won this tournament three straight times and five of the last eight. The Wildcats lost the championship game in 2012 and 2014.
The field is set for the Conference Tournament, which begins March 7 at the Scottrade Center in St. Louis, Missouri. This is also a big change for the league this season, after three straight years in Nashville , where there is a different fan base.. We’ll have to see how this goes at the site of the Missouri Valley Conference Tournament, which is traditionally known as an under arena.
Top Seeds and Betting Odds
- Auburn 25-6 (13-5) (H2H tiebreaker), +400
- Tennessee 23-7 (13-5), +400
- Florida 20-11 (11-7), +500
- Kentucky 21-10 (10-8) (H2H tiebreaker), +450
- Missouri 20-11 (10-8), +1400
- Arkansas 21-10 (10-8), +1200
- Mississippi State 21-10 (9-9) (H2H tiebreaker), +800
- Texas A&M 20-11 (9-9), +1000
- Alabama 17-14 (8-10) (H2H tiebreaker), +1200
- LSU 17-13 (8-10), +2500
- South Carolina 16-15 (7-11) (H2H tiebreaker), +3300
- Georgia 16-14 (7-11), +5000
- Vanderbilt 12-19 (6-12), +10000
- Ole Miss 12-19 (5-13), +10000
The bottom four seeds will play in the first round on Wednesday, with seeds 5 through 10 in action for the first time on Thursday. The top-four seeds get byes into the quarterfinals. Like most deep conference tournaments, this one has sessions for the second round and quarterfinals, so you’ll want to watch those scheduling situations as we go throughout this tournament.
Schedule:
Wednesday March 7
#12 Georgia vs. #13 Vanderbilt
#11 South Carolina vs. #14 Ole Miss
Thursday March 8
#8 Texas A&M vs. #9 Alabama
#5 Missouri vs. 12/13 winner
#7 Mississippi State vs. #10 LSU
#6 Arkansas vs. 11/14 winner
Friday March 9
#1 Auburn vs. 8/9 winner
#4 Kentucky vs. 5/12/13 winner
#2 Tennessee vs. 7/10 winner
#3 Florida vs. 6/11/14 winner
Saturday March 10
1/8/9 vs. 4/5/12/13
2/7/10 vs. 3/6/11/14
Sunday March 11
Championship Game at noon p.m. CT
Team records
There are eight teams with 20 wins in the SEC, but not all of them are in. Right now, Mississippi State is on the outside looking in per most projections. Alabama only has 17 wins, but it’s funny what elite players do when it comes to the tournament, as the Crimson Tide and Collin Sexton are ticketed for the Big Dance. The other seven with 20+ wins are in right now, which would make the SEC the second-most represented conference behind the ACC.
Outlook & Pick
The SEC is much deeper than it has been in past seasons. We’ve seen some upsets in this conference before, but the top seeds tend to stand out when we get to the semifinals and the finals. There are definitely some interesting betting opportunities here, with seven of the league’s 14 teams ranked in the top 40.
In looking at the overall picture, there are four teams to focus on – Tennessee, Kentucky, Florida, and Texas A&M. Those are the four best defensive teams in this league and Scottrade Center has played as an under venue in conference tournament play for the Missouri Valley Conference in the past. The offenses in the SEC are far more talented than those in the MVC, but we’ll need to see some data that disputes the low-scoring trends in this arena before we can discredit it . This is also going to be a different kind of tournament without the backdrop of Nashville.
With a tournament like this that has a lot of high-upside and high-floor teams, there aren’t many bad ways to bet futures, so long as you pick a team or two and ride with them. Florida and Tennessee would have brutal turnarounds to play late games on Friday and then play at 2:30 p.m. CT on Saturday in the semifinals, so that may be a little bit of a deterrent there. As a result, we’ll set our preferences on Texas A&M and Kentucky, but a Gators and Volunteers semifinal is very likely and you will have one of those teams in the finals.
