By Bud L. Ellis
For the past two months, the teams in the Southeastern Conference have taken turns beating up on each other, in preparation for the madness of March.
The postseason begins for the 12 SEC schools on Thursday, when the SEC tournament tips off at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta.
Florida and Alabama are the top seeds, the Gators claiming the SEC East championship and the Crimson Tide winning the SEC West. Heading into the final weekend of the regular season, there were a few seedings still up for grabs.
The top two teams in each division earned a first-round bye for the tournament, meaning the Gators and Crimson Tide won’t hit the hardwood until Friday. Mississippi State finished second in the West, while Kentucky, Vanderbilt, Georgia and Tennessee were separated by one game in a logjam for second place in the East.
Thursday’s first-round matchups will be followed by Friday’s quarterfinals, two semifinal games on Saturday and the SEC championship game on Sunday afternoon.
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By Bud L. Ellis
As the third seed out of the SEC West, the Mississippi State Bulldogs didn’t get the luxury of an opening-day bye in last year’s SEC tournament.
The Bulldogs didn’t need the rest. Ripping off four wins in four days, Mississippi State won the conference tournament, beating heavily favored Tennessee in the championship game, 64-61.
Mississippi State’s run to its third SEC championship started on the opening day of the tournament, when the Bulldogs downed defending tournament champion Georgia 79-60. In the quarterfinals, the Bulldogs pulled away from South Carolina, the second seed from the SEC East, 82-68.
The Bulldogs were the lowest seed left entering the quarterfinals. But that didn’t matter, as Mississippi State downed SEC West top seed LSU 67-57. That set the stage for the title game showdown with SEC East top seed Tennessee, in which the Bulldogs prevailed to earn the conference title and the league’s automatic bid to the NCAA tournament.
Junior Jarvis Varnado, the conference’s defensive player of the year in 2008 and 2009, won the tournament MVP honors.
This year the tournament moves to the Sommet Center in Nashville, March 11-14.
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By Bud L. Ellis
Last year’s SEC men’s basketball tournament champions look like they might raise the trophy again this March.
But Mississippi State isn’t the only conference team off to a great start so far in 2009-10. In fact, looking ahead to the SEC tournament on March 11-14 at The Sommet Center in Nashville, six of the conference’s 12 schools have five losses or less.
The Bulldogs are 15-5, 3-2 in conference play. That’s good for second in the SEC West behind state rival Ole Miss. The Rebels are 16-4 overall and 4-2 in league action.
In the SEC East, the top four teams are a combined 65-13 this season. First-place Vanderbilt is the only SEC team still perfect in conference play, at 5-0 in league games and 16-3 overall. Kentucky, which spent this week ranked No. 1 in the nation, is 19-1 overall and 4-1 in the SEC. The Wildcats’ lone loss came to South Carolina on Tuesday.
Florida is 15-5 this season, 4-2 in the league. That’s good for third in the East. Tennessee is fourth, 3-2 in the league and 15-4 overall.
Even the teams outside of the top six have had their moments. Georgia has just one SEC win, but it was a blowout of the Vols last Saturday. South Carolina’s upset of Kentucky moved it to 3-3 in league play.
It’s a wide-open field heading into this year’s tournament. Certainly the defending champs look good to this point, but so too do several other teams.
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By Bud L. Ellis
The Grand Ole Opry won’t be the only thing producing sweet string music in Nashville during the second full week in March.
The SEC basketball tournament comes to town this year. The tournament runs March 11-14 at The Sommet Center in Nashville, crowning a champion who will receive an automatic berth to the NCAA Tournament after four days of great basketball among some of the nation’s top programs.
Formerly known as Nashville Arena, the venue opened in 1996. It has played host to two SEC tournaments, in 2001 and 2006. In 2001, Kentucky won the title. Florida claimed the title in 2006.
It will be hard to top the drama from the past two years. In 2009, Mississippi State upended Tennessee to finish off a shocking run in Tampa, Fla. Two years ago, the weather was a big story as a tornado hit downtown Atlanta during the quarterfinals of the tournament at the Georgia Dome. The tournament was moved to Georgia Tech due to damage in the area around the Dome, and the University of Georgia won three games in two days to cap a shocking run and win the SEC title.
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