Alabama Basketball: Projected SEC Tournament Bracket

Alabama Basketball: One goal accomplished and another on deck. SEC Tournament Bracket projection in last week of the regular season.

After a short celebration for winning the SEC regular-season championship, it is back to work for Alabama Basketball. The Alabama Crimson Tide has two games to close out the unfinished business of the regular season. The Tuscaloosa version of the roundball Iron Bowl is Tuesday night.

The Auburn Tigers are coming off an upset of the Tennessee Volunteers. Auburn has only two games left in this basketball season. In an effort to minimize future NCAA penalties, the Tigers gave themselves a post-season ban for the 2020-21 season. There will be no SEC Tournament for the Tigers after they play Mississippi State on Mar. 6. Alabama Basketball wraps up its regular season on the same day, against Georgia, in Athens.

The SEC Tournament seeding is far from being set with a week to go. The Crimson Tide is the No. 1 seed. Arkansas is in a strong position to be the No. 2 seed. The Hogs can make a claim to being the SEC’s best team since losing to the Crimson Tide on Jan. 16. Arkansas has a nine-game, SEC winning streak.

Short of an Arkansas collapse, Florida, LSU and Tennesee are fighting for the No. 3 and No. 4 double-bye seeds. Missouri has seven SEC losses, Ole Miss and Kentucky have eight. One back is Mississippi State with nine. A lot could change for those teams this week.

South Carolina, Texas A&M and Vanderbilt are trying to escape having to play Wednesday night in Nashville. Only one will make it past that opening game of the SEC Tournament. The Aggies are a question mark for any game. They have not played since January. They are scheduled to play Wednesday and Saturday this week. If they are forced to miss either of those games, the SEC should consider bumping them out of the SEC Tournament. The Aggies have incurred COVID restrictions for a month.  SEC teams, expecting to be NCAA Tournament teams, could be hesitant to play them.

Alabama basketball fans are interested in learning what teams will be on the Tide’s side of bracket. Based on current standings, those teams would be Vanderbilt, Texas A&M, Mississippi State, Tennessee, LSU and either Missouri or Kentucky. On what would now be the Arkansas side of the bracket would be Georgia, South Carolina, Ole Miss, Florida and either Missouri or Kentucky.

Whatever happens with the final seeding, the Crimson Tide will not play in Nashville until Friday, Mar. 12.

The current SEC standings are available here. With an unbalanced schedule resulting from cancellations, conference winning percentage will determine some seeds.

Alabama Basketball and other teams want to win the SEC Tournament. For at least six, SEC teams, intertwined with that goal is NCAA Tournament seeding.