SEC Baseball Tournament Future Changes

[Spinal Tap]

This schedule/format will begin with the 2025 season post season. I'm still processing before opining on it.

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (Feb. 1, 2024) -All 16 Southeastern Conference baseball teams will participate in the league's annual post-season tournament in a single-elimination format beginning with the 2025 baseball season, it was announced Thursday.

The future tournament format was approved by the SEC athletics directors in preparation for the addition of Oklahoma and Texas to the Conference beginning with the 2024-25 athletic year.

Under the existing format, the top 12 teams in the final 14-team regular season standings participate in a hybrid single/double elimination tournament over a six-day period. The existing format will be in effect for the 2024 SEC Baseball Tournament in Hoover, Alabama, May 21-26.

The revised format which debuts in May 2025 will continue to be a six-day tournament with four games each on Tuesday and Wednesday of the tournament, two games each on Thursday, Friday and Saturday, followed by a championship game on Sunday.

Seeds 9 through 16, as determined by the final regular season standings, will play on the Tuesday of the tournament and seeds 5 through 8 will receive a bye to Wednesday. Seeds 1 through 4 will receive a double-bye to games on Thursday or Friday.

It was announced last year that, upon expansion of the Conference in 2025, the SEC baseball regular season will continue to consist of 30 conference games for each team made up three-game series played over ten weekends. Under the new scheduling format, each team will play two permanent opponents and eight rotating opponents on an annual basis and standings will be kept in a single-standings format with no divisions.

Future SEC Baseball Tournament format approved

All 16 SEC baseball teams will participate in the league's annual post-season tournament in a single-elimination format beginning with the 2025 baseball season.

www.secsports.com

 

[Prestonyte]

All the more reason to be playoff bound without winning the SEC tournament.
SEC Tournament has never been our friend.

 

[Blues man]

Finally we get to a perfect number (16) and they just had to put their almighty scientific spin on it. Good grief. Never was a fan of byes when they can be avoided. But double byes? Really? Call me not a fan. EDIT- IDK maybe they did this so not to have all teams in town at the same time with limited hotels or something. Possible I guess. Maybe it's time to put Hoover in the rear view mirror.

 

[Uscg1984]

Finally we get to a perfect number (16) and they just had to put their almighty scientific spin on it. Good grief. Never was a fan of byes when they can be avoided. But double byes? Really? Call me not a fan.

I don't disagree about byes, but the new format would appear to assist bubble teams by allowing them to pick up an additional win or two before getting waxed by an upper-echelon conference team. I'm not sure how often it will actually play out that way, but the conference tournament certainly means more to those teams than it does to the top seeds.

 

[lexgamecock]

Don't matter. Who cares unless you have to win it to get in.

 

[Blues man]

I don't disagree about byes, but the new format would appear to assist bubble teams by allowing them to pick up an additional win or two before getting waxed by an upper-echelon conference team. I'm not sure how often it will actually play out that way, but the conference tournament certainly means more to those teams than it does to the top seeds.

Could very well help a bubble team I guess. Could easily hurt one as well. Interesting thought.

 

[Carolina Doc]

They could discontinue this tournament and nobody would miss it.

 

[will110]

A single elimination baseball tournament is the definition of stupidity.