Earning SEC Tournament double-bye will not be easy for Kentucky

We are still two months away from another SEC Tournament in Nashville but it’s never too early to start looking ahead. Every team in the conference now has four games under their belt and completed 22.2 percent of their conference schedule. This conference has never been better.

The league has four teams in the top-10 at KenPom, seven teams in the top-25, 13 teams in the top-50, and zero outside of the top-100. You could realistically seen the conference get 12-13 teams into the NCAA Tournament. This conference is a juggernaut.

That means the race for the league title will be brutal with no divisions and unbalanced schedules. The same goes for the race for the double-byes for the SEC Tournament.

Kentucky has some work to do.

Current standings

1. Auburn (4-0)
2. Ole Miss (4-0)
3. Tennessee (3-1)
4. Alabama (3-1)
5. Kentucky (3-1)
6. Missouri (3-1)
7. Florida (2-2)
8. Texas A&M (2-2)
9. Mississippi State (2-2)
10. Georgia (2-2)
11. Vanderbilt (2-2)
12. Texas (1-3)
13. LSU (1-3)
14. Arkansas (0-4)
15. Oklahoma (0-4)
16. South Carolina (0-4)

Projected SEC standings

Using KenPom‘s projections, this is what the SEC Tournament field would look like today. I had to use overall ranking for some tiebreakers. Kentucky would begin the tournament on Thursday afternoon to face the winner of Arkansas-Oklahoma.

Cats vs. Hogs in Nashville. Are you not entertained?

1. Auburn (16-2)
2. Tennessee (13-5)
3. Florida (12-6)
4. Ole Miss (11-7)
5. Kentucky (11-7)
6. Alabama (11-7)
7. Mississippi State (10-8)
8. Missouri (10-8)
9. Texas A&M (10-8)
10. Texas (8-10)
11. Georgia (8-10)
12. Arkansas (6-12)
13. Oklahoma (6-12)
14. Vanderbilt (6-12)
15. LSU (5-13)
16. South Carolina (4-14)

A reminder that there will be four games on Wednesday in Nashville due to the latest conference expansion. That means that the No. 9 and No. 10 seeds will have to win a play-in game to get to Thursday.

For Kentucky’s seeding, catching Auburn could be difficult for anyone. Tennessee is a different story due to the two games against the Vols remaining on the schedule. The Cats own the head-to-head tiebreaker against Florida and that could hold a lot of weight. The head-to-head game against Ole Miss in Oxford on Feb. 4 looms large. The Cats also have two meetings with Alabama. This weekend’s tilt against the Crimson Tide at Rupp Arena will have some seeding stakes.

This conference race will be pure chaos. The weekend in Nashville could be absolute anarchy. Enjoy the ride.