This Week in Kentucky Basketball: SEC Tournament

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It is officially that time of year. March is here and you can feel the madness getting ready to begin. The Kentucky Basketball team officially ended the regular season on Saturday with a 71-63 win in Gainesville over the Florida Gators. That put them at a 25-6 overall record with a 14-4 mark in the Southeastern Conference. While the yearly goal of a SEC regular season championship came up short, the Wildcats now turn their sites to winning the conference tournament this week. The ‘Cats will begin their quest on Friday night at 8:00 in Tampa as the #3 seed.

The SEC Tournament will begin on Wednesday evening with #12 Missouri facing #13 Ole Miss at 6:00 followed by #11 Vanderbilt versus #14 Georgia. Then, we will get a full slate of four games on Thursday and Friday before the semi-finals on Saturday afternoon. It likely won’t be the same as the typical Nashville crowd, but Big Blue Nation seems ready to take over Tampa, Florida later this week. There truly isn’t anything better than tournament basketball in the month of March.

As we do each Monday, we will tackle the week ahead for the Kentucky Basketball program. We will begin with the biggest storyline surrounding the team, take a look at the week’s (potential) opponents, take a reset of the conference as a whole, and highlight the top games to watch nationally. Let’s dive on in to another edition of this week in Kentucky Basketball.

Top Kentucky Basketball Storyline: Survive & Advance

In Sunday’s edition of Watch the Tape breaking down Kentucky’s win over Florida, we talked about how basketball games take place in a vacuum. The point of that discussion was how teams spend a lot of timing preparing, they practice for countless hours, coaches try and develop the best plan possible, but when the ball gets tipped all that matters is the scoreboard. That becomes even more true during tournament play. You still practice, watch film, and try to get better. However, as long as you put up more points than your opponent you will live to fight another day.

Kentucky has only played one game this season, the 76-63 loss at Tennessee, where it didn’t really feel like they had a chance to win. All six losses during the regular season came away from Rupp Arena against NCAA Tournament teams. The Wildcats have proven that they can compete for a championship and that journey begins on Friday night. After what amounts to a trial run of, hopefully, three games in three days, the ‘Cats will then regroup and move on the NCAA Tournament next week. A number two seed seems to be the floor Kentucky at this point with a number one seed very much on the table if the ‘Cats can cut down the nets in Tampa.

The Kentucky Basketball team is ranked #5 in the AP Poll this week entering the SEC Tournament. Auburn checks in just ahead of the ‘Cats at #4 while Tennessee and Arkansas are #9 and #15 respectively. A rematch against the Tigers on Championship Sunday would be one of the most anticipated college basketball games of the season.

This Week in Kentucky Basketball: Alabama? Tennessee? Auburn?

If seeding were to hold in the SEC Tournament, Kentucky would face the Alabama Crimson Tide on Friday, the Tennessee Volunteers on Saturday, and then the Auburn Tigers for the championship game on Sunday. However, we all know to expect the unexpected when it comes to tournament basketball in March. Vanderbilt played Alabama tough just a couple of weeks ago. Tennessee has played really well of late, but have put up some offensive clunkers at different times this season. Auburn has struggled a little bit, at least compared to their dominant season, but still are the SEC regular season champions. Could LSU knock them off on Friday afternoon?

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It will sound cliche, but the Wildcats are primarily playing themselves in the SEC Tournament. Throughout the season Kentucky has proven that their best basketball is good enough to beat anyone and everyone in the country. Sahvir Wheeler and TyTy Washington have been back for a couple of games now and appear to be healthy. When that backcourt has been together it has been very, very difficult to beat the ‘Cats. Hopefully we will get to see them healthy through the rest of the season.

Around the Southeastern Conference

The Auburn Tigers finished off the regular season with a 15-3 conference record to win the league. Tennessee and Kentucky shared a 14-4 record, but the Volunteers earned the number two seed in the tournament thanks to a 1-1 record against Auburn compared to the Wildcats’ 0-1 mark. Arkansas fell to 13-5 in the league with their loss to Tennessee on Saturday which put them in the number four slot. All four of those teams earning the double byes to Friday are playing at a level that could allow them to compete for the Final Four when the NCAA Tournament begins.

As we have been following for the last couple of weeks, the real interesting portion of the standings was the log jam between fifth and tenth place. When LSU beat Alabama on Saturday afternoon it created a five-way tie at 9-9 in the league. The Tigers came out on top earning the five seed with Alabama getting the six, South Carolina the seven, Texas A&M the eight, Florida the nine, and Mississippi State the ten. One of the teams in that group very well could make a run in Tampa this weekend. However, figuring out who that team may be is nearly impossible. LSU and Alabama are probably the two best teams of the group, but Florida and Mississippi State both have the individual talent to pull an upset or two.

Here is the Southeastern Conference Tournament bracket. Kentucky Sports Radio will have wall-to-wall coverage of the tournament, both live from Tampa and KSBar & Grille, throughout the week.