Southeastern conference tournament preview

This is part 26 of a 33-part series in this blog, designed to give you all the information you need to know about each conference's tournament, and the postseason prospects of every single team in the conference.

Final standings:
Kentucky 18-0
Arkansas 13-5
Georgia 11-7
LSU 11-7
Texas A&M 11-7
Ole Miss 11-7
Vanderbilt 9-9
Florida 8-10
Alabama 8-10
Tennessee 7-11
South Carolina 6-12
Mississippi St 6-12
Auburn 4-14
Missouri 3-15

Conference tournament format:  Nashville.  Wednesday March 11 to Sunday March 15.  Standard 14-team bracket that I've been talking about in this blog.

Bracket:
1) Kentucky vs. 8/9) Florida/Alabama
4) LSU vs. winner of 5) Texas A&M vs. 12/13) Mississippi St/Auburn
2) Arkansas vs. 7/10) Vanderbilt/Tennessee
3) Georgia vs. winner of 6) Ole Miss vs. 11/14) South Carolina/Missouri

The stakes:
We don't need to waste time on Kentucky, or Arkansas, really.  So many teams around Arkansas will influence their seed, moreso than Arkansas itself can.

So let's head to the bubble.  I think Georgia is home free.  In fact, as long as they play Ole Miss, they're safe.  Just avoiding the game against a bad team is good enough for me.  LSU is slowly creeping that way as well, but I think I'd like to see a win over A&M just to be sure.  In either event, a semifinal win would be overkill for either profile, and they'll be #3 and #4 out of the conference.

The drama is 5 and 6.  Ole Miss is not on great ground, and absolutely have to survive that first game.  They can lose to Georgia and still be fine, maybe, but now you're at the mercy of whoever on that bubble tries to play their way in.  That's never a comforting position.

Texas A&M is more desperate.  I think they need to beat LSU just to reenter the conversation...and probably Kentucky to get over the hump.  This is where the draw is killer - if they got to the finals by beating LSU and, say, Arkansas, then they'd have a legit case, and a legit chance to get that accomplished.  They've probably got mission impossible ahead of them.  I can't see a 3rd win over LSU being enough (in that way, it's killer that they couldn't draw Georgia instead).

The NIT bubble for this conference is kind of a mess.  I guess Vanderbilt (on top of A&M) is your SEC NIT team, and Alabama, Florida, Tennessee, and South Carolina will all fall short.  Alabama with the best W-L record might survive to make the NIT if bid poaching there slows down.