SEC Gets Four into March Madness

by Year2 on Mar 14, 2010 6:58 PM EDT in SEC Basketball

The prayers were answered, and the SEC had four teams in the field of 65.

Kentucky, as expected, got the second overall seed and is the 1-seed in the East bracket. The Wildcats get ETSU to begin and will play the winner of the Texas-Wake Forest 8/9 game in the second round.

Vanderbilt got the next best spot as a 4-seed in the West facing Murray State. Should the Commodores win, they'd get the winner of the Butler-UTEP 5/12 game in the second round.

Tennessee is next up after getting the 6-seed in the Midwest opposite the San Diego State Burgundys. If the Vols prevail they'll get the winner of the Georgetown-Ohio 4/13 game in the second round.

Florida was the final SEC team in the field as a 10-seed in the West matched up against BYU. If the Gators pull the upset, they'll get the winner of the Kansas State-North Texas 2/15 game. Which is to say, they'd get K-State. The 10-seed seems a bit generous by the committee, since most bracketologists weren't sure the Gators would even get in.

Mississippi State ended up out of the field by a point, having lost the SEC Tournament title to Kentucky earlier today. From the looks of it, a Bulldog win would have given the conference five teams in the Big Dance and pushed out someone like Utah State or UTEP. A top seed in the NIT is likely forthcoming for State, who'll be joined by Ole Miss and most likely Alabama as well in that tournament.

Tweet Comment 5 comments | 0 recs |

Do you like this story?

Comments

Wow. I’m pretty staggered – the prognosticators well and truly whiffed on Florida’s chances. At a guess, the committee emphasised SOS this year – besides beating Mich St (5) and FSU (9), Florida tangled unsuccessfully with Syracuse (1), Xavier (6) and Richmond (7) OOC, and had to slog through six total matches in division against Kentucky (1), Vandy (4) and Tennessee (6). There weren’t a lot of wins in all those games, but sometimes you do get credit for trying.

Now that we’ve seen how everything shook out, I feel kinda bad for rooting against Miss St today. Though not too bad – their auto bid out of nowhere last year might just have bumped UF off the bubble. Still, good luck to them and whoever else makes it into the NIT field.

by peachy rex on Mar 14, 2010 7:23 PM EDT reply actions

I know

Nobody had UF in their bracket. I thought for sure we wernt getting in after this morning and reading all the major sporting sites mock bracks.

It sure is nice to keep that streak at only 2. Which is the longest Billy D has ever gone here at Florida. We had some impressive win this year, but overall I am just happy that we got in, other then that my expectations are pretty low. I have read that the Gators match up well against BYU since we seem to play much better against smaller teams but even if we get past that we play K-State next…Atleast we would get some nice exposure cuz thats about all we could hope for.

"When you argue correctly, you're never wrong."-Nick Naylor

by Hook85 on Mar 15, 2010 12:56 AM EDT up reply actions

Big name conference

Any school in a big name conference rarely goes below a 10, unless its well deserved. Another example is Georgia Tech, worse record in a worse conference, but since that conference is named the ACC, they get a ten seed even though they were probly on a bigger bubble than florida was.

I actually thought Minnesota was going to get the 10 and Florida would go 11 it was pretty surprising.

by gatorempire127 on Mar 14, 2010 9:45 PM EDT reply actions

Miss St is a 1-seed in the NIT, and Ole Miss a 2; that’s it for the SEC.

And in the “How the Mighty Are Fallen” files, Memphis is a 3, UConn and UNC both 4s. (The mightiest fall of all, of course, is UCLA; Arizona might also qualify, given its incredible streak, but it hasn’t actually been mighty in a few years.) Just about the only real big names that haven’t had a reversal of fortune in the past decade are Kansas and Duke (and Michigan St, the forgotten heavy weight). In fact, of the teams on the top five seed lines this year, only five had made all of the preceding eight tournaments (as far back as ESPN’s schedules go); no less than eleven had missed the post-season entirely at least once during that span.

by peachy rex on Mar 14, 2010 10:40 PM EDT reply actions