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We’re due for some madness in Nashville.
The odds of that happening in the SEC Tournament are extremely high after the year that’s been. A league with potentially a record-setting number of teams in the NCAA Tournament could yield as much madness as any Power Conference this week. The 2011 Big East owns the current record with 11 NCAA Tournament teams. That year’s conference title was the Kemba Walker run for the ages. If the SEC Tournament gives us moments like that, we’re in for quite the week.
Here’s what the bracket looks like:
I won’t predict that anyone will be 2011 Walker, but I will predict these 7 things for the SEC Tournament:
1. Auburn won’t reach the title game and everyone will overreact
You can close your eyes and picture the overreaction if and when a pre-SEC Championship loss occurs. “Did Auburn peak too early?”
I don’t care if Auburn is 1-and-done. I’m not dismissing the team with 16 Quad 1 wins. We can talk about the “flip the switch” mindset that it would suggest the Tigers had after locking in the SEC regular-season title, and Lord knows if it loses before the title game, we’ll get reminders that last year’s squad won the conference tournament and still lost to Yale in Round 1. But I’ll say that this team struggles in its semifinal matchup against Texas A&M, who won multiple SEC Tournament games in each of the last 3 years.
Speaking of that …
2. Texas A&M reaches the SEC Tournament final
Have I mentioned yet that A&M has multiple SEC Tournament game victories in each of the last 3 seasons? I did? It’s worth mentioning again. Buzz Williams’ squad always seems to put a great emphasis on taking care of business in this tournament. Granted, that’s often been as a bubble team. The Aggies won’t be that in 2025. They will, however, be in search of a top-4 seed. Beating Auburn for the second time in 2 weeks would be quite the feather in their cap. A team that defends as well as the Aggies do won’t necessarily need some sort of Wade Taylor IV hero performance in order to beat an elite foe like Auburn … but they still get that anyway.
Why bring that up? Zakai Zeigler locks Taylor down in the quarterfinal matchup against Tennessee, but the impact transfer Zhuric Phelps does the heavy lifting. That’s how A&M reaches Sunday for the 3rd time in 4 years to put itself into the conversation for a 3-seed.
3. John Calipari will win multiple games in a tournament that he doesn’t care about
Yes, Calipari literally admitted he didn’t care.
Well, Calipari won it so many times because his program was heads and shoulders above the SEC in the 2010s. When others caught up, he struggled. He doesn’t care about a tournament that he won just 1 game in during the 2020s. Calipari hasn’t won multiple games in the SEC Tournament since 2018. So consider that all the more reason why he’ll lead his new program, Arkansas, to multiple SEC Tournament victories. To be fair, that entails beating South Carolina and Ole Miss, which isn’t exactly the same task that those 2020s Kentucky teams faced.
But an Arkansas team that’s mostly been at a different level since Calipari’s UK reunion will reach the quarterfinal round and end any lingering doubt about its NCAA Tournament status.
4. Kentucky finally gets the better of Alabama in Part III
Let me be the first to say that the hardest thing to do in sports is to beat a team 3 times in the same season. Alabama will be tasked with doing that when UK gets revenge against Georgia to set up a quarterfinal showdown. Some will point to that cliché as mentioned earlier while others will point to Alabama’s motivation while conveniently ignoring the fact that the Tide have a 1-seed potentially up for grabs. But Mark Pope does what the aforementioned Calipari couldn’t do during the 2020s by winning multiple SEC Tournament games.
How does it happen? Lamont Butler, who was nursing a shoulder injury for the second matchup, has the answers for a frustrated Mark Sears. Instead of Grant Nelson stepping up as he’s been capable of doing when Sears is held in check, Alabama endures a costly scoring drought in the middle of the second half that pushes UK into a multi-score lead that it holds onto. Pope gets UK to the SEC Tournament semifinals in Year 1.
5. Mississippi State has a late lead in the quarterfinals …
We’re living in a time in which a double-digit seed had an AP Top 25 ranking going into the final weekend of the regular season. Mississippi State is to thank for that. Chris Jans’ squad will shake off a rough 5-game stretch to end the regular season and reach the quarterfinals via consecutive double-digit wins against LSU and Mizzou. It’ll then threaten to do to Florida what it did in last year’s quarterfinal matchup against Tennessee when it ran the Vols out of the gym (don’t forget that came on the heels of a 4-game losing streak to end the regular season).
But then we’ll be reminded that 3 games in 3 days takes its toll, and Florida is a bad team to face when you realize that you’ve run out of gas. The Gators will shake off a double-digit deficit at halftime and crawl all the way back with a second-half surge after Denzel Aberdeen catches fire and Walter Clayton Jr. gets clutch buckets late to avoid the upset.
6. Walter Clayton Jr. wins SEC Tournament MVP
In 5 games in the SEC and NCAA Tournament last year, Clayton averaged 21.4 points and he was 32-for-33 from the free-throw line. In 5 games vs. AP Top 10 teams this season, Clayton averaged 18.2 points and 5 assists for a Florida squad that went 3-2 in those games, 4 of which were on the road.
What does that mean? Anytime, anywhere, Clayton can get it done.
The senior guard will do that once again. After Clayton and the Gators go into the week facing questions about what they’ll need to do to lock in a 1-seed, they emerge from a loaded SEC field as the top dog. Just as he’s been doing all year, Clayton plays at an All-America level for a Florida team that refuses to flinch. The aforementioned Mississippi State scare, which ends up being the lone true drama of Florida’s 3-game run through Nashville, showcases why Clayton is at the core of a potential national title push. He becomes Florida’s first winner of the award since Scott Wilbekin in 2014.
7. Florida beats A&M in the SEC Tournament Championship to clinch a 1-seed
OK, so I already tipped my hand here. Oh well. Maybe this won’t age well, but this week matters to Todd Golden’s squad. It matters for a veteran-laden squad that’s not just seeking a 1-seed; it’s out to prove that Florida is back among the SEC’s elite.
A 14-4 mark against a historically deep SEC should already be proof of that, but we know how this works. Teams are defined by the fickle nature of March. It’s not just that Florida enters the week having won 9 out of its last 10 games. The Gators’ average scoring margin in that stretch is +12.8, and their only 2 instances of winning a game by single digits came at No. 1 Auburn and at No. 7 Alabama on Senior Night. Yeah, that’s a team that’s rolling.
Florida will dust off the confetti on Selection Sunday and hear its name called on the 1-seed line for the first time since 2014.
Connor O'Gara is the senior national columnist for Saturday Down South. He's a member of the Football Writers Association of America. After spending his entire life living in B1G country, he moved to the South in 2015.
