The SEC Tournament is slated to begin on Wednesday with a pair of first-round matchups — the first step to crowning a champion.

The top-4 favorites for this year’s tournament — Tennessee, Auburn, Kentucky and Alabama — will not begin play until Friday. A few other possible contenders, including Mississippi State, Florida and South Carolina, will play their first games of the tournament on Thursday.

With so much still to be decided, it’s time to take a look at the betting markets for who will win this year’s SEC Tournament. This piece will use BartTorvik’s TourneyCast model to help calculate the expected value of a potential bet.

Here’s a betting breakdown of the SEC Tournament:

The favorites tier

Tennessee, Auburn, Kentucky and Alabama are the clear top tier of favorites to win the SEC Tournament, according to the betting markets. As you might expect, those teams are also the 4 programs who earned a double-bye into the quarterfinals of this event.

Here’s a breakdown of their odds to win the SEC title (best price listed):

Auburn is actually the favorite to win the SEC Tournament, per BartTorvik’s projections. His model gives the Tigers a 30.6% chance to cut down the nets on Sunday afternoon. Tennessee isn’t far behind, however, at 27.7%. Alabama (15.4%) and Kentucky (12.5%) round out the top 4.

By expected value, the best bet amongst this group is clearly Auburn. A $100 wager on the Tigers carries an expected value of $14.75 — the only potential bet amongst this group with a plus-EV. However, it’s worth noting that Auburn has struggled vs. other elite teams all season. Bruce Pearl’s team is just 1-7 in Quad 1 games, but stands out in models like BartTorvik and KenPom because it has routinely blown out non-elite squads all year. Auburn is 23-0 against teams outside of Quad 1 and all 24 of its wins so far this year have come by double-digits.

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The middle tier

If one of the double-bye teams doesn’t win the SEC Tournament, it would be a significant surprise. But there are a few teams in the mix to potentially win the league’s auto-bid. Here’s a breakdown of the available betting odds for the middle tier of SEC teams in this tournament:

Florida and South Carolina were in the mix to potentially earn a double-bye in the tournament until the final week. All 4 of these teams have earned at least 4 Quad 1 wins this year and appear to be headed to the NCAA Tournament (though the Bulldogs are still on the bubble).

By expected value on a $100 bet, Mississippi State ($40.30) is the best bet in this category. The Bulldogs have lost 4 in a row entering the postseason, and need at least 1 or 2 wins to ensure their place in the field of 68.

There’s also value to be found with Florida ($17.80) and South Carolina ($27.50) in this category. According to EvanMiya’s new relative team rankings, both of those teams have been excellent against other elite squads so far this season — particularly the Gators. That bodes well for their chances against a top-4 seed in this tournament, provided they’re able to get there.

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The long-shots tier

There’s not a whole lot of hope for the teams in this category — either for the SEC Tournament or the NCAA Tournament in 2024. Here are the best-available betting odds for each of the remaining SEC teams to win the conference tournament:

In addition to being long-shots, there’s not much value on any of these teams according to BartTorvik, either. None have better than a 0.4% chance to win the SEC Tournament this season, per that model.

Want to bet on college basketball during this year’s NCAA Tournament? Here’s everything fans should know about the top online sports betting apps on the market as of March of 2024!