Classification Division I Teams 10 | Season 1978–79 Winning coach Don DeVoe (1st title) | |
Site Birmingham-Jefferson Civic Center
Birmingham, Alabama Champions Tennessee Volunteers (4th title) | ||
The 1979 SEC Men's Basketball Tournament took place in Birmingham, Alabama, at the Birmingham Jefferson Convention Complex. This tournament marks the first SEC Men’s Basketball Tournament held since the event’s hiatus that started after the 1952 tournament.
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The Tennessee Volunteers won the tournament championship game, and received the SEC's automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament by beating the Kentucky Wildcats in a 75-69 overtime win on March 3, 1979. The tournament took place from February 28-March 3, 1979. After the SEC tournament ended, Tennessee was ranked number 20 in the Associated Press polls.
Television coverage of the championship game was produced by The C.D. Chesley Company, who syndicated the coverage of the game regionally. C.D. Chesley was known as the pioneer in syndicated college basketball as he started production of Atlantic Coast Conference basketball in the 1950s.
Scores
Tennessee and LSU had double byes in this tournament, so those two teams didn't play in the tournament until the semifinals on March 2nd.