SEC Men's Basketball Tournament

Format

With the abandonment of divisions in SEC men's basketball starting in 2011–12, the top four teams in the conference standings received first-round byes. Bracketing was identical to that of the SEC Women's Basketball Tournament—note that SEC women's basketball has long been organized in a single league table without divisions.

Since the SEC expanded to 14 schools with the arrival of Missouri and Texas A&M in 2012, the 2013 tournament was the first with a new format. Both men's and women's tournaments have the four bottom seeds (#11 throughout #14) playing opening-round games, with the top four seeds receiving a "double-bye" into the quarterfinals.

Before 2012, the top two teams in both the Eastern and Western Divisions received byes in the first round, while #3 in the East played #6 from the West, #4 played #5, etc. The brackets were set up so that #2 would play the winner of the game involving #3 from the other division, and #1 would play the winner of the game involving #4 from the other division. Barring an upset, the semi-finals would pit #1 from one division against #2 from the other division, and the championship game would feature the regular season winners of the two divisions, although this rarely happened in practice.

History

Throughout its history, the SEC Championship basketball game has been held at various sites, including the Georgia Dome, Louisiana Superdome, Bridgestone Arena, the BJCC Coliseum, the Pyramid, Rupp Arena, Louisville Gardens and (in an emergency relocation) Alexander Memorial Coliseum at Georgia Tech.

From 1933–50, the SEC Champion was determined by a tournament, except for 1935. Beginning in 1951, a round-robin schedule was introduced and the SEC title was awarded to the team with the highest in-conference winning percentage. From 1951–64, the round-robin consisted of 14 games. In 1965 and 1966, it was expanded to 16 games with the departure of Georgia Tech from the league. From 1967–91, the round-robin schedule was 18 games due to Tulane's departure. In 1992, the SEC split into an Eastern and Western Division with the re-expansion to 12 members, but continued to recognize an SEC Champion based on a winning percentage over the new 16-game conference schedule. The league also began awarding division championships. In 1979, the tournament was renewed with the winner receiving the SEC's automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament, but the official league champion remained the team(s) with the best regular season record.

In 2000, the Arkansas Razorbacks became the first team since the league expansion in 1992 to win the conference tournament by playing all four days, beating Georgia, Kentucky, LSU and Auburn to receive the conference's automatic bid to the NCAA Basketball Championships. Since then, the feat has been accomplished twice, first in 2008 by Georgia. In 2009, Mississippi State repeated that feat, defeating Georgia, South Carolina, LSU and Tennessee to receive the conference's automatic bid to the NCAA Basketball Championships.

The first seven games of the 2008 Men's Tournament were played at the Georgia Dome. During overtime of Game 7 between Mississippi State and Alabama, a tornado struck the downtown Atlanta area, damaging the Georgia Dome and several buildings surrounding it, including CNN Center. MSU and Alabama returned after a 64-minute delay to finish their game, but the last quarterfinal game of the day, between Georgia and Kentucky, was postponed until the next day, and the remaining four games of the tournament were moved to Alexander Memorial Coliseum at Georgia Tech. Only credentialed individuals were allowed to attend, including players' families, bands, cheerleaders, and media. No other spectators were allowed in the building.

Notes

Note A: No tournament was held in 1935.
Note B: No tournament was held from 1953–1978.
Note C: No MVP Selection made from 1933–1952.

Tournament championships by school