NCAA Basketball SEC Conference Betting
By By Josh Walfish
Updated date: March 6, 2022
It will be an exciting five days in Tampa as the SEC heads to Florida for the conference tournament this week. The conference should have six teams comfortably in the tournament with a seventh team needing some help to make the field. With a deep field, trying to project a winner is a tall task especially with the amount of season splits between many of the top contenders.
Kentucky is the favorite as the third seed at +200 as the most talented team in the conference, but it is not going to be an easy path to the final for the Wildcats. Besides needing to likely get through second-seeded Tennessee in the semifinals, Kentucky also potentially draws Alabama in the quarterfinals, the only other ranked team outside the top-four seeds. That might be the toughest quarterfinals matchups of the tournament for any of the top-four seeds in the field.
The Crimson Tide own +1600 odds to win the tournament, which makes sense given the inconsistency they have shown this season. The same team that holds wins over Gonzaga and Baylor this season also has losses to Georgia and Missouri, who will both be playing in the opening round. At their best, Alabama is a team to watch because it can absolutely make a run to winning the whole tournament and building momentum for the NCAA Tournament. But the Crimson Tide could also be bounced before ever getting a chance at facing Kentucky in the quarterfinals.
Auburn is the top seed in this tournament but only the second choice at +270 after two losses in the last five games. As is a running theme among the best teams in the league, the Tigers’ biggest struggles have come on the road with all three conference losses coming outside the state of Alabama. However, the Tigers were also the most consistent team in the SEC this year and were deserving champions by winning the games it needed against teams like Kentucky while avoiding any major upsets. Their worst loss was at Florida, the one SEC team truly on the bubble entering conference tournament weekend.
The Gators are going to need to beat Auburn a second time to not feel as much anxiety on Selection Sunday. Florida is +6000 to win the SEC Tournament as the eighth-seed, but it needs at least one big win to pull itself off the bubble and sneak into the field. That feels like a tall task for a team that went 4-4 in the final month of the regular season.
Arkansas lost its first three SEC games but battled back to be the fourth seed with +700 odds to win the tournament. The Razorbacks won 14 of their final 16 games, taking down most of the top teams in the league along the way to put themselves in a position to be one of the favorites in the SEC Tournament. However, it feels like Arkansas might be a trendier pick to win the SEC Tournament than the true sleeper in the field—Tennessee at +370 odds.
The Volunteers are the second seed in the event and owns wins over the other four of the top-five seeds in the league. They might draw the easiest quarterfinals matchup against either South Carolina or Mississippi State and have won nine of their last 10 games entering the tournament. The Vols have all of the attributes needed to survive the three days in Tampa, and they have a lot to play for in terms of seeding that could help motivate Tennessee to victory.
It is hard to find a deeper league this season than the SEC, which has been a roller coaster from the first conference game to the final weekend. There are probably six or seven teams who could realistically win the conference tournament, and we’ve seen some crazy results in years past as well. The SEC is poised to put at least one and potentially multiple teams in the Final Four this year, it’s just a question of which combination of teams will earn those spots.
Auburn won the league outright with a 19-game winning streak that propelled the Tigers to No. 1 in the nation. Yet Kentucky and Tennessee were still hot on their heels in the final week of the season while Arkansas made a late push for the title after a rough start to conference play. Then there were the five teams that all finished 9-9 in the league creating a mess of a tiebreaker for the seedings in the conference tournament.
After losing to Auburn on the road, Kentucky found its footing with a big win at Kansas. Yet the Wildcats did lose five times in true road games this season, including at Tennessee. The Volunteers were embarrassed at Kentucky earlier in the season, but then won 12 of their final 14 games to steal the second seed and make the road to the final slightly more tricky for the Wildcats. However, the Volunteers also struggled away from home in big games and that could play a factor in the postseason.
What was most surprising about the SEC wasn’t necessarily the depth, but how the teams ended up finishing. LSU was the biggest surprise after running through the first two months unbeaten while Alabama underperformed its preseason expectations. Both finished 9-9 with the Tigers edging out the Crimson Tide for the fifth seed. Also in that mass at 9-9 was Florida and South Carolina with the Gators never finding their footing this season while the Gamecocks scrapped their way to .500 in the league. Then there was Texas A&M which was just average the entire season, never making much noise positive or negative during its 20-win campaign.