The SEC men's basketball tournament is the conference tournament in basketball for the

Southeastern Conference The Southeastern Conference (SEC) is a collegiate List of NCAA conferences, athletic conference whose member institutions are located primarily in the South Central United States, South Central and Southeastern United States. Its 16 members in ...

(SEC). It is a single-elimination tournament that involves all league schools (currently 16). Its seeding is based on regular season records. The winner receives the conference's automatic bid to the

NCAA men's basketball tournament The NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament, branded as March Madness, or The Big Dance, is a single-elimination tournament played in the United States to determine the men's college basketball national champion of the NCAA Division I, Di ...

; however, the official conference championship is awarded to the team or teams with the best regular season record.

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 The SEC women's basketball tournament (sometimes known simply as the SEC Tournament) is the conference tournament in women's basketball for the Southeastern Conference The Southeastern Conference (SEC) is a collegiate List of NCAA conferenc ...

—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 Missouri (''see #Etymology and pronunciation, pronunciation'') is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. Ranking List of U.S. states and territories by area, 21st in land area, it border ...

and

Texas A&M Texas A&M University (Texas A&M, A&M, TA&M, or TAMU) is a public university, public, Land-grant university, land-grant, research university in College Station, Texas, United States. It was founded in 1876 and became the flagship institution of ...

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.

Divisional format (1993–2011)

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. Each half of the bracket contained the odd-numbered seeds from one division and the even-numbered seeds from the other division, 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 semifinals 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 tournament championship basketball game has been held at various storied sites, including the

Georgia Dome The Georgia Dome was a Stadium#Types, domed stadium in the Southeastern United States. Located in Atlanta between downtown Atlanta, downtown to the east and Vine City to the west, it was owned and operated by the State of Georgia as part of th ...

Mercedes-Benz Superdome Caesars Superdome (originally Louisiana Superdome and formerly Mercedes-Benz Superdome), commonly known as the Superdome, is a domed multi-purpose stadium in the southern United States, located in New Orleans, Louisiana. It is the home st ...

Bridgestone Arena Bridgestone Arena (originally Nashville Arena, and formerly Gaylord Entertainment Center and Sommet Center) is a multi-purpose indoor arena in downtown Nashville, Tennessee, United States. Completed in 1996, it is the home of the Nashville Predat ...

, the BJCC Coliseum, the

Pyramid A pyramid () is a structure whose visible surfaces are triangular in broad outline and converge toward the top, making the appearance roughly a pyramid in the geometric sense. The base of a pyramid can be of any polygon shape, such as trian ...

Rupp Arena Rupp Arena at Central Bank Center is an arena located in downtown Lexington, Kentucky, United States. Since its opening in 1976, it has been the centerpiece of Central Bank Center (formerly Lexington Center), a convention and shopping facility ...

Louisville Gardens Louisville Gardens is a multi-purpose, 6,000-seat arena, in Louisville, Kentucky, that opened in 1905, as the Jefferson County Armory. It celebrated its 100th anniversary as former city mayor Jerry Abramson's official "Family-Friendly New Years ...

, and (in a 2008 emergency relocation)

Alexander Memorial Coliseum Hank McCamish Pavilion, nicknamed The Thrillerdome and originally known as Alexander Memorial Coliseum, is an indoor arena located on the campus of the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, Georgia. It is the home of the Georgia Tech Yellow ...

Georgia Tech The Georgia Institute of Technology (commonly referred to as Georgia Tech, GT, and simply Tech or the Institute) is a public research university and institute of technology in Atlanta, Georgia, United States. Established in 1885, it has the lar ...

. From 1933 to 1950, the official 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 regular season in-conference winning percentage. From 1951 to 1964, 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 to 1991, the round-robin schedule was 18 games due to Tulane's departure. Starting with the 1991–1992 season, the SEC split into an Eastern and Western Division and began awarding division championships with the re-expansion to 12 members, but continued to recognize the SEC Champion based on a winning percentage over the new 16-game conference schedule. Divisions would be eliminated starting with the 2011–2012 season. With the addition of Texas A&M and Missouri to the conference, the regular season expanded to an 18 conference game schedule starting with the 2012–13 season. 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 The Arkansas Razorbacks, also known as the Hogs, are the College athletics in the United States, intercollegiate athletics teams representing the University of Arkansas, located in Fayetteville, Arkansas, Fayetteville. The University of Arkans ...

became the first team since the league expansion in 1992 to win the conference tournament by playing all four days, beating

Georgia Georgia most commonly refers to: * Georgia (country), a country in the South Caucasus * Georgia (U.S. state), a state in the southeastern United States Georgia may also refer to: People and fictional characters * Georgia (name), a list of pe ...

Kentucky Kentucky (, ), officially the Commonwealth of Kentucky, is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio to the north, West Virginia to the ...

LSU Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, commonly referred to as Louisiana State University (LSU), is an American Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Baton Rouge, Louis ...

, and Auburn to receive the conference's automatic bid to the NCAA Basketball Championships. Auburn was the first SEC team to accomplish this feat in 1985 when they defeated Ole Miss, LSU, Florida, and Alabama to win their first SEC tournament. Since then, the feat has been accomplished three times, 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. Auburn achieved the feat a second time in 2019, defeating Missouri, South Carolina, Florida and Tennessee. The first seven games of the 2008 tournament were played at the Georgia Dome. During overtime of Game 7 between Mississippi State and Alabama, a

tornado A tornado is a violently rotating column of air that is in contact with the surface of Earth and a cumulonimbus cloud or, in rare cases, the base of a cumulus cloud. It is often referred to as a twister, whirlwind or cyclone, although the ...

struck the downtown Atlanta area, damaging the Georgia Dome and several buildings surrounding it, including

CNN Center The Center, formerly and still commonly called the CNN Center, is the former international headquarters of U.S. cable network CNN in Atlanta, Georgia, United States. The main newsrooms and studios for several of CNN's news channels were located ...

. 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

. Only credentialed individuals were allowed to attend, including players' families, bands, cheerleaders, and media. No other spectators were allowed in the building. The 2020 tournament was canceled after the first round due to concerns over the spread of

COVID-19 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2. In January 2020, the disease spread worldwide, resulting in the COVID-19 pandemic. The symptoms of COVID‑19 can vary but often include fever ...

, after the

World Health Organization The World Health Organization (WHO) is a list of specialized agencies of the United Nations, specialized agency of the United Nations which coordinates responses to international public health issues and emergencies. It is headquartered in Gen ...

declared the outbreak a

pandemic A pandemic ( ) is an epidemic of an infectious disease that has a sudden increase in cases and spreads across a large region, for instance multiple continents or worldwide, affecting a substantial number of individuals. Widespread endemic (epi ...

on 11 March 2020. Initially, a decision was made to play the remaining games without fans in attendance, but as the situation progressed the event was ultimately canceled outright. The conference's

auto-bid was awarded to the regular season champion,

. but ultimately the 2020 NCAA tournament itself would also be cancelled.

Tournaments

Notes

''Note A: No tournament was held in 1935.''
''Note B: No tournament was held from 1953 to 1978.''
''Note C: No MVP Selection made from 1933 to 1952.''
''Note D: The Tournament was canceled after the first round in 2020. No MVP selection was made.''

Television coverage

Tournament championships by school

Notes

Venues

Notes

References

{{NCAA men's college basketball tournament navbox Recurring sporting events established in 1933 1933 establishments in Georgia (U.S. state)