Kentucky will be the No. 3 overall seed in the 2024 SEC Baseball Tournament, which begins Tuesday, May 21 in Hoover, Alabama.
No. 3 Kentucky will play the winner of No. 6 Georgia/No. 11 LSU on Wednesday at 10:30 a.m. ET/9:30 a.m. CST.
The Cats could have wrapped up the No. 1 overall seed with a win over Vanderbilt on Saturday, but the ‘Doris avoided the sweep with a 12-4 win. Kentucky ended up tied with Tennessee atop the SEC with a 22-8 record, meaning the Vols earned the No. 1 seed in the tournament due to the tiebreaker.
2024 marks the final season of divisions in the SEC with Oklahoma and Texas imminent in 2025. Due to the surprising rule (which will be eliminated next season) where division winners get the top two seeds, Arkansas ended up grabbing the spot No. 1. 2 seed due to finishing first in the SEC West with a 20-10 conference record.
With Tennessee’s loss, Kentucky had earned the top seed and would play the winner of the Tuesday 9/8 game on Wednesday at 5:30 PM EST. However, with Tennessee’s win, Kentucky is in the hands of the No. 3 seed and will play the winner of the 6/11 game on Wednesday at 10:30 a.m. EST. Big difference there.
“They’re going to drink water and go have a great meal today,” Nick Mingione said after the game on Saturday. “They’ll sleep in tomorrow, we’ll have team dinner tomorrow night, we’ll practice on Monday, the best practice of the year, and then we’ll head to Hoover and practice on Tuesday. And then we’ll play on Wednesday. That is.”
The top four seeds are cut and dried, but we have reached our first tie in the standings between Georgia and Mississippi State (17-13). Mississippi State will be the No. 5 seed and Georgia will be the No. 6 seed, with the state owning the tiebreaker between the two teams.
After that, five teams are tied at 13-17, so a tiebreaker determines the No. 7-No seed. 11. Ole Miss will round out the field as the No. 12 seed with an 11-19 record.
The entire slide is shown in the image below:
Let the postseason begin.
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