2024 SEC Baseball Tournament bracket locked in. See Kentucky’s potential path.
The University of Kentucky baseball team’s surprising and historic 2024 regular season ended with the Wildcats claiming a share of their first Southeastern Conference championship in 18 years.
UK will attempt to carry that momentum into this week’s SEC Tournament at Hoover, Alabama, where the Cats will open play Wednesday as the No. 3 seed.
Tennessee, which tied Kentucky for the SEC regular season crown with an identical 22-8 league record in the SEC East Division, will be the No. 1 seed by virtue of its taking two of three games from UK April 19-21 at Kentucky Proud Park. Arkansas (20-10) gets the No. 2 seed because it won the SEC West Division.
The SEC Tournament gets underway Tuesday with four single-elimination matchups. The winners of those games advance to an eight-team double-elimination bracket to decide the league’s championship and automatic NCAA Tournament bid Wednesday through Sunday.
Kentucky (39-12 overall, 22-8 SEC) finished the regular season as the No. 3 team in the USA Today coaches’ poll behind a pair of SEC teams in No. 1 Tennessee and No. 2 Arkansas. The conference tournament will also include No. 4 Texas A&M, No. 8 Georgia, No. 16 Mississippi State, No. 23 South Carolina and No. 24 Alabama.
UK enters the postseason as the nation’s No. 1 team in the RPI metric used to help seed teams for the NCAA Tournament and has an opportunity to be the No. 1 overall seed when the 64-team bracket is unveiled May 27.
Texas A&M (44-11, 19-11) is the No. 4 seed and joined Tennessee, Arkansas and Kentucky in securing byes to the double-elimination rounds.
Kentucky will open play Wednesday against either No. 6 seed Georgia (39-14, 17-13) or No. 11 seed LSU (36-20, 13-17) at 10:30 a.m. (SEC Network).
During the regular season, Kentucky swept three games from Georgia March 15-17 in Lexington by scores of 16-10, 9-3 and 12-2. UK and LSU did not meet during the regular season.
SEC Tournament
At Hoover, Ala.
All times Eastern
TUESDAY
(Single-elimination format)
10:30 a.m.: No. 6 seed Georgia vs. No. 11 LSU (SEC Network)
About 2 p.m.: No. 7 Alabama vs. No. 10 South Carolina (SEC Network)
5:30 p.m.: No. 8 Vanderbilt vs. No. 9 Florida (SEC Network)
About 9 p.m.: No. 5 Mississippi State vs. No. 12 Mississippi (SEC Network)
WEDNESDAY
(Double-elimination format begins)
10:30 a.m.: No. 3 Kentucky vs. Georgia-LSU winner (SEC Network)
About 2 p.m.: No. 2 Arkansas vs. Alabama-South Carolina winner (SEC Network)
5:30 p.m.: No. 1 Tennessee vs. Vanderbilt-Florida winner (SEC Network)
About 9 p.m.: No. 4 Texas A&M vs. Mississippi State-Mississippi winner (SEC Network)
THURSDAY
Games at 10:30, 2, 5:30 and 9 p.m. (SEC Network)
FRIDAY
Games at 4 and 7:30 p.m. (SEC Network)
SATURDAY
Single-elimination semifinals begin at 1 and about 4:30 p.m. (SEC Network)
SUNDAY
3 p.m.: Championship game (ESPN2)
Kentucky baseball clinches SEC championship with blowout of Vanderbilt
Kentucky clubs Vandy in series opener, closes in on SEC baseball title
