BTI's Rants and Ramblings: 4 SEC Tournament Wins Needed, How Rare Is That?

Now we know that Kentucky is going to need four wins to take home the SEC Tournament title this year after a highly disappointing loss on Saturday.  It feels as if all the momentum the Cats had gained was sucked right away in 40 minutes.  But, now we know the task ahead of us.  It's a rare hill the Cats have to climb, as they have only played in THREE SEC Tournaments since the league expanded in 1992 where they needed four wins to take home the title.  Three.  Out of 28. So, how did the Cats fare in those 3 SEC Tournaments: 2006 (East #3 Seed) 1st Round: defeated W6 Ole Miss 71-57 Quarterfinals: defeated W2 Alabama 68-61 Semifinals: lost to E5 South Carolina 65-61 2007 (East #4 Seed) 1st Round: defeated W5 Alabama 79-67 Quarterfinals: lost to W1 Mississippi State 84-82 2009 (East #4 Seed) 1st Round: defeated W5 Ole Miss 71-58 Quarterfinals: lost to W1 LSU 67-58 A couple red flags for sure.  First, UK hasn't even made the finals of any of those three tournaments.  So forget needing four wins.  They haven't even been able to get three wins in any of those events.  But UK has been able to get through the first game each time so maybe this squad can find that rhythm again on Thursday of the SEC Tournament and keep in rolling longer than those other three squads. In fact, in all of the SEC since 1992, only seven teams have made the finals of the SEC Tournament needing three wins to do so, and it has happened only once since 2010: 1997: Georgia (lost in finals to Kentucky 95-68) 2000: Arkansas (won in final to Auburn 75-67) 2006: South Carolina (lost in finals to Florida 49-47) 2007: Arkansas (lost in finals to Florida 77-56) 2008: Georgia (won in final to Arkansas 66-57) 2009: Mississippi State (won in final to Tennessee 64-61) 2019: Auburn (won in final to Tennessee 84-64) So, in 28 years, four teams have been able to win four games in four days (Georgia won four games in three days, in fact).  If I told you the Cats had a 1 in 7 chance of winning the SEC Tournament, maybe you'd take that.