South Carolina women's basketball: Rapid Reaction - First look at the SEC Tournament bracket

The SEC Tournament bracket is now official. There was no coin flip to decide first place this season, but there was a four-way tie for sixth-place. Let’s go through the instant reaction to what will probably be the most challenging conference tournament in the country.

– Tennessee, Ole Miss, Georgia, and Kentucky finished tied for sixth place with 8-8 conference records. I don’t know how many tiebreakers the SEC had to use to seed those four, but the seeds feel like the reverse order of who is playing the best right now.

– Tennessee gets the sixth seed despite finishing on a league-worst six-game losing streak. Ole Miss is the seventh seed despite finishing on a four-game losing streak, tied for the second-worst in the SEC. But they automatically advance to the second round and avoid top seed South Carolina until the title game.

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– Meanwhile, Georgia snuck into the all-important eighth seed by ending Florida’s hot streak. At least Georgia beat Kentucky head-to-head, so it feels right that they got a higher seed than the Wildcats.

– Poor Kentucky. The Wildcats couldn’t have had much worse a day on Sunday, mostly beyond their control. 

It began in the morning, when Kentucky was left out of the Top 16 reveal in favor of Maryland, Michigan State, Minnesota and Ohio State. The Big Ten got seven teams in the top 16 while the SEC got only five, which is sure to be a topic of discussion this week in Greenville. Kentucky has a better win than any of those four seeds, having won at LSU.

In February and March, Kentucky went 4-4, but the losses were to Vanderbilt twice, by a total of three points, at Texas, and by four-points against South Carolina. That’s three top-five teams and a no. 7. Kentucky was, by far, playing the best of the four 8-8 teams

On top of having to begin play on Wednesday, Kentucky opens with Arkansas, which finally got its first SEC win on Sunday over Auburn. The Wildcats don’t even get a chance for a quality win.

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On the court, Kentucky couldn’t have asked for a better opportunity than it had against South Carolina, and a win would have erased all those problems. But South Carolina made one or two more plays at the end, so here we are.

South Carolina will, most likely, play Kentucky or Georgia at noon on Friday. That should be a good, meaningful game.

I think South Carolina has already clinched the third overall seed in the NCAA Tournament by virtue of winning the SEC by two full games. But a win or two would make it even more certain.

– Mississippi State plummeted all the way to the 13th seed, while Texas A&M sugred to the 10th seed. Those two teams probably have the most at stake in Greenville. I’m not sure either is in the tournament unless they can add at least one win, probably two.

– Vanderbilt’s win over Tennessee pushed Texas to the three seed, which means the Longhorns play their first game at 8:30 ET on Friday. Vic Schaefer will complain about it.