Kentucky will be No. 3 seed in 2024 SEC Baseball Tournament

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. EST/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 ‘Dores avoided the sweep with a 12-4 victory. Kentucky ended up tying with Tennessee atop the SEC with a 22-8 record, meaning the Vols got the No. 1 seed in the tournament due to their tiebreaker.

2024 marks the last season of divisions in the SEC with the impending arrival of Oklahoma and Texas in 2025. Due to the dumbfounding rule (which will be abolished next season) where Division winners get the top two seeds, Arkansas ended up grabbing the No. 2 seed due to finishing on top of the SEC West with a 20-10 conference record.

With a Tennessee loss, Kentucky would have claimed the No. 1 seed and would have played the winner of Tuesday’s 8/9 game on Wednesday at 5:30 p.m. EST. With Tennessee’s win however, Kentucky falls to 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 hydrate and they’re going to go get a great meal today,” Nick Mingione said postgame Saturday. “They’re going to sleep in tomorrow, we’re going to have a team dinner tomorrow night, we’re going to practice Monday, the best practice of the year, and then we’re gonna head down to Hoover and practice Tuesday, and then we’re gonna play Wednesday. There it is.”

The first four seeds are cut and dry, but we run into 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, as State owns the tiebreaker between the two teams.

Five teams are then tied at 13-17, so tiebreakers determined seeds No. 7-No. 11. Ole Miss will round out the field as the No. 12 seed with an 11-19 record.

The entire bracket is pictured below:

Let the postseason begin.