Less than a year after the 12 Southeastern Conference men’s basketball coaches briefly discussed reseeding their conference tournament, the subject could be debated again and with stronger support.
The SEC is the only major conference with divisions during the regular season, and each division’s top two teams receive first-round byes in the league tournament. The reseeding topic was introduced at the SEC spring meetings last year after the East Division trio of Kentucky (14-2), Vanderbilt (12-4) and Tennessee (11-5) had superior league records to top West finishers Mississippi State (9-7) and Ole Miss (9-7).
Entering the final weekend of this season, there is the potential of the East having three to five teams with a better league record than the West runner-up for a fourth time in five years.
“I do think it should reward the teams with the best records,” Vanderbilt coach Kevin Stallings said. “I think that would be more fair from a seeding standpoint to do it that way.”
The SEC implemented two divisions when it became a 12-member collection before the 1991-92 season. Arkansas, Auburn, Alabama, Mississippi State and LSU won outright league titles during the first 15 years of the format, but the West took its first hit in 2007 when Mississippi State and Ole Miss finished 8-8 in league play while four East teams had winning records.