A No. 1 seed in the NCAA tournament could be the reward for the Southeastern Conference tournament champion if Sunday’s winner is one of the top three teams from the regular season.
“I believe that will be the case,” longtime ESPN college basketball tournament analyst Joe Lunardi said Monday afternoon. “Certainly Kentucky or Tennessee would. LSU may have a little further to climb and might need some help from a Duke or a Michigan State or a North Carolina losing.”
The SEC had a three-way race for most of the regular season that ended up with LSU taking the title with a 16-2 league record followed by 15-3 marks for the Volunteers and Wildcats. Tennessee has the best overall mark of the three at 27-4 and was ranked No. 1 four consecutive weeks, while LSU and Kentucky will take 26-5 records to Nashville’s Bridgestone Arena this week.
In the NET rankings that are being used for the first time by the NCAA tournament’s selection committee, Kentucky is currently fifth, Tennessee sixth and LSU 13th.
Lunardi, who was a guest Monday of “Press Row” on Chattanooga’s ESPN 105.1 FM, does not believe last Friday’s suspension of LSU second-year coach Will Wade will factor into the seeding of the Tigers when the 68-team field is revealed early Sunday evening.