This week marks the start of what will go down as the most anticipated SEC Tournament in the history of the event. The conference has dominated college basketball throughout the regular season and could have a record-setting number of teams picked for the Big Dance with several national title contenders to boot.

The Favorites

Auburn has been the SEC's best team by a significant margin this year. KenPom considers the Tigers to be one of the best teams in recent memory. They would also only need to win three games. But they have lost two games in a row, to Texas A&M and Alabama. Auburn has won two of the last five SEC Tournaments.

Alabama is a strong contender as well, especially after avenging that earlier season loss to Auburn. The Tide has excellent firepower, talent, depth, and a recent track record of strong tournament performance. Alabama has won two of the last four SEC Tournaments.

Florida, as the two-seed, is a national title contender that hasn't gotten quite as much love as Auburn, but a complete team that draws a double bye as a two seed. It has been more than a decade since Florida won this tournament but this is also the Gators' best team since that 2014 crown.

Then there's Tennessee. The Vols won the tournament in Tampa back in 2022.. They also reached the final game in 2018 and 2019.

These four teams are the top contenders for the crown in Nashville and they should be regarded as the favorites since they only need to win three games each.

Contenders

Kentucky should be regarded as a strong contender for a couple of reasons. For one, the Wildcats ended the season strong. They dominated LSU in Rupp and then handed top-15 Mizzou one of its two home losses on the season. Kentucky also has as many elite wins as any team in the country, and you're going to have to beat at least a couple of elite teams, presumably, to win this event.

Texas A&M has been excellent this year as well and the Aggies deserve contender status. They have been up and down as the regular season has winded down but their last two games were a comfortable win in Baton Rouge on the heels of an 11-point win against No. 1 Auburn.

Darkhorses

Missouri has a strong season-long resume but the Tigers are trending the wrong direction with three straight losses, including on Senior Day to Kentucky. They're one of the top offensive teams in the country. This team had the firepower to put up 110 against Alabama and held Mississippi State to 61 points in a 27-point road win in Starkville. The juice is there, if they're playing well.

Players To Watch

Occasionally an individual player just gets hot at the right time. If that happens, all bets are off. We've seen great individual performances power upset bids and upset titles all across the country for many years, but identifying who will do that is the hard part.

We've seen Alabama's Mark Sears hot at the end of the season before. While he only scored nine points against Auburn, he had 30 points or more three times in the five games before that. An extremely experienced tournament player, Sears can carry Bama to the title.

Wade Taylor recently had his jersey retired at Texas A&M. He's also very experienced in this setting and has scored in double digits in every game since late January.

Florida's Walter Clayton Jr. has been the leading scorer for a balanced team. He's coming in hot with consecutive 22+ point, eight assist, five rebound games in wins against Alabama and Ole Miss.

Freshman Texas guard Tre Johnson has been a big scorer all season (20.2 PPG) and he's had some tremendous output late in the year. Johnson can get hot from outside and he can get to the line. If he can shake off a horrible 0/14 FG game against OU to end the year he could get hot and carry Texas. The problem is, even when he has scored a lot, they've often lost.

Mississippi State's Josh Hubbard can be a 5'11 electric factory when he's on. His 18.3 PPG are proof of that. There are plenty of bad shooting games sprinkled in, but Hubbard will take a lot of shots and sometimes he gets hot.

Johni Broome had a couple of down games toward the end of the season but then posted 34 points, eight boards, five blocks, three steals, and three assists with only two fouls in 43 minutes in that overtime loss to Alabama from the weekend. The way he can dominate inside and on the glass warrants special mention.

Big First Round Matchups

You know it's an historic year for SEC basketball when there are so many interesting teams playing on the first night of the event. There are no duds this year. And there are teams playing for their NCAA Tournament lives in that first round in Nashville.

ESPN's bracketology has Georgia as a projected 10-seed, so the Bulldogs are probably safe even if they lose to Oklahoma. However, Oklahoma is in the "last four in" category, so they may need that one to feel safe. It could be a win and you're in scenario for the Sooners.

LSU is not going to make the Big Dance unless they get hot in Nashville, but if they beat Mississippi State that would put the Bulldogs in a worse seeding position. They're currently in the 8/9 game according to Joe Lunardi.

Arkansas is currently a projected 10 seed in spite of starting 0-6 in conference play. The Razorbacks, the SEC's No. 9 seed, don't want a loss to South Carolina on their resume going into Selection Sunday.

Maybe the biggest first round SEC game is between Texas and Vanderbilt. The Commodores seem safe for the Big Dance but Lunardi says the Longhorns are ever-so-slightly on the outside looking in.

Texas and Oklahoma are in a place where they must win in order to feel somewhat safe about the Big Dance, with no guarantees, but other teams stand to gain or lose ground on the seeding lines.

Five of the eight teams slated to play in Wednesday's first round are projected in the tournament and another, Texas, has a chance to play its way in.

Kentucky's Path

Kentucky will have to win four games in four days to bring home its first SEC tournament championship since 2018. If Kentucky doesn't win the tournament this year, it will mark the longest drought without SEC championships in the program's history.

Game 1 will be against Oklahoma or Georgia. The Wildcats narrowly beat Oklahoma on the road and lost to Georgia on the road.

If they survive that game, Kentucky would face Alabama. The Crimson Tide swept the season series with the Wildcats.

Beat OU or UGA then Bama and the Cats would get Florida, Missouri, Mississippi State, or LSU, probably listed in the correct order in terms of likelihood that the matchup happens. Kentucky beat Florida in Rupp Arena but the Cats played a very high level in that game.

Then you get to the championship and the most likely opponents are Auburn and Tennessee, as those teams would each only have to win two games to get there.

There's a good chance that an SEC championship run would have to include wins against four NCAA Tournament teams and two or three national championship contenders. In fact, it's probably safe to say that, objectively, Kentucky's path to an SEC Tournament title would be more difficult than any conceivable path to the Final Four.

Mark Pope's Conference Tourney History

This will be Mark Pope's first SEC Tournament but he has been in conference tournaments at previous stops.

2023-24: Pope's No. 5 seed (Big XII) BYU Cougars beat the No. 12 seed UCF 87-73 before losing to No. 4 Texas Tech by 14 in the quarterfinals.

2022-23: BYU was the WCC's No. 5 seed. They beat No. 8 Portland 82-71 and No. 4 Loyola Marymouth 73-63 before losing to No. 1 Saint Mary's 76-69 in the league semifinals.

2021-22: Pope's No. 5 seed Cougars (WCC) beat No. 8 Loyola Marymouth 85-60 before losing to No. 4 seed San Francisco 75-63 in the league's third round.

2020-21: BYU had the WCC No. 2 seed. They defeated No. 3 Pepperdine 82-77 in overtime before losing to No. 1 Gonzaga 88-78 in the league championship.

2019-20: While the NCAA Tournament was canceled, No. 2 BYU lost to No. 3 Saint Mary's 51-50 in their only game in the WCC tournament.

2018-19: Utah Valley State was the No. 2 seed in the WAC. They beat No. 7 UMKC 71-64 and then lost to No. 3 Grand Canyon 78-74 in the league semifinals.

2017-18: Pope's squad was No. 2 seed in the league tournament. They defeated Cal State Bakersfield 81-74 and then lost to No. 3 Grand Canyon 75-60 in the semifinals.

2016-17: Utah Valley State was seeded No. 4 in the WAC Tournament, defeating No. 5 Seattle 65-53 before losing to No. 1 Cal State Bakersfield 81-80 in overtime.

2015-16: In Pope's first conference tournament, Utah Valley State lost to UMKC in their only game.

Overall, Pope is 8-9 in conference tournaments. He appeared in one league championship game but the most common outcome was one win followed by a loss.

Kentucky in Recent SEC Tournaments

If Kentucky fails to win this year's league tournament title it will mark the longest stretch without such a crown in program history. But this year is of course a different challenge and there have been other formidable contenders in recent years.

2023-24: No. 2 seed Kentucky lost to No. 7 seed Texas A&M 97-87.

2022-23: No. 3 seed Kentucky lost to No. 6 seed Vanderbilt 80-73 in the quarterfinals.

2021-22: No. 3 seed Kentucky beat No. 11 seed Vanderbilt 77-71 before losing to No. 2 seed Tennessee 69-62.

2020-21: No. 8 Kentucky lost to No. 9 Mississippi State 74-73 in the second round of the SEC Tournament.

2019-20: Tournament Canceled

2018-19: No. 2 seed Kentucky beat No. 10 seed Alabama 73-55 before losing to No. 3 seed Tennessee 82-78 in the semifinal round.

Kentucky is only 2-4 in SEC Tournament play since its last tournament championship in the 2017-18 season.