Alabama's dominant season came to an end in one of the most balanced NCAA tournaments, while Tennessee also looked like a contender until a late season injury and Arkansas touched off one of the best three year runs by defeating a 1-seed.
We added Value Add Basketball Game teams for all three teams and set put each in the bracket below for the All-Time SEC championship. We included five national champs and gave them the top five seeds - Kentucky 1948, 1996 and 2012, Arkansas' 40 minutes of hell 1994 champs, and the first of consecutive Florida champs from 2006.
Both Iron Bowl teams have come their close to winning it all in the last five years and are seeded right behind the teams that won national titles. Auburn's 2019 Final Four team that came one traveling call short of the title game despite missing their best player, Chuma Okeke. Alabama was the best team in the country most of the year and even at the end but got the wrong matchup. As we noted in this blog, our bracket based on the more experienced is in the 99th percentile.
The system actually picked Alabama to make the Final Four next year rather than this year. Even though they will lose Brandon Moore to the NBA - an offseason in the weight room prevents other freshmen from being pushed around by a more muscular team like San Diego STate.
We do also opt for teams with incredible player - and noone has bigger names than the 21 SEC teams in the game. From Charles Barkley to Pistol Pete Maravich, Dominique Wilkins, Dan Issel, Sidney Moncrief and Dan Issel, even some of the lower seeds put exciting players on the court.
The way the bracket is set up, if Charles Barkley can lead 1984 Auburn past the 1973 South Carolina team - then I am assuming he would trash talk Anthony Davis and our top all-time seed Kentucky 2012. I was at the only game Davis lost in college, on an incredible shot at Indiana, but that team is loaded.
Alabama 2023 gets a bye then faces the fast Missouri 1982 team. Auburn's 2019 Final Four team faces South Carolina's 2017 team in a battle of surprise Final Four teams. But the team with more NBA talent than any others (Kentucky 27, Duke 22) will always be the team to beat in SEC basketball.
The following are the cards for our top seed Kentucky 2012. We would have Kentucky 1996 as our second seed, but if we did it would set up possible second round matchups of Arkansas 1978 vs. Arkansas 1994, and Kentucky 1996 vs Kentucky 1979, so we flipped the two and three seeds to avoid that.
Seed. SEC Teams, Best Player Card, Did they win title?
1. Kentucky - 2012 - Anthony Davis. Champs
2. Kentucky - 1996 - Antoine Walker. Champs
3. Arkansas - 1994 - Corliss Williamson. Champs
4. Florida - 2006 - Joakim Noah. Champs
5. Kentucky - 1948 - Alex Groza. Champs
6. Auburn - 2019 - Chuma Okeke.
7. Alabama - 2023 - Brandon Miller.
8. LSU - 1992 - Shaquille O'Neal.
9. Tennessee - 2023 - Santiago Vescovi.
10. Missouri - 1982 - Steve Stipanovich.
11. South Carolina - 2017 - Sindarius Thornwell.
12. Arkansas - 2022 - JD Notae.
13. Tennessee - 1977 - Bernard King.
14. LSU - 2006 - Glen Davis.
15. Alabama - 1977 - Reggie King.
16. South Carolina - 1973 - Mike Dunleavy.
17. Auburn - 1984 - Charles Barkley.
18. Kentucky - 1970 - Dan Issel.
19. Arkansas - 1978 - Sidney Moncrief.
20. Georgia - 1982 - Dominique Wilkins.
21. LSU - 1970 - Pete Maravich.
We include a bracket, player cards and a summary for all conferences with at least eight all-time great teams in the game, or for any other team not in one of those eight conferences click on this "Mid-Major" bracket to see where they are in that bracket. Click for the ACC, Atlantic 10, American Athletic, Big 10, Big 12, Big East, Pac-12 or SEC, or back to this master list of all teams here or the game itself with the playing cards at our All-Time Value Add Basketball Game.
To go straight to the player cards for the team you want, click on the alphabetic list by team and scroll to find the player cards for your team:
List A - Alabama 1977 to Georgia Tech 2004
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