The Gamecocks’ regular season is over, and it’s time for the SEC Tournament. Analysts differ on what South Carolina needs to do to secure a national seed, but here is a little primer on the tournament to get you ready for the week.
The SEC Tourney is played in Hoover, Alabama which is a suburb of Birmingham. The stadium is home to the Birmingham Barons, the AA affiliate of the Chicago White Sox. The Barons are famous for being the team Michael Jordan played for during his short baseball career.
The stadium itself may be notorious among Gamecock fans thanks to its cavernous dimensions. Many of Ray Tanner’s power hitting teams have come to Hoover and hit a bunch of warning track fly balls en route to being bounced from the tournament. Thanks to the new bats, that shouldn’t be as much of a problem for the Gamecocks. Few balls will leave the park all week. The park’s dimensions are 340 down the lines, 385 to the power alleys and 405 to straight away center.
The Tournament features 8 teams playing a double elimination tournament from Wednesday through Sunday. The format is a little different than many fans may be used to. Most 8 team, double elimination tournaments are divided into two sides of four teams each. The SEC Tournament is done this way. The highest seeded team plays the lowest seeded team on each side, and the two other teams play each other. Then the winners play and the losers play. The loser of the losers’ game is eliminated. The loser of the winners’ game plays the winner of the losers’ game. The team that loses this game now has two losses and is eliminated. There is one team (on each side) who has won two games and lost none, and one team who has won two and lost one. In most tournaments those two teams would then play, but this is where the SEC is different. Instead of the team who came through the losers’ bracket playing the winners’ bracket team on the their side, the team that emerges from the losers’ bracket plays the team from the winners’ bracket on the other side.
It can be confusing. To put it another way, if South Carolina were to win their first two games, they would not play one of the three teams that started on their side; they would play whichever team emerges from the other side’s losers’ bracket.
Once the tournament reaches the point where a team from the winners’ bracket is playing a team from the losers’ bracket, the team from the losers’ bracket must beat the winners’ bracket team twice to advance. When there are only two teams remaining, they play one game to determine the champion. The easiest thing for the Gamecocks to do would be to win four straight.
Check back tomorrow morning for a preview of South Carolina’s opening round opponent and the two teams they may face in the second round.
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