SEC Baseball Tournament 2023: Tuesday Schedule and Bracket Predictions

The 2023 SEC baseball tournament begins on Tuesday in Hoover, Alabama with four games.

Five of the eight teams participating in the first round are looking to improve their positions in the NCAA baseball tournament field.

The Auburn Tigers, Alabama Crimson Tide and Kentucky Wildcats are all projected as regional hosts by D1 Baseball. The South Carolina Gamecocks and Tennessee Volunteers are No. 2 seeds in the latest bracket prediction.

Auburn, Tennessee and South Carolina come into Tuesday with the goal of avoiding a bad loss that would affect their NCAA tournament seeding. They take on the three worst teams that qualified for the SEC tournament.

Alabama-Kentucky should be the most competitive game of the opening-round slate. The winner of that matchup gets a shot at the top-seeded Florida Gators on Wednesday.

---

Tuesday SEC Tournament Schedule

No. 11 Georgia vs. No. 6 South Carolina (10:30 a.m. ET)

No. 10 Texas A&M vs. No. 7 Tennessee (30 minutes after first game)

No. 9 Alabama vs. No. 8 Kentucky (5:30 p.m. ET)

No. 12 Missouri vs. No. 5 Auburn (30 minutes after third game)

All games televised by SEC Network.

---

Preview

Three of the four opening-round contests should be won by the higher seeds.

Auburn enters Hoover in the best position of the teams participating on Tuesday. The Tigers are on an eight-game winning streak after a series win over the LSU Tigers and sweeps over the Ole Miss Rebels and Missouri Tigers.

Auburn wrapped up the regular season with three wins by a combined score of 20-9 against Missouri, who it faces in Tuesday's night cap.

Missouri produced an 11-16 record in road and neutral-site games this season. Its lack of success away from home and its recent set of losses versus Auburn could lead it to an early elimination.

Tuesday's four winners advance into an eight-team double-elimination format. The first round is single elimination, so the four losers do not have the chance to play their way back into the final.

South Carolina is the higher seed in the most danger of losing because of its recent skid. It lost two of three against Tennessee last weekend and is 2-9 in its last 11 games.

The Gamecocks need a win over the Georgia Bulldogs to stabilize things and then they can focus on chasing down a regional hosting bid. South Carolina and Tennessee both need multiple victories in Hoover to have a shot at landing one of the top 16 seeds in the NCAA tournament.

The good news for South Carolina and Tennessee is that one of Alabama and Kentucky will go home after Tuesday. Alabama is currently projected as the No. 14 national seed and Kentucky is No. 9 in D1 Baseball's bracket prediction.

A Kentucky win would probably work better for the Gamecocks and Vols because of where the projections stand.

Kentucky beat Alabama twice on March 24 and 25. The Crimson Tide won a one-run game to close out that series on March 26.

Alabama is 7-1 in its last eight games and scored over 10 runs in three of their last five contests.

Its bats could be the biggest story to emerge from Tuesday's games. Another strong performance at the dish could propel the team into the second round, which would give it a few shots at beating the top four sides in the SEC.

Kentucky allowed 10 runs in three of its last six games and closed the regular season with series losses to Florida and Tennessee.

Alabama could be catching the Wildcats at the right time, which could lead to another major offensive output.

---

Predictions:

No. 6 South Carolina def. No. 11 Georgia

No. 7 Tennessee def. No. 10 Texas A&M

No. 9 Alabama def. No. 8 Kentucky

No .5 Auburn def. No. 12 Missouri