SEC Tournament 2020: Full Schedule and Complete Bracket Predictions

In the NCAA men's basketball season, it's time to put the Madness into March.

The Kentucky Wildcats celebrated leap day by clinching the Southeastern Conference regular-season championship outright with a 73-66 win over the Auburn Tigers. It was Kentucky's first SEC title in three years (49th overall) and sixth under head coach John Calipari.

Now, with one week left in the regular season, the Wildcats (24-5, 14-2) are locked in with the No. 1 seed leading into the SEC tournament.

Auburn and LSU are ranked No. 2 and No. 3, respectively, while Mississippi State and Florida are tied for No. 4.

South Carolina, Texas A&M and Tennessee each have a shot at jumping into one of the top four seeds before the tourney, which will be held at Bridgestone Arena in Nashville, Tennessee.

According to the tourney schedule, the first round will begin on March 11 with the No. 12 and No. 13 seeds facing off in Game 1 at 7 p.m. ET, followed by Game 2, which features the No. 11 and No. 14 seeds.

The winners from the first day of action will advance to the second round, which will feature the No. 5  through No. 10 seeds. Game 3, which features the Nos. 8 and 9 seeds, begins on March 12 at 1 p.m. ET.

The top four seeds don't enter the fray until the quarterfinals, which will be held March 13. Then it's on to the semifinals and championship round, which are slated for March 14 and 15, respectively.

Kentucky needs three straight wins to take home the trophy, while the bottom 10 teams will need to go on an impressive four- or five-game run to win it all.

Auburn (11-5) is tied with LSU for second place in the SEC standings. Luckily, they hold the tiebreaker and could secure a double bye for the SEC tournament with a win over Texas A&M on Wednesday. The Tigers, led by seniors Samir Doughty and Austin Wiley, will face the Volunteers on Saturday.

LSU lost five out of seven games in February, so they're looking to bounce back with wins over Arkansas on Wednesday and Georgia on Saturday to close out the regular season.

Predictions

Kentucky is on a roll this year. UK has won eight straight and 12 of its last 13 games. That spells dominance heading into the conference tournament.

The Wildcats, led by Immanuel Quickley (16.3 points per game) and Ashton Hagans (11.5 points, 6.4 assists per game), are the No. 6 ranked team in the nation and for good reason.

Auburn won the SEC title last season and still have the tools to get it done, but Kentucky looks like it's on a mission since its 76-64 upset loss to Evansville in November.

The Wildcats bonded after that national undressing over meals, and Camp Cal and hasn't looked back. Kentucky assistant coach Joel Justus told reporters:

"This is a group that really came together over Christmas. The Camp Cal days have changed with some new rules from the NCAA. What we were able to do was feed them and I think this group really came together over meals.

"It's amazing, when you look at it from our perspective, what meals can do for teams, what meals can do for families, and that has never been more obvious than with this team and how they came together after what I think we all would say was a rough Las Vegas trip."

Kentucky will leave Nashville with the SEC tournament title and then focus on dancing in the NCAAs.

Follow Maurice Bobb on Twitter, @ReeseReport