SEC Baseball Tournament, May 26-30

SEC Tournament Central

Last updated: February 8, 2010 at 08:07 PM

The Southeastern Conference Baseball Tournament returns for a 13th straight year to Regions Park in the south-Birmingham city of Hoover, Ala., May 26-30.

The SEC Tournament will follow an eight-team double elimination format that is modeled after the College World Series. The tournament field includes the top teams from the SEC's Eastern and Western Divisions plus six at-large bids based on conference winning percentage.

The eight teams are seeded 1-8 with the two divisional champions guaranteed of the top two seeds. Last season, LSU defeated Vanderbilt 6-2 to claim their second straight SEC Tournament en route to winning their sixth national title.

Regions Park serves as home of the Double-A Birmingham Barons (Chicago White Sox) of the Southern League. The stadium also serves as a home field to the nationally renowned Hoover Buccaneer high school football program.

Located eight miles south of Birmingham, Regions Park is regarded by many sports experts as one of the best of its kind in the nation. It seats 10,800 for baseball, but can accommodate over 16,000 when the patio, banquet and side grassy areas are used. The stadium also houses 12 suites and state-of-the-art dressing and training rooms. Wireless internet access was added in 2004, concourse and signage renovation was done in 2005 and a second-level pressbox expansion, new stadium seating and an exterior facelift in 2007 completed a $4.5 million renovation project. A new HD video scoreboard was added in 2008.

The 2009 SEC Baseball Tournament, held in Hoover, Ala. drew over 86,000 fans, more than three other SEC Tournaments this decade. Four times time in the last seven years the tournament has surpassed the six-digit mark in total attendance. The 2002 SEC Baseball Tournament total attendance of 124,440 was the largest total in tourney history. The championship game pulled in 13,023 and was the second largest title game crowd in tournament history. It was also the third largest single game attendance in tourney history at the time. The 2008 event also drew over 124,000 fans.

The Southeastern Conference will keep its baseball tournament in suburban Birmingham through 2011 under the current contract. All games of the tourament are televised in high definition, with ESPN2 set to broadcast the championship game nationally for the first time in 2010.

SEC Tournament Seeding: The two division champions shall be automatically seeded number one and number two based on winning percentage in conference competition. The rest shall be seeded numbers three through eight based on winning percentage without regard to division. Ties will be broken in the following manner:

1. Two-Team Tie: When two teams are tied for a finish, the following procedure will be used (in the following order until the tie is broken):

A. Won-lost results of head-to-head competition between the two tied teams.

B. If they are divisional opponents:
1. Won-lost percentage within their division (over the 15-game SEC division schedule).

2. Won-lost percentage of the two teams versus the No. 1 team in their division (and proceeding through the No. 6 team, if necessary).

C. If two teams are not divisional opponents:

1. Won-lost record of the two teams versus the No. 1 seed using common opponents only (and proceeding through the No. 8 seed, if necessary).

2. Coin flip by the Commissioner.

2. Three-Team Tie (or more): When three or more teams are tied for a finish, the following procedure will be used (in descending order until the tie is broken): Once the tie has been reduced to two teams, the two-team tiebreaker procedure as stated in No. 1 above will be used.

A. If all three teams are common opponents: Total won-lost percentage of games played among the tied teams.

B. Won-lost percentage of the tied teams versus the No. 1 seed and proceeding through the No. 8 seed, if necessary, using common opponents only.

C. If three or more teams still are tied, the Commissioner will conduct a draw.

2010 SEC Tournament Bracket

Wednesday, May 26
Game 1 9:30 a.m. #7 Seed vs. #2 Seed [SPSO]
Game 2 TBD #6 Seed vs. #3 Seed [SPSO]
Game 3 4:30 p.m. #8 Seed vs. #1 Seed [CSS]
Game 4 TBD #5 Seed vs. #4 Seed [CSS]

Thursday, May 27
Game 5 9:30 a.m. Loser Game 1 vs. Loser Game 2 [CSS]
Game 6 TBD Loser Game 3 vs. Loser Game 4 [CSS]
Game 7 4:30 p.m. Winner Game 1 vs. Winner Game 2 [CSS]
Game 8 TBD Winner Game 3 vs. Winner Game 4 [CSS]

Friday, May 28
Game 9 3:00 p.m. Winner Game 5 vs. Loser Game 7 [SPSO]
Game 10 TBD Winner Game 6 vs. Loser Game 8 [SPSO]

Saturday, May 29
Game 11 9:30 a.m. Winner Game 8 vs. Winner Game 9 [SPSO]
Game 12 TBD Winner Game 7 vs. Winner Game 10 [SPSO]
Game 13* 5 p.m. Winner Game 11 vs. Loser Game 11 [CSS]
Game 14* TBD Winner Game 12 vs. Loser Game 12 [CSS]

Sunday, May 30
Game 15* 1:00 p.m. Winner Game 13 vs. Winner Game 14 [ESPN2]

* - If both bracket winners are undefeated, there will be no games 13 or 14 on Saturday and the championship game Sunday would be Game 13.

All Times are Central

[ESPN2] - ESPN2
[SPSO] - Includes SportSouth, Sun Sports, FOX Sports Southwest, FOX Sports Houston and FOX Sports South in Kentucky
[CSS] - Comcast/Charter Sports Southeast

All games will be streamed live on ESPN360.com

The second and third games each day will begin 30 minutes following the previous game, but no earlier than the designated start time.