SEC tourney seeding

I’ll have more on the emotional meaning of South Carolina’s stunning win at No. 13 Vanderbilt in my Monday column. For now, here’s what the game means for the SEC tournament.

It means, as far as I can figure, South Carolina gets a rematch with Alabama on Thursday at 1 p.m.

The SEC hasn’t confirmed it, but  South Carolina is now the fifth seed out of the East, no matter what Georgia does at LSU. The teams have identical division records now, and USC owns the third tiebreaker, better record against the top team in the division (Kentucky).

Ironically, South Carolina’s upset of Vanderbilt also made Alabama the fourth seed. Alabama’s win over Auburn equaled both team’s records, and in an amazing quirk their tiebreakers go all the way to record vs. opponents from the other division.

Alabama and Auburn split their two games, had the same division record, and beat the same teams in the West. So then it goes to their record vs. East opponents, starting with the top seed and going down until there’s a difference – and it gets to No. 5 South Carolina, which beat Auburn but lost to Alabama.

Got all that?

The winner of the game will face Kentucky, the top seed out of the East.

If any of this changes, I’ll let you know, because like I said the SEC hasn’t confirmed it yet, and may not until Sunday.