2017 SEC Forecast

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2015-16 Season Analytical Writings

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2017 SEC Preview

The annual SEC wars are ready to begin with five games on Thursday evening, and the when all the dust settles on the SEC race on March 4, 2017, these teams will have logged 126 games into the record books. The teams have played either 11 or 12 non-conference games and based on the in-game performance by each of the SEC teams, Kentucky is favored to win its 48 th SEC (out of 101 champions) regular season championship and its 29 th SEC Tournament Championship, out of 56 total tournaments.

Based on each teams' non-conference records, the ANE and ANE rank are shown below.

Table 1 ANE and ANE Ranking Based On Non-conference Records

The following Table provides the pre-season SEC forecast, based on the current ANE values and the mix of games, home and away for the 14 unique basketball schedules. In addition, Table 2 provides a projection about likely NCAA post-season play eligibility:

Table 2 Projected SEC Records and NCAA Tournament Status

Please note that the final order of finish is not identical to the ANE ranking. This occurs because the SEC schedules are not balance, and are not full double round robin. Rather, the schedules are unbalances with regard to who a team must play on the road as opposed to entertain at home.

The top 4 teams earn a double bye into the SEC Tournament's Quarterfinal Round. These top four should be Kentucky, Florida, South Carolina, and Arkansas. The bottom four, required to play in the two first round games of the SEC Tournament are LSU, Missouri, Mississippi State, and Vanderbilt. The remaining six SEC teams will begin their SEC Tournament play in the second round.

The chalk for such an SEC tournament would see the Cats playing either Alabama or Georgia in the quarterfinal round, followed by either Texas A&M or Arkansas in the semi-final round. The championship game should be between Kentucky and either Florida or South Carolina.

Enjoy the SEC Season and track its progress against these pre-season projections at Big Blue Fans 4 UK

Submitted by Richard Cheeks

Submitted by Richard Cheeks

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