SEC Tournament predictions: Take a shot with undervalued Texas A&M to get the automatic bid

The SEC is projected to send eight teams to the NCAA Tournament — second most among all college basketball conferences.

So it’s easy to assume that this week’s SEC Tournament in Nashville is rather anticlimactic. However, like most assumptions, that one would be inaccurate.

Because two of the squads currently expected to make the NCAA Tournament could easily end up on the wrong side of the bubble with an early SEC Tournament exit. Also, those teams with strong résumés need to keep winning to improve their March Madness seeding.

Then there’s the rest of the league that’s looking to create chaos, including two current NCAA Tournament outsiders that need to make deep runs this week to nudge their way into the party.

So there’s plenty of intrigue ahead of this year’s event, which tips off Tuesday night. Here’s an SEC Tournament betting preview, including our prediction to take home the title.

Odds updated as of 5 p.m. ET on March 6.

Of the six SEC teams that are safely in the NCAA Tournament field, five have more than 20 victories while the sixth is sitting on 19. And the five 20-game winners all came away with top five seeds in the conference tourney.

But the SEC Tournament odds don’t exactly reflect those facts.

Yes, No. 1 seed Alabama (26-5 overall, 17-4 ATS) is solidly favored to win its second conference tournament crown in the last three years. But the clear-cut second choice is No. 5 seed Tennessee, which doesn’t get the benefit of a double-bye.

That means the Vols (22-9, 16-15 ATS) would have to win one more game than any of the top four seeds — Alabama, Texas A&M, Kentucky and Missouri — to successfully defend their 2022 SEC Tournament title.

Same goes for 10th-seeded Arkansas. Yet the Razorbacks (19-12, 15-16 ATS) are the fifth in SEC Tournament odds, ranging from +1200 at BetMGM to +1500 at Caesars Sportsbook. Slotted just ahead of Arkansas and directly behind second choice Tennessee are Kentucky (21-10, 15-16 ATS) and Texas A&M (23-8, 21-10 ATS).

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Kentucky, which was voted the SEC preseason favorite, needed a late-season 5-1 SU and ATS surge to climb into third place. The Wildcats swept Tennessee and also have quality victories over Texas A&M and Arkansas.

Meanwhile, the Aggies — who ended the regular campaign with Saturday’s 67-61 victory at home over Alabama — finished just a game back of the Crimson Tide in the league standings. Texas A&M is 8-1 SU and ATS since the calendar turned to February. That includes wins over three of the league’s top five teams — Alabama, Missouri and Tennessee — plus Arkansas.

What about the fourth SEC team that earned a double-bye to the tournament semis? It is sitting seventh in odds to cut down the nets in Nashville.

You don’t need 20-20 vision to spot the Rodney Dangerfield of the SEC Tournament. It’s Missouri, which tied fourth place with Tennessee and Vanderbilt but won the tiebreaker that gave the Tigers a pass until Friday’s quarterfinals.

Missouri (23-8, 16-15 ATS) comes into this week having won a league-best four in a row. However, one was a two-point overtime home win over Mississippi State, while the other three were against SEC bottom feeders Georgia, LSU and Ole Miss (the latter two by 11 total points).

Still, the Tigers have quality SEC wins over Kentucky, Arkansas, Vanderbilt and Tennessee, plus one-sided non-conference victories over NCAA Tournament teams Illinois and Iowa State.

Surrounding Mizzou on the SEC Tournament odds board are Auburn (20-11, 15-16 ATS), Mississippi State (20-11, 16-15 ATS) and Vanderbilt (18-13, 17-14). The first two are barely on the safe side of the NCAA Tournament cut line, while Vanderbilt has work to do to squeeze into the field of 68.

Not as much work as Florida, though. The Gators (16-15, 15-16 ATS) have to win the conference tournament to qualify for the Big Dance. Yet their odds to do just that are better at FanDuel (+2500) than those of Missouri (+2600).

» READ MORE: Count on regular season champion VCU to cut the nets down at this week’s Atlantic 10 tournament

Alabama is rightly favored to win this tournament. But the Crimson Tide have not been playing well since national media scrutiny intensified after it was revealed that star player Brandon Miller allegedly supplied a gun that was used in the murder of a young woman near campus.

Now-former Alabama player Darius Miles was charged with the murder. And while Miller hasn’t been implicated in the crime, the pressure surrounding the program clearly is impacting the team on the court.

Prior to the season-ending loss at Texas A&M, the Tide needed huge second-half rallies to defeat South Carolina (road), Arkansas (home) and Auburn (home) by a combined 11 points.

So as talented as Alabama is, it’s difficult to trust this team at the moment. We also have no interest in backing second choice Tennessee because the Vols have to play that extra game.

That leaves us riding with Texas A&M, which offers some solid betting value.

The Aggies will get the Arkansas-Auburn winner, which should be an energy-zapping, 40-minute defensive battle. If Texas A&M survives that, it would likely meet Kentucky in the semifinals.

That would be a rematch of a Jan. 21 clash the Wildcats won 76-67 at home. The Aggies actually led that contest at halftime. More importantly, as noted above, they’ve improved greatly since then, picking up a bunch of quality wins during a 10-2 SU/9-3 ATS run.

So A&M definitely has the talent to beat anyone in the field. That makes the +650 odds FanDuel is offering too good to pass up.

» READ MORE: Full sports betting coverage from The Philadelphia Inquirer

The Inquirer is not an online gambling operator, or a gambling site. We provide this information about sports betting for entertainment purposes only.