Tide Will Now Play Vanderbilt In SEC Tournament First Round
3/11/2003 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
TUSCALOOSA – The announcement Monday of the withdrawal by Georgia from this week's 2003 Southeastern Conference Men's Basketball Tournament has caused a re-seeding and a new first round opponent for the University of Alabama.
Alabama, originally set to play South Carolina, will now play Vanderbilt on Thursday at 6:30 p.m. CT. The winner of that game still plays top-seeded and SEC Champions Kentucky on Friday at 6:30 p.m. in the quarterfinal.
The bottom portion of that bracket now finds Tennessee, moved up to the East's three seed, receiving a first round bye. It automatically advances to the quarterfinal where it will play the West's two seed, Auburn, at 8:45 p.m. CT on Friday.
According to a release sent Monday evening by the SEC office, "The SEC Commissioner's Regulations stipulate that for the purpose of seeding, if an institution is precluded from participating in the tournament, it shall automatically be seeded last in its division. The number three seed with the best conference record will then receive a bye."
Tennessee was 9-7 in the league. South Carolina moved from fifth seed in the East to fourth and Vanderbilt moved from sixth to the fifth seed in the East. The sixth seed is vacated with the non-participation of Georgia. While it did affect opponents, the change did not affect seeding for the West teams.
Official notification of the bracket change came to the schools around 5:30 p.m. CT. Alabama, which practices at 4 p.m. on Mondays, was nearing completion of its practice which obviously was initially geared toward South Carolina when Head Coach Mark Gottfried was given word of the change in his first round opponent.
"It's been a long time since we played Vanderbilt, and we've spent a day and a half now studying South Carolina," said Gottfried. "I'm sure it will be a great challenge. Matt Freije has played well against us every time we've played them. I think every team in the league that's been affected, it's going to take half a day or so to get adjusted and do your homework.
"We literally switched in the middle of practice, changing notes, changing preparations. That's the first time in my career that that's ever happened. But again, Vanderbilt always poses problems. They beat us the only time they played us this year, so obviously our guys have a lot of respect for them."
