The gauntlet of the SEC baseball tournament and what to know going in - ESPN

There was the Siege of Constantinople in 717. There was the Philadelphia Election Riot bar brawls of 1742. There was the National Wrestling Alliance Bunkhouse Stampede of 1988.

And now, we have the SEC baseball tournament of 2025.

After three decades of allowing a limited number of teams to take the field in Hoover, Alabama, this year's overhauled SEC bracket will be bursting at its baseball seams. For the first time in the tournament's nearly 50-year history, all 16 members of the conference will participate and the full bracket will be single elimination, with four teams receiving a bye and another four receiving a double bye.

In overwritten metaphorical terms, it's a very crowded high wire that has been strung over Hoover Metropolitan Stadium with no safety net. But for the last team still hanging on after five days and 15 games played, there will be plenty of big time, big top, hardball glory.

The field that begins play Tuesday morning includes the nation's top two teams (LSU and Texas), three of the top five (No. 5 Arkansas), six of the top 10 (Nos. 8-10, Auburn, Vanderbilt, Georgia), 10 of the top 25 (Florida, Tennessee, Ole Miss, Alabama), the past five Men's College World Series champions and also four of the past five runners-up. A whopping eight of Kiley McDaniel's top 30 MLB first-year draft prospects will be in Hoover this week, as well as eight of the just-announced 25-player list of semifinalists for the Golden Spikes Award. At the close of the regular season, our friends at D1Baseball.com projected that the SEC would send a record 13 teams to the NCAA tournament — 13 of 16 teams.

How stacked is this deck? The defending SEC and MCWS champion is in this field… as the No. 8 seed.

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