2026 SEC Tournament Bracket Revealed: What is Alabama's Path?

No. 16 Alabama basketball earned the No. 2 seed in the SEC Tournament on Saturday night after beating Auburn 96-84 win at home in regular-season finale.

The second rendition of the Iron Bowl and Oklahoma at Texas were the last games of Saturday's slate, and after these contests ended, the SEC Tournament bracket was revealed.

2-seed Alabama will first play in the quarterfinals against either the 7-seed Georgia, 10-seed Texas or 15-seed Ole Miss on Friday at 6 p.m. CT in Nashville. The Crimson Tide recently clinched a double-bye as a guaranteed top-4 seed, as UA automatically advanced to the quarterfinals round.

"I looked at the bracket quick before I walked in [the press conference]," Oats said after the Auburn game. "Texas on Wednesday. Texas obviously beat us the only time we played them. Then it's the winner of that against Georgia, which just beat us.

"We'll be playing somebody that we're 0-1 against unless Ole Miss can pull off two upsets. So our guy's are going to have to get locked in and ready to go. It is nice that we see Texas, they'll play back to many nights before they play us. We see Georgia, at least they have to play one night before they play us. But they're both good, and we didn't look good against either one of them. So we're going to have to fix what was wrong in those games."

2026 SEC Basketball Tournament Bracket

2026 SEC Basketball Tournament Seeds

Florida
Alabama
Arkansas
Vanderbilt
Tennessee
Texas A&M
Georgia
Missouri
Kentucky
Texas
Oklahoma
Auburn
Mississippi State
South Carolina
Ole Miss
LSU

After falling to Florida on Feb. 1, the Crimson Tide moved down to the ninth spot in the conference standings. But a switch flipped after that loss, as Alabama won eight straight games before falling to Georgia 98-88 on Tuesday. The Crimson Tide was tied for the No. 2 spot in the standings during the latter part of the streak, but the 71-69 road win over Tennessee on Feb. 28 gave Alabama sole possession of that placement.

So, now that Alabama knows its seed, first opponent and path to the SEC Championship, what is Oats looking to improve on during the conference tournament?

"Maybe we're not going to outrebound teams by 20, but we've got to do a better job tightening up the rebounding gap," Oats said on Friday. "Maybe we only lose the rebounding battle by a few. We can't continue to lose it by 17 and 10 like we've just done these last two games, and expect to be able to continue to win at a high level.

"We've got to focus on what it takes to be great on defense and really lock into that on every single possession for 40 minutes. If we do that, we can score the ball as good as any team in the country. We are a better defensive team this year than we were then, but we are not where we would need to be to make a run in the SEC tournament or in the NCAA Tournament."

"We can be an elite perimeter defensive team that makes more defensive plays and can turn people over a little more. We've got to buy into what we've got. If we do that, we've got a chance to make a run."