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The 2010 SEC basketball tournament will be held March 11th-14th at the Sommet Center in Nashville, Tennessee. If you are traveling to Nashville for the SEC Tournament, you’ll want to make the decision of whether to stay at a downtown Nashville hotel or at a Nashville airport hotel during your stay in Music City.

Heading into the final weeks of conference play, the Kentucky Wildcats sit atop the SEC East with Vanderbilt close behind. The SEC West is a different story, with Mississippi State, Ole Miss, and Arkansas all battling it out for the top with Arkansas being the surprise performer in conference play.

More surprises for 2010 SEC play have included no one predicting that LSU would lose their first 11 conference games. Alabama, Georgia, and South Carolina all have potential to pull some upsets in this year’s tourney. Although not at the top of the East, Tennessee and Florida could also go deep in this year’s tourney. The Gators will need to have a good showing in the tourney to finally make it back to the NCAA tournament after failing to do so the past two seasons, where the Volunteers will likely make the Big Dance unless they have a melt down the remainder of the season. Final SEC Tournament brackets will be released at the conclusion of league play with the winner of the SEC Tournament being granted the conference’s automatic bid to the 2010 NCAA Tournament.

2010 SEC Tournament Preview and Predictions

2010 SEC Basketball Tournament

2010 SEC Tournament – First Round – March 11, 2010
E5 South Carolina vs. W4 Alabama     Noon             SEC Network
W6 LSU vs. E3 Tennessee     2:15 p.m.     SEC Network
W5 Auburn vs. E4 Florida     6:30 p.m.     SEC Network
E6 Georgia vs. W3 Arkansas     8:45 p.m.     SEC Network

2010 SEC Tournament – Quarter Finals – March 12, 2010
E1 Kentucky vs. E5/W4 Winner     Noon              SEC Network
W2 Ole Miss vs. W6/E3 Winner     2:15 p.m.     SEC Network
W1 Mississippi State vs. W5/E4 Winner     6:30 p.m.     SEC Network
E2 Vanderbilt vs. E6/W3 Winner     8:45 p.m.      SEC Network

2010 SEC Tournament – Semi Finals – March 13, 2010
Semifinal 1     12:00 p.m.     ABC
Semifinal 2     2:15pm.          ABC

2010 SEC Tournament 2010 – Championship – March 14, 2010
Championship Game     12 p.m.     ABC

The following is a guest post from Andy Charles who regularly contributes to Bet Fair.

Kentucky’s hopes of going a long way this season have been boosted by the news that point guard John Wall has been cleared to play by the NCAA.

Although Wall will have to sit out two games – only one of those a regular season outing – he will be eligible from their November 16 clash with Miami (Ohio) and gives the Wildcats a real prospect to work with.

Wall has long been considered one of the top high-school players in the country and Kentucky were desperate to get him on board for the season, coach John Calipari’s first in charge since his sterling efforts with the Memphis Tigers.

His status had been in doubt over a possible relationship with his AAU coach Brian Clifton, who is a certified agent, since any connection with him would have left his amateur status in tatters and probably meant a move to play professionally in Europe.

The freshman out of Raleigh, NC, joins a roster full of talent and including a pre-season All-American in Patrick Patterson, who averaged 17.9 points per game last season    on a team he and Jodie Meeks, now involved in the NBA Picks, dominated.

But in Wall the Wildcats have a far better (and less greedy) ball handler than Meeks and he could rival many of the recent star point guards in college, with Calipari already saying he was more advanced at this stage than either Derrick Rose or Tyreke Evans – high praise indeed.

Wall and Patterson’s talent mean it is imperative that Kentucky does not match last season’s failure to even make the NCAA Tournament in March – indeed failure to make the Elite Eight would be a disappointment given the resources at hand.

And Calipari will be aware that in both of the last two seasons, the Wildcats have suffered early shock defeats (2007 to Gardner-Webb and last year to Virginia Military) which put them behind the eight-ball before things had really gotten started.

As for pre-season top five basketball picks, there is no room for that kind of error, and Wall will have to get up to speed quickly with early December games against North Carolina and Connecticut on the slate and a tough SEC season to look forward to as well.

I, for one, can’t wait for the games to start!