LSU and South Carolina are the top seeds for the Southeastern Conference Tournament. The hottest teams in the league are in the middle of the bracket. Even the ones at the bottom have proven capable of getting on a roll for a few games.

Welcome to the topsy-turvy world of the SEC, where no lead is safe and favorites don’t exist. The top 10 teams will gather in Hoover, Ala., this week for the league’s annual free-for-all of a tournament that might not be won by the best team, so much as the one playing the best right now.

“Everybody’s good,” South Carolina coach Ray Tanner said. “Whoever we’re going to play over there, you’re going to play great competition. I don’t care if it’s the eighth, ninth, 10th-place team, it doesn’t matter. It’s a tremendous program you’re going to play against. Hopefully that’s the type of thing that helps you get ready to play in the postseason.”

This year’s tournament features a new format. Ten teams will participate instead of the eight that were invited in previous seasons. The top two seeds, LSU and South Carolina, will get opening-round byes and face re-seeded opponents Wednesday. The other eight teams will play their first games Tuesday.

To accommodate the extra teams, a practice day was eliminated and the first-round games moved up one day.

The changes were made in advance of the SEC’s expansion to 14 schools next season. The tournament was set to expand in 2013 anyway, but coaches embraced the move a year early to give more teams a chance at reaching the NCAA Tournament.

“I think every coach wants a 10-team tournament. At least,” Mississippi State’s John Cohen said. “We all voted to take away the practice opportunity on Monday because how big a deal is that? Getting 10 teams is a big, big deal. There’s going to be years where that 10th team gets to Omaha. It’s going to happen, because our league is that good.”

Ole Miss is among the teams hoping Cohen’s prophecy rings true this year.

The Rebels (34-22), seeded ninth, play the first game of the tournament Tuesday morning at 9:30 against Kentucky. Ole Miss comes to Hoover riding a four-game losing streak that includes a season-ending sweep at the hands of Vanderbilt, and lost three of its last four SEC series.

The Rebels, however, have been ranked in or around the Top 25 in both the Collegiate Baseball and Baseball America polls for much of the season and have the talent to pull it together for a long run this week.

“After a weekend like this, you have to turn the page heading into the postseason,” Ole Miss coach Mike Bianco said after Saturday’s 6-3 loss to Vanderbilt. “We have to find ourselves in Hoover.”

Vanderbilt is one of several teams in the middle of the pack that could find themselves sticking around until the weekend, based on recent results. The Commodores won their last four SEC series and 12 of 15 games down the stretch to earn the No. 5 seed. They’ll face Georgia in the final game Tuesday night.

Like Vanderbilt, Mississippi State played well down the stretch to gain confidence heading into its tournament opener with Arkansas at 1 p.m. Tuesday.

The Bulldogs (34-21) are coming off a sweep of Kentucky, which was ranked in the Top 10 in the country nearly all season long. They went 11-4 in their last 15 games, which is the program’s best stretch to finish a season since 1989.

Cohen was optimistic, but cautious, about his team’s chances. He said the SEC is simply too unpredictable and has too much parity to play it any other way.

“We had a 17-strikeout game against LSU and lost on a little flare down the line that Brent Brownlee couldn’t get to because of a hamstring problem. There’s a lot of luck involved. You can play awfully well in this league and still not win,” Cohen said after Saturday’s game against Kentucky. “But I do like our chances, because I love the way our kids are competing.”