The tournament champion earned the conference's automatic bid to the 2018 NCAA Division I baseball tournament[1] The tournament has been held every year since 1977, with LSU claiming twelve championships, the most of any school.

Original members Georgia and Kentucky along with 1992 addition Arkansas have never won the tournament.

This is the twentieth consecutive year and twenty-second overall that the event has been held at Hoover Metropolitan Stadium, known from 2007 through 2012 as Regions Park.

The regular season division winners claimed the top two seeds and the next ten teams by conference winning percentage, regardless of division, claimed the remaining berths in the tournament.

The bottom eight teams played a single-elimination opening round, followed by a double-elimination format until the semifinals, when the format reverted to single elimination through the championship game.