Around The SEC │Baseball Edition

In the league Vandy (16-2) and LSU (15-3) are clearly the top two teams this year. In third place right now are USCe and Arky both with 11-7 records. Tied for 5^th place are UF, Miss., and MSU all at 10-8. All three of these teams have been hot of late with UF winning 9 of their last 10. Doing a little speculation I would think these 7 teams will land NCAA births. UF's over all record is not so great (23-19), but they have improved during the season more than any other conference team.

In 8^th place all alone is Alabama at 9-9 (25-18 overall.) We did win one game verses the number two ranked LSU Tigers. The real tragedy is that we did not win 2 out of 3. We certainly had a shot at winning Saturday night in one of the most exciting college baseball games you'd ever want to watch.

The bottom 6 are (in this order) UK 7-11, aTm 7-11, AU- 6-12, UT- 5-13, Mizzou 5-13, UGA 4-14. Remember the bottom two teams are out of the SEC Tourney.

A quick summary of this past weekends actions saw SC sweep UK and Miss. Sweep UT. Vandy, MSU, Arky, LSU, and UF won 2 and 3 over UGA, AU, aTm, Bama, and Mizzou respectively. No real surprises last weekend as the top 7 beat the bottom 7. The biggest surprise to me was that UGA beat Vandy one game and that Bama beat LSU one game.

Looking ahead for Bama we have two home series left, this weekend vs. aTm and May 10-12 vs. Mizzou. These two series are very significant for the Tide. If we can sweep both of these at home we will finish no worse than .500. Since both of these series are at home our chances are very good for two sweeps when you consider both teams are below us in the standings. This weekend is very significant because the Aggies are not playing good right now. Standing at only 22-20 overall, they have lost 10 of their last 12 SEC games. If ever there was a team going the wrong way it is this bunch and we need to hit them while they are down.

By the way, our two remaining road series are at a hot MSU team and at the team with the best record- Vandy. We might salvage 1 win from these two series but looking at things logically going 1-5 on the road may be the best we can expect.

As I said earlier, the top 7, barring a total collapse, should be in the NCAA tourney. Now, if Bama finishes .500 or better in the SEC we will also finish somewhere around 33-26 over all. We would then be the clear #8 team in the SEC. I actually think we might just slip into the NCAA Tourney. So, a great deal is riding on this upcoming series with aTm. I think we are playing pretty good right now and should have momentum from LSU as well as road victory over a good Southern Miss team Wednesday night. If we are going to do it...this weekend is key.