Anyone care to update our chances now? I really have no clue?
Slight improvement due to the fact that we won and USC and Ole Miss lost, but we still have a long way to go.
The question is whether 9 teams get in or 10 teams.
Right now, most believe that just 9 SEC teams get in. 8 are solidly in. They are the top 8 teams. So, you have 4 teams vying to get to 9 or 10th SEC team in the tournament.
Ole Miss is right there on brink. They won 14 SEC games and have an RPI right now of 40. Still that RPI might only go down as others get wins and they don't. They lost in single elimination play yesterday so their resume is what it is and the RPI likely only gets lower.
USC finished 10th. I think there is no way they get in. They already lost and cannot improve their resume and they have the worst RPI of the bunch. They have a losing overall record. That just isn't a good resume to convince the committee that they deserve to be in. Only thing they have going for them is that they have 1 more SEC win, prior to the tournament, than UK and Alabama had. That won't cut it now that Alabama and UK have won at least 1 tournament game each and both are guaranteed 2 more games.
Alabama - They are the thorn in UK's side right now. Alabama has now won 2 SEC tournament games. That puts them at 14 total SEC wins and their RPI is now boosted to 41, just 1 spot below Ole Miss. They are still guaranteed 2 more games.
UK's biggest knock is that they finished 12th in the SEC. I do not think that any 12 seed has ever gone to the NCAA tournament. Small sample size, but it seems highly unlikely that the committee will skip over teams that finished higher in the league in favor of someone that barely even made the SEC tournament, and even lost the series to the team that finished a game behind them. UK has the second worst RPI of all the teams and they are 10 RPI spots behind Alabama as of tonight.
If only 9 get in then, right now, UK is on the outside looking at Alabama and or Ole Miss. If 10 get in then UK is still probably on the outside looking in, but they have a chance to pass one or both teams if they get more wins. I think that they have to at least get 1 more win than Alabama does if they want to pass them. So, if we're talking about 9 teams get in then you need 2 more wins and hope that Alabama doesn't win any more. If they give the nod to 10 teams then what Alabama does isn't as important as UK might look to surpass Ole Miss, who can't improve. That won't be easy either, especially given that UK lost a series at home to Ole Miss.
d1baseball.com
