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  • Kentucky Baseball Monday, April 25 Update

    We lost our fourth consecutive SEC series this past weekend, dropping two of three games to Vanderbilt. We did the same on all three prior SEC series, managing to win one of the three games. That's not good enough.

    We have now played 18 conference games, with a record of 6-12, with 12 games to go. We are precariously perched, tied for the 13th spot out of 14 SEC teams, with the bottom two teams not making the SEC tournament in Hoover.

    There are eight SEC teams with a record of 500 or better: Tennessee (17-1), Arkansas (12-6), Auburn (11-7), Georgia 11-7), LSU (10-8), Texas A&M (10-8), Alabama (9-9), and Vanderbilt (9-9). I am going to ignore those teams and pretend like we cannot catch them although, of course mathematically we certainly can.

    The focus here is on the remaining 6 teams:

    Mississippi State (8-10)
    Ole Miss (6-12)
    Florida (6-12)
    South Carolina (6-12)
    Kentucky (6-12)
    Missouri (5-13)

    At most, I don't see the NCAA taking more than the eight teams with a 500 record plus Mississippi State. It is basically nearly hopeless that we will make the NCAA tournament this year. We are mired at number 77 in the RPI, with a 22-18 (6-12) record, very mediocre and not even close to at-large consideration. We would probably have to just about win the remaining games in order to receive an at-large bid. Last week I said that we would need to be in the top half of the Southeastern Conference in heaven RPI around the top 35. We have dropped since last week at this time, when we were 70. We added a Quadrant 1 victory this weekend, and now we are up to 7 on the season. Not nearly enough.

    For an automatic bid, course we would need to win the SEC Tournament. As we can tell from just about every weekend, we might have two or three really effective pictures, but we run out of pitching far too early to even win an SEC Series, much less win games from Tuesday through Sunday as we would need to do in the SEC Tournament.

    Our remaining SEC opponents are:

    April 29-May 1 at Florida. Gators are fighting for a possible NCAA at-large bid, and need to improve their SEC record. They are, however, 13 in RPI and have 10 Quadrant 1 wins, so improving just a little in conference play should put them in play for the at-large bids. I suspect we will have a very difficult time this weekend in Gainesville.

    We then jump from the frying pan into the fire, as we then host # 1 Tennessee May 5-7. They have been incredible this entire season, and I will be surprised if we are not swept.

    The next weekend we switch to another near bottom dweller, at South Carolina May 13-15. South Carolina is having an usually bad season, even worse than ours with a 19-20 overall record and tied with us in conference play stop they also only have 7 Quadrant 1 wins, but again, this is South Carolina and with their baseball history, I do not expect anything but very difficult games for us. Then again, they are not Tennessee.

    We finished the regular season (and possibly the entire season) hosting Auburn May 19-21. Auburn is having a pretty good season, at 29-12 (11-7, within RPI of 16 and a very good 8-4 Quadrant 1 record. Auburn will likely be competing for one of the coveted first round byes, so I expect them to play well. In addition, they will likely be competing for a 1 seed for at-large consideration, so every win is important to them.

    Our remaining non-conference games are: Tuesday, April 26 versus Dayton, Tuesday, May 10 versus University of Tennessee Martin, and Tuesday, May 17 versus Tennessee Tech.

    Sorry to be so pessimistic, but this is just not been a good year, and the years 2018 through 2022 have all been fairly similar with disappointment.
    Comments 2 Comments
    1. Darrell KSR's Avatar
      Darrell KSR -
      We also have the distinction of having the worst RPI in the conference, and the worst ELO ranking. A very good case can be made that we are the worst baseball program in the Southeastern Conference. Somebody has to be, I guess.

      SEC Teams RPI (ELO Rankings in parentheses)

      1. Tennessee (1)
      5. Georgia (15)
      8. Vanderbilt (9)
      13. Florida (29)
      16. Auburn (11)
      18. LSU (7)
      21. Texas A&M (13)
      27. Arkansas (3)
      38. Missouri (53)

      42. Alabama (33)
      64. Ole Miss (57)
      67. South Carolina (58)
      76. Mississippi State (22)
      77. Kentucky (75)
    1. Darrell KSR's Avatar
      Darrell KSR -
      A couple of other team statistics I found interesting.

      Most Quadrant 1 Wins in the country

      1. Tennessee 15
      3. Georgia 12
      3. Texas A&M 12
      9. Florida 10
      9. LSU 10
      13. Auburn 9
      19. Arkansas 8
      19. Mississippi State 8
      27. Vanderbilt 7
      27. South Carolina 7
      27. Kentucky 7
      41. Alabama 5
      83. Ole Miss 2
      109. Missouri 1

      Most Quadrant 1 Games Played

      1. Florida 26
      4. South Carolina 22
      6. Mississippi State 21
      6. Texas A&M 21
      9. Georgia 20
      11. Kentucky 19
      11. LSU 19
      19. Tennessee 17 (amazing they have won 15 of them to lead the country)
      24. Alabama 16
      30. Auburn 15
      30. Vanderbilt 15
      35. Arkansas 14
      43. Missouri 13
      59. Ole Miss 10
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