Vandy has swept Auburn. They finish the weekend at 15-6 and lead the East.
We can join them if we finish the sweep tomorrow; lead the West by 1.5 games.
Georgia has lost the first two to Moo U and is 13-7
Ole Miss swept TAM and is 13-8
Moo U and LSU are both 12-8.
A&M is 11-10
Nobody else is at or above .500; the NCAA has required an SEC team to at least finish 14-16 to get a bid. Auburn, Misery and Tennessee are within reach of that if they play .500 the rest of the way, although that tie with A&M could bite Mizzou. Florida is in big trouble at 8-12. South Carolina came within one game of Omaha last year; they may not even get to Hoover this year.
It so would be nice for us to win tomorrow and have a 2 game lead in the west. Ole Miss has a pretty tough remaining schedule but Miss St not so much.
Wouldn’t hurt my feelings if LSU and Moo U both lose tomorrow either.
Warren Nolan is projecting 20-10 for our final SEC record – including losing tomorrow. I was looking back to see how many times we’ve won 20 SEC games. Only one I can find is '99 when we went 22-8.
It would be nice to get the sweep tomorrow and have a 2 game lead in the west.
The hogs can take care of business by just winning!
Remaining schedule
Hogs
@ Kentucky
LSU
@ Texas A&M
Ole Miss
@ LSU
Miss St
@Tenn
Miss St
@Texas A&M
@ Ole Miss
S. Carolina
LSU
Ole Miss
@ Arkansas
Auburn
If the hogs can take care of business tomorrow and at Kentucky it will be easier to start thinking about the standings especially looking at the matchups
Taking place next week between
Miss St @ Texas A&M
Ole Miss @ LSU.
There’s still other games tomorrow that could have an impact as well.
LSU @ Alabama
Georgia @ Miss St
I hope Georgia pulls out a win.
Also hoping Alabama can beat LSU.
Here’s the bottom line. We need to win 7 of our remaining 11 games (today, Tuesday, and 3 more SEC series) to get a top 8 national seed, which would allow us to host through to Omaha, if we can hold serve at home. We need just 4 more wins to likely secure a first round regional. All of this is according to Boyd’s “Needs Analysis” (link below; note that as of the time posted, that report was made prior to our series with Tennessee, of which we have won the first 2 games).
http://www.boydsworld.com/baseball/rpi/rpineeds.html
Obviously, this is a projection, and we’d be better served and more likely to attain the hosting levels indicated by winning more games. But this is a pretty good estimate.
Also, note that - contrary to public perception of the RPI - it really doesn’t matter at this point who we lose to, or where. There are 3 major components to RPI - your own record; the record of your opponents, and the record of their (your opponents) opponents. The latter two factors will remain the same regardless of who we beat or lose to; and our record will be our record, regardless of who we win or lose against.
It is true that a win on the road counts more than a win at home. Conversely, a loss on the road hurts correspondingly less than a loss at home. So moving the wins and losses around, home or away, is kind of net zero game. This is why it is SOOO important to not get swept on the road, as we were able to avoid at Vandy. A road win counts 1.3 wins, while a loss counts just .7 losses. So by going 1-2 on the road, we essentially split with Vandy (adjusted record for the series was 1.3 wins to 1.4 losses). Reverse goes at home; if Tenn somehow wins today, even though we go 2-1 in the SEC standings, from an RPI perspective, we will have won the series just 1.4 to 1.3. A sweep would give us a 2.1 to 0 adjusted sweep in RPI terms. Losing that early home series to Ole Miss hurt us, as they took the series 2.6 to .7 in RPI terms. On the other hand, winning road series at Auburn and Alabama benefited us in the same way.
The only game where that is somewhat not true is Tuesday’s game vs. Pine Bluff, because their RPI is so low it would be a “bad loss”, and that would cost us - a little. Otherwise, all are “Q1” opponents, so for RPI purposes there is no advantage or disadvantage to a win/loss vs. them.
We just need to rack up W’s and good things will happen.
Just looking at conference records, we are 2 games up on
OM, MS and LSU as it stands before our game today, right??
1.5 up on OM will be 2 if we win today they’ve already played three games this weekend
We are up 2 games on them in the loss column. I was wondering why we would only be 1.5 games ahead.
Thanks for the explanation, Youdaman.
As of this moment, we’re up two in the loss column but one in the win column. Split the difference, thus 1.5 games.
LSU has won and Moo U is winning late. If we then win tonight, we’ll have a 2-game lead over all three; they’ll be 13-8 and we’d be 15-6.
I understand. Thank you!
NOW we lead the West by two full games!!!
WPS
I really like our chances in the SEC now. Don’t know who Vandy has left, but we have a real shot at sweeping UK. (But even a series win on the road would be big.) We ought to win 2 against LSU. TAMU is suddenly looking very vulnerable. Six more wins & we’ll be at 21 wins on the season. That’s an awesome record. Even if we only win four more, that’s 19 & a better record than last year. However, I think we will win more than 4.
Vandy has @ SoCar, Misery and @ UK left. Midpack and the bottom feeders in the East. We’ll have to stay red-hot to keep pace with that. Interesting that we both have to go to Lexington with three weeks left, and UK will be fighting for their lives. In between UK plays SoCar and the loser of that series probably doesn’t make it to Hoover.
Then Vandy has the much easier road. We could win 21 or even 22 & finish 2d. I’d like to win the SEC, but getting the national seed is the most important thing. I like our odds of doing that. The more we win, the higher the seed. Not sure we can get higher than 3rd. Vandy will be ahead of us. I’m sure UCLA will be, too. But anywhere from 3-6 should make for a good pairing. I’m not sure baseball seeding is quite as reliable as it is in basketball, though. As long as we’re playing at home, we have a great chance of getting back to Omaha.
[color=#4000FF]UPDATE:[/color] As of today’s “Needs Analysis” (click the link in the post quoted below), we only need to win 5 (perhaps only 4) of our 10 remaining (regular season) games to ensure a Top 8 National Seed. Of course, we all want and expect to win more than that, and the more we win the better the seed. Just providing an update.