MSU beat USC with one game left in their series. So, we’re either alone on top with an 11-4 record or tied with MSU at 11-4. One game ahead of Auburn going into there next weekend. Kentucky is now 9-5 with a remaining Sunday game with Missery.
Last I check, we’re behind MSU and some others in the RPI. That surprises me. Our overall record is better than alll theirs, We swwpt MSU & we’re leading the SEC. I could understand it if our nonconference record was bad & our SOS sucked, but we’ve beaten some pretty good NC teams. Including MO St on the road.
If you want to know why, look at the SOS column; their’s (over all) is #13; our is #63.
And if you want to break it down even more, look at their non-conference SOS. It stands at #64, while ours is #162.
Part of that is just bad luck on our part. We played some teams that figured to have better seasons/higher RPI’s than they have had - notably, Bryant (who was 47-12 and in the NCAA Tournament last season) and Miami of Ohio. Nebraska is usually a better team than they’ve been this year as well. Rhode Island also made it to the NCAAT, splitting games with S. Carolina. On the other hand, we hurt ourselves beating Alcorn State (RPI of 283) in a pair of games. We knew (or should have) what kind of program/RPI hit they were going in.
Still - if we take care of business (=win SEC West), we will host, regardless.
It could be worse, we had a game with Grambling that was cancelled. I knows it is probably difficult to get teams to come to Baum but it really hurts us when we schedule teams from the SWAC. Even the top teams in the SWAC aren’t very good. I wish Dave would stop scheduling teams from the SWAC. We should be scheduling teams like Missouri State twice (which we usually do) Houston, Rice, etc and any of the Big 12 schools. We play teams like these the RPI will take care of itself.
UK beat MU today & SC beat MSU. That means we’re alone in first place at 11-4 half-way through the season. UK, MSU & AU are all 10-5. Lots of baseball yet to play, but I feel good about making & perhaps hosting an NCAA regional. We don’t have to win the SEC to do that, although we need to be near the top to host. A whole lot rides on our series at Aubie this weekend. We can’t afford to get swept, but it’d be really nice to get the series win. A series win on the road against one of the top 4 teams in the league would go a long way toward a whole lot of season goals & put us in a very good position for the SEC title.
Win the SEC regular season, I think we’d have a good shot at a national seed. Which would mean the regional and super at Baum (we know about having supers at Baum, don’t we, Chip?).
Warren Nolan’s site says we jumped 10 spots in the RPI this week. Beating Misery State (#27) had something to do with that, even though Jawja is now outside the top 100. Plus a 4-0 week is gonna help you no matter who you play. Go 4-1 or 5-0 this week against Tiger High (#110) and Allbarn (#28) and we’ll jump some more.
The fielding lapses in key situations are concerning. They cost us that Saturday game with the Corndogs and darn near cost us the Friday game with Georgia. Our bullpen is shaky enough without the fielders turning into the Bad News Bears in the ninth inning. We’re top 30 in the nation in fielding, or were as of Friday morning, but not in the ninth sometimes.
But we continue to put up a lot of runs, which covers up a multitude of sins. We were 19th in the country in runs through Thursday’s games (but they don’t rank runs per game, which is strange; we’re putting up 7.37 per game). Only Kentucky in the SEC had scored more runs (6 more). Looking up the updated stats through the weekend, we’re only three runs behind UK now, although we’ve also played one more game.