Last June, Florida came up one game short of winning the program’s second College World Series. As the 2024 calendar turns to May, the Gators aren’t thinking about Omaha. They have a tough fight ahead to simply make the NCAA Tournament.

On the positive side, Florida has the No. 18 RPI. The Gators defeated FAU in midweek action on Tuesday, improving to 23-21 and moving up 4 spots in RPI.

According to WarrenNolan.com, the Gators have the No. 1 strength of schedule. How UF can handle that schedule in the final month will determine if Kevin O’Sullivan extends his NCAA Tournament or misses out for the first time.

The Gators’ May schedule isn’t going easy on them.

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Three challenging SEC series will decide Florida’s at-large fate

Florida enters the final month of the regular season with a 9-12 mark in conference play. The good news for the Gators is they don’t need to be above .500 to make the NCAA Tournament.

In most years, 13 is the minimum number of regular-season SEC wins needed to make the NCAA Tournament as an at-large team. In 2021, Alabama won just 12 regular-season contests and snuck into the NCAA field after picking up 2 SEC Tournament victories, but the Gators are hoping to avoid that Selection Monday stress.

UF’s 9 remaining SEC games are against 3 teams in the top 10 RPI: Tennessee (No. 8 RPI), Kentucky (No. 3) and Georgia (No. 9). Florida will host the Volunteers and Wildcats, but finish out the regular season on the road in Athens. UK leads the SEC East at 16-5 in conference contests with UT one game behind (15-6) and UGA sitting at 10-11.

It’s also important for Florida to take care of business next week against USF, the Gators’ midweek finale, to add another tally to the overall win column. Entering the Tennessee series, the focus is on needing an SEC series win.

As the record indicates, the Gators have had their ups and downs in SEC play. Florida is the only SEC team to take the series from No. 1-ranked Texas A&M. UF is also the only SEC team to be swept by a Mizzou squad that is 3-15 against the rest of the league.

In SEC play, the Gators are 2-6 in 1-run contests. All 3 losses to Mizzou were decided by 1 run, and Florida twice came up just short of taking the series from an Arkansas squad that sits above A&M in the SEC West.

Florida, though, can’t throw a pity party or dwell on why it came up short in close calls.

“The emphasis that we’ve had is, ‘It’s crunch time now, boys,'” O’Sullivan said after Tuesday’s win. “If we don’t get this thing squared away or if we dig ourselves any bigger of a hole, the ending is not going to be real pretty.

“But if you can get through it, and fight through it and get yourself in, well, you might be more prepared than the rest of the teams in the tournament because you’ve been forced to play at a high level and you had to focus and concentrate ”

O’Sullivan noted that the 2015 Virginia baseball team was 15-15 in conference play, finishing behind Miami in the ACC Coastal before going on to win the College World Series. He also pointed to the 2022 Ole Miss baseball team that was 14-16 in SEC play before making the NCAA Tournament and winning it all in Omaha.

If the Gators can turn things around, they might be able to join the club of surprise CWS champions.

“This thing could turn out to be a great story,” O’Sullivan said. “But we’ve got a lot of baseball ahead of us.”

It all starts with the Tennessee series, beginning Thursday in Gainesville (7 p.m. ET, ESPN).