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SEC Baseball Tournament: Rainy day thoughts on Hoover’s Tuesday
By Joe Cox
Published:
The first day of the new-look SEC Baseball Tournament was even a newer look that expected, as Mississippi State and Texas A&M’s nightcap got washed out and rescheduled for 9:30 a.m. CT on Wednesday.
But even with just 3 games, Tuesday didn’t lack for issues to ponder or Wednesday for games to consider. Here’s a few thoughts from SEC Tournament Day 1.
What We Learned
Frankly, what we learned was that the 3 lowest-seeded teams to play basically all just left the bats at home and sleepwalked through Hoover. If there’s a team that doesn’t actually deserve that knock, it was Missouri. The Tigers looked miles more competitive than they did for most of the year and held Alabama to a mere 4 runs. Missouri left 7 runners on base in the last 3 innings, which means its 4-1 loss was in question until the final pitch. If there’s a moral victory from Tuesday, it really does go to the Tigers.
On the other hand, Paul Mainieri and South Carolina finished the season as the SEC’s worst team. It wasn’t the 5-25 SEC mark or the 8-run first-round knockout. It’s just a deep chasm of execution between the Gamecocks and everybody else. And while sane people don’t advocate for a firing after 1 year except for coaches who’ve gone felony offender, it’s not hard to see why there are already some cranky noises coming from USC. The Year of our Lord 2025 was not a time to hire a coach who is essentially unfamiliar with NIL and modern-day portal recruiting. It seems premature to say Mainieri can’t bring USC back, but it looks like a tall job.
Kentucky had a chance to get off the NCAA Tournament bubble and instead looked completely offensively asleep at the wheel in a 5-1 loss to an Oklahoma team that it swept 2 weeks ago. Every small ball trick that worked a year ago seems to blow up with this team. At 13-17 and with a first-round exit, if Kentucky gets left out of the NCAA Tournament, the Wildcats have nobody but themselves to blame.
For that matter, it’s unclear that Kentucky really deserves an NCAA berth. To analogize to college hoops, while SEC backers might be somewhat pleased about a 13th SEC team in the NCAA Tournament, it follows that most non-SEC fans would prefer to see a random mid-major team with a sparkling record and a subpar RPI claim a spot ahead of the Wildcats. Yes, 5 different 13-17 teams made the NCAA Tournament last year. But Kentucky has folded like a paper airplane since the impressive series with Oklahoma 2 weeks ago.
Oklahoma probably was the big winner of Day 1, because it grabbed a win without burning through Kyson Witherspoon. Do we see him Wednesday against Georgia? Or does Skip Johnson hang onto him for another day? Alabama looked competent and Florida continues to look like the team that awoke after that miserable 1-11 start. The Gators probably can’t get a hosting spot, but they’ll be a tough road out for some higher-seeded team.
What to Watch for Tomorrow
First, we’ll see whether Texas A&M summons up one last measure of gumption and survives. The guess here would be no. Even if they do, what would it take to reach the NCAA Tournament for A&M? Maybe a trip to the championship? But that maybe is a long ways away from here.
Tennessee and Alabama shapes up to be perhaps the most competitive game of the day. Alabama’s hosting dreams aren’t completely dead and Tennessee needs to find some positive mojo. Did we mention that those teams/schools/states don’t seem to like each other very much? Should be fun.
If OU does go to Witherspoon against Georgia, then the Bulldogs better be on full upset alert. Considering that Witherspoon blew through the Georgia lineup in the regular season, that’s the big story here. Homer-heavy offense can carry a team over some pitching depth issues, but Oklahoma could spoil that plan for Georgia right away.
Florida’s impressive run collides with an up and down Ole Miss team in the new Wednesday finale. Bobby Boser hit a 3-run homer on Tuesday and he might end up being the difference on Wednesday.
Auburn’s matchup gets put off until Thursday due to weather, but the Tigers remain one of the best-situated teams outside the big 4 that don’t have to play until Friday. They can wait and watch for another day.
Joe Cox is a columnist for Saturday Down South. He has also written or assisted in writing five books, and his most recent, Almost Perfect (a study of baseball pitchers’ near-miss attempts at perfect games), is available on Amazon or at many local bookstores.
