The Road to Hoover: SEC Baseball Update

Vanderbilt, Kentucky and Auburn move up after their weekend series. Ole Miss and Arkansas drop a couple notches. Florida and South Carolina each have 20 wins and will duke it out for the No. 1 East spot this weekend. Tennessee falls out of the top 8 while LSU clings to their tourney life.

IN TOURNEY IF REG. SEASON ENDED TODAY
SCHOOL	W	L	PCT	REMAINING SERIES	REMARKS
South Carolina &	20	7	0.741	FL	Huge series vs. UF this weekend.
Florida	20	7	0.741	@USC	Gators and 'Cocks fight for East No.1 this weekend.
Auburn %	17	10	0.630	@OM	Series win over UT puts Auburn at No. 1 in West.
Vanderbilt	15	10	0.600	ARK	Sweep of MSU pushes Vandy up to No. 4. Could go as high as No. 3 if stars align correctly.
Arkansas	16	11	0.593	@VU	Disastrous home series versus SC but still a locked in SEC-T.
Ole Miss	16	11	0.593	AUB	Series loss to Bama drops OM a couple spots.
Kentucky	12	15	0.444	@GA	UK and LSU have tiebreaker over UT and Bama. UK then gets edge over LSU because of recent sweep of Tigers. Host bottom feeder UG for final reg season series.
LSU	12	15	0.444	MSU	See UK remarks. Get struggling MSU team at home to finish reg. season. See below 3-way tie remarks for explanation.
NOT IN TOURNEY IF REG. SEASON ENDED TODAY
Tennessee	12	15	0.444	AL	Tie-breaker over UK but 4-way tie negates this.
Alabama	12	15	0.444	@TN	No tie-breakers.
Mississippi State	5	22	0.185	@LSU	MSU allows 40 runs in three days to Vanderbilt.
Georgia	3	22	0.120	UK	Season almost over.

&- East Division No. 1 seed if season were over today.

%- West Division No. 1 seed if season were over today.

NOTES: The two division champions will automatically be seeded No. 1 and No. 2 based on conference winning percentage. The rest will be seeded No. 3 to No. 8 based on winning percentage without regard to division. The SEC has a complicated tie breaker procedure for when two teams are tied for a finish. Over the past four years, all teams that have had at least 15 conference wins have made the tournament field. One team that had 14 wins did not make it to the tournament (Arkansas in 2008). One team has made it to the tournament with as little as 12 wins (Vanderbilt 2009).

Alabama, LSU, Kentucky and Tennessee tie breakdown

THE RULE: The SEC says that in the event of the 3 team or more tie, the schools with the best record against the other tied schools will get the edge. Then the two teams that have the tiebreaker edge will then be treated as a two team tie (head-to-head first and then division winning percentage).

LSU: Tie breaker over UT and BAMA. 6-3 versus other 3 schools.
Kentucky: Tie breaker over BAMA, LSU. 6-3 versus other three schools.
Alabama: No tie breakers. 1-5 versus other three tied schools. BAMA faces UT this weekend but even a sweep won't get them a tie breaker.
Tennessee: Tie breaker over UK. 2-4 versus other tied schools. See BAMA. Both UT or BAMA could still slip into the tourney. If either LSU or UK get fewer wins the final weekend than UT or BAMA. However, since UT and Bama are facing each other it appears unlikely that they both could surpass LSU/UK but stranger things have happened.