Things aren’t complicated when figuring Mississippi State’s path to the SEC Tournament.
If the Bulldogs (28-24, 12-15 SEC) win one game in the three-game series against Florida (41-12, 20-7), they will qualify as one of the conference’s top 12 teams and would be assured a spot in next week’s SEC Tournament.
The hard part to this equation is that MSU is hosting top-ranked Florida — the current SEC regular-season and defending national champions. The Gators have won 19 straight regular-season series dating back to last season and have five sweeps this year.
“They’re really good and they’re really talented but they’re not perfect,” said MSU interim head coach Gary Henderson. “There will be opportunities there to put a good stroke on a ball and square something up and we need to do that with guys on base...Regardless of who you’re playing or how many series they’ve won in a row, the basics are still in place and when you play someone that’s really good your margin for error is a lot less.”
The series gets under way at 6:30 tonight and continues Friday at 6 p.m. and Saturday at 3:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday’s contests will air on ESPNU.
If Mississippi State (28-24, 12-15 SEC) is swept this weekend, it is still possible to advance to Hoover depending on how the Tennessee-Missouri series turns out in Columbia. The Bulldogs need Tennessee to take at least two or Missouri to sweep.
The Tigers own the tiebreaker after beating MSU twice in March.
To have a realistic shot at making a regional, the consensus from projection experts and those close to the program is that Mississippi State must win at least one game against Florida. Two wins against the Gators would make a much stronger, practically undeniable argument for the Bulldogs. Baseball America listed Mississippi State as one of its first teams out while D1Baseball put the Bulldogs as one of the last teams in the publications' latest respective projections.
nContact Bill Burrus at 581-7237 or bburrus@gwcommonwealth.com.
