SEC Tournament: Play to win or take the USCe

[Coursesuper]

approach and tank it go home and get rested up for a real run in the tournament that matters. I like the USCe way of thinking, play for what really matters if you have positioned yourself properly in the regular season. Only go for it in the SEC tournament if you need to.

[Schultzy]

Great question and I hate to say it but I think all conference tournaments are dinosaurs. So I say rest your arms for the big dance.

[engie]

Need to get all 3 starters their usual work. No need to give the committee any excuse to screw us by going 2 and q there.

[Tbonewannabe]

Unless it is a lock for a national seed then play to try and get to the championship game. It isn't important to win it but it helps to win a couple.

[State82]

Assuming we don't have to play Tuesday I don't know what Cohen/Johnson decide for a Wednesday starter but I wouldn't change a thing. No way I take a chance on not getting at minimum one win. 2 and out would not be cool. Now, I'm also not going to extend anybody either but working the starters as we have all season to this point should get us a win or two and after that just let the chips fall where they may.

[MaroonFlounder]

5 innings max for the starters. Pitch the young arms. I feel if Billingsly, Cyr, Breaux, Small, James could get more meaningful innings, they could really help us get to Omaha and make a run.

[CadaverDawg]

You 100% play to win the tourney. These kids play to win Championships. Only one team will win the CWS, and us going deep in the SEC T won't affect whether we win or lose the CWS 3 weeks later. If anything it would force us to learn who in our pen can rise up on a tourney stage, which could help us in the Regionals & beyond.

What an insult to the players if we purposefully tank the SECT & then catch bad breaks & lose in Regional.....then we did it for nothing, & cost our kids a chance at at least a SECT Championship. Maybe I'm too competitive, but I'm against anything that isn't trying your best to win every single game. 1 weekend off won't affect a 20 year old anyway IMO.

[state66]

Rest after were holding the natty. These kids want to play, they dont want to rest.

[CadaverDawg]

Rest after were holding the natty. These kids want to play, they dont want to rest.

I'm with 66

[MarketingBully]

Play to win. Especially with how competitive the SEC is this year. You make it to the championship game then you gaurentee yourself a national seed. We have the arms and talent. We could end up as high as the three seed it looks like too. If we can secure that, we should wrap up a national seed.

[dickiedawg]

Pitch your midweek guy Wednesday, then go Hudson. Hopefully you win that Thursday game, get the bye Friday and go Sexton Hudson on Saturday Sunday.
It's really a big benefit being in a position to get that 1st Round Bye. It's awful hard to win 5 games in 6 days, and basically impossible to come through the losers bracket.

[smootness]

You 100% play to win the tourney. These kids play to win Championships. Only one team will win the CWS, and us going deep in the SEC T won't affect whether we win or lose the CWS 3 weeks later. If anything it would force us to learn who in our pen can rise up on a tourney stage, which could help us in the Regionals & beyond.

What an insult to the players if we purposefully tank the SECT & then catch bad breaks & lose in Regional.....then we did it for nothing, & cost our kids a chance at at least a SECT Championship. Maybe I'm too competitive, but I'm against anything that isn't trying your best to win every single game. 1 weekend off won't affect a 20 year old anyway IMO.

I could not agree with this more.

Now, I also don't think you wear out your arms just to win the thing, but you definitely don't hold back.

[CadaverDawg]

I could not agree with this more.

Now, I also don't think you wear out your arms just to win the thing, but you definitely don't hold back.

Agreed. Don't go bringing back a Hudson for the Championship game or anything. But play to win, and it may take a Cyr or Small or Breaux getting a Championship game start....but win or lose, we'll be better for it...and it won't be rolling over. Was it Brooks Dunn that won us the tournament in his first non-midweek start as a freshman years ago? You can learn who has the stones in those situations.

[I seen it dawg]

Play it like we normally play. Only difference is no need to extend Hudson or Sexton crazy like 125 as if it were a regional or super game.

[Todd4State]

What I would do is pitch Hudson and Sexton like normal and let them go no more than 100 pitches or so depending on how they perform of course. If they are getting shelled I wouldn't just leave them out there for 100. Otherwise if they look OK- I just let them go get 100 and then shut them down.

The thing about "tanking" the SEC Tournament is our pitchers would be off for almost two weeks, and it seems to me that a long layoff is typically a HUGE disadvantage in baseball at most level I have watched. I've seen teams sweep the LCS in MLB and then play someone goes 7 in the other LCS and the team that sweeps seems like they always have to shake off some rust.

If we get a bye it will help because we get Tuesday off. Hudson and Sexton give us about as good a chance to win the first two games as anyone- if we do that then we are off Friday. Then we start Pilkington against someone's midweek guy probably. After that we'll Johnny Wholestaff the Championship and hope for the best.

What burned us last time when we won it was we had to go through the losers bracket- and we did.

[gravedigger]

Need to get all 3 starters their usual work. No need to give the committee any excuse to screw us by going 2 and q there.

Ding,ding,ding

[Todd4State]

Agreed. Don't go bringing back a Hudson for the Championship game or anything. But play to win, and it may take a Cyr or Small or Breaux getting a Championship game start....but win or lose, we'll be better for it...and it won't be rolling over. Was it Brooks Dunn that won us the tournament in his first non-midweek start as a freshman years ago? You can learn who has the stones in those situations.

Dunn was the midweek guy all year and probably should have been in the weekend rotation as I thought he was as good or better than Alan Johnson, Todd Doolittle, and I believe Josh Johnson among others. But that's a good example of how it would work out for us ideally- Johnson and Doolittle both just happened to pitch their best games of the year back to back against LSU and South Carolina. Then Jon Crosby pitched out of like 9 jams with Tennessee only scoring a run or two. I think we had zero 1-2-3 innings and only allowed one run or something like that. Then we had a fresh Brooks Dunn who went up against a tired Mark Holliman- I was scared that Bianco was going to start Head because we had not touched him all year. As soon as I heard that Holliman was starting at Sunday School, I told someone that we were winning. Sure enough we tag Holliman and knock him out of the game and added a home run later and by the time they brought in Head it was too late.

[drunkernhelldawg]

You 100% play to win the tourney. These kids play to win Championships. Only one team will win the CWS, and us going deep in the SEC T won't affect whether we win or lose the CWS 3 weeks later. If anything it would force us to learn who in our pen can rise up on a tourney stage, which could help us in the Regionals & beyond.

What an insult to the players if we purposefully tank the SECT & then catch bad breaks & lose in Regional.....then we did it for nothing, & cost our kids a chance at at least a SECT Championship. Maybe I'm too competitive, but I'm against anything that isn't trying your best to win every single game. 1 weekend off won't affect a 20 year old anyway IMO.

Exactly.

[Taog Redloh]

Only a moron really thinks SCe tanked the SECT.

[DeputyDawg94]

You 100% play to win the tourney. These kids play to win Championships. Only one team will win the CWS, and us going deep in the SEC T won't affect whether we win or lose the CWS 3 weeks later. If anything it would force us to learn who in our pen can rise up on a tourney stage, which could help us in the Regionals & beyond.

What an insult to the players if we purposefully tank the SECT & then catch bad breaks & lose in Regional.....then we did it for nothing, & cost our kids a chance at at least a SECT Championship. Maybe I'm too competitive, but I'm against anything that isn't trying your best to win every single game. 1 weekend off won't affect a 20 year old anyway IMO.

Totally agree. I'm with the Ole Ball Coach on this one. Always win the conference then go from there.