They have been outstanding in 11/12 starts.
Those 11 starts- 45.2 IP/5 ER's- ERA 0.98...67 K's/12 BB's
1 bad start- 2.1 IP/7 ER's...3 K's/1BB
Total- 48 IP/12 ER's..70 K's/13 BB's
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They have been outstanding in 11/12 starts.
Those 11 starts- 45.2 IP/5 ER's- ERA 0.98...67 K's/12 BB's
1 bad start- 2.1 IP/7 ER's...3 K's/1BB
Total- 48 IP/12 ER's..70 K's/13 BB's
Night and day from last year.
While this is definitely reason to be hopeful, we have to acknowledge we have played what must be the weakest schedule in the country so far.
That is indeed all you can take away from those stats considering the competition level. We have 4 pretty solid games coming up. Southern Miss has played well so far and so has Evansville who has put up some gaudy numbers averaging double digits in runs and hits. They have scored over 14 runs in 4 of their 9 games coming into today, twice scoring 18 runs.
Yeah, it's pretty good. Our RPI is going to be deflated though with the weak schedule and picking up 4 bad losses already. I doubt we get selected for a Regional unless we can get to .500 in the SEC.
Over the last 10 seasons:
15-15 have been selected for the NCAA Tournament 6 of 9 times
14-16 have been selected 7 of 10 times
13-17 have been selected 4 of 10 times
No 12-18 team or less has been selected, though Alabama did get in in 2021 at 12-17.
Generally speaking, with 13-15 SEC wins, you need a good RPI to get selected, otherwise you're out. I don't expect us to have a good RPI. People often act like just getting to 13 SEC wins will be enough for us, but I don't think it will, not this year, and definitely not 12 or 11 wins.
What about Holcombe?
League note:
Missouri is bad. Lost series to Northern Kentucky this weekend and gave up a ton of runs. 10 in G2 and 16 today
Mississippi is not very good has lost their last 2 Friday nights
I agree with this statement in principle, but I think it's really likely that our RPI is lower than would be generally expected from our conference record, regardless of what that record turns out to be. We've probably played a very soft non-conference schedule and haven't even done that well in it. But we'll see. Austin Peay could turn out to be the best team in the ASUN and not a pair of RPI-killing losses, but I doubt any of the other teams we've played will help us at all.
Here are all from the last 5 years:
- 2018 Kentucky (38-22, 13-17), RPI 31 - not selected
- 2018 Texas A&M (39-20, 13-17), RPI 37 - selected
- 2019 Missouri (34-22-1, 13-16-1), RPI 31 - not eligible
- 2019 Florida (33-24, 13-17), RPI 30 - selected
- 2021 Georgia (31-25, 13-17), RPI 44 - not selected
- 2021 LSU (34-22, 13-17), RPI 19 - selected
- 2022 South Carolina (27-28, 13-17), RPI 69 - not selected
Who knows if Missouri would have been selected in 2019. They might have been. Either way, I think 13-17 is very dicey for us. Maybe we'd get the benefit of the doubt for being an "elite" program with great support. Without actually running the numbers, I suspect we won't have an RPI in the 30s if we do end up 13-17. It would help our chances if Air Force, Austin Peay, Mt. St. Mary's, etc., all have really good conference records themselves.