Scooter Hobbs column: SEC a mish-mash in a no-lose situation

American Press

22-05-2025

The Southeastern Conference baseball tournament is underway.
Enjoy it. Embrace it. Binge-watch it.
Excuse me for repeating old news. But I know it's the best six-day baseball entertainment you're going to find that, in reality, signifies next to nothing.
It's all a fairly harmless prelude to the latest round of SEC fatigue set for Monday when, according to reliable projections, the conference will put 13 teams into the NCAA tournament when the bracket is announced.
Worse yet, the conference could and probably will land as many as six of the coveted top eight national seeds.
Sorting out the top teams in the league is the only challenge.
It's complicated by the fact that this year the whole week is single-elimination. That's not how baseball postseason is supposed to be played, but who cares when it really doesn't matter.
Maybe the SEC is trying to prove you can expand to 16 teams, still get them all in one tournament bracket and get it done in less than a week on one field.
There could be a Nobel prize for mathematics in the offing.
But single-elimination doesn't do much for the (relative) bottom-feeders trying to make a deep run and the worst that can happen to the front runners is one loss.
Hard to imagine much mobility.
Anyway, things look as murky as could be, filled with contradictions.
LSU is waiting it out assuming it has locked up a top eight seed regardless of what ensues.
The D1Baseball.com website is the most reliable of the wide array of college ball's various ratings and rankings. It's run by unapologetic college baseball junkies who, even during football season, live and breathe the seam head intricacies like WHIP (walks, hits per inning pitched), BQR-S (bequeathed runners scored) and even the mathematically unexplainable WAR (wins above replacement).
Maybe, so you don't have to.
I once told Kendall Rogers, one of the co-owners, that he'd go crazy if he had to cover a game without a radar gun.
Kyle Peterson, the face of college baseball like Kirk Herbstreit is to football, is another of the owners.
I just know, even while waiting on a definition for a 'bequeathed runner,' that it's my go-to horsehide spot on the usually shaky internet.
That said, I'm still trying to decipher its latest logic here.
It has LSU as the No. 1 team in the country in its rankings. In fact, the Tigers are the consensus No. 1 when the various other polls check in. I'd say unanimous, but there are so many ratings I could have missed one.
Explain, please.
Never mind that the Tigers finished tied for third in the SEC and are the third seed in the tournament — if they ever get around to playing in it.
That'll be on Friday night, we are promised, in an affair that began Tuesday morning and by then 11 of the 16 teams will already have been sent home.
Maybe LSU will end up No. 1 in the end.
But even D1Baseball.com apparently has some mixed emotions.
The same website that ranks LSU No. 1 in its national rankings has the Tigers projected as the No. 7 national seed.
That makes the No. 1 Tigers the No. 6 SEC team among the all-important top eight.
That predicts LSU behind No.1 Texas (finally, some love for the regular season SEC champ), No. 2 Arkansas, No. 3 Vanderbilt, No. 5 Georgia and No. 6 Auburn.
That would be fine with LSU, of course.
All that matters is being in the top eight. The order doesn't mean squat.
History says so.
In fact, the Tigers will be hoping their eventual NCAA tournament seed does not catch up with their current poll ranking.
It's one of college baseball's sacred superstitions.
Still, just to clear up an urban legend, it is not true, as widely misreported, that the No. 1 overall national seed has never gone on to win the national championship in the current format.
It might as well be, however.
Since this (perfect) format began it has happened once — but that was the very first year of the change when Miami won it all as the top seed in 1999.
In other words never in this century.
So, yes, it's best to stay away from that No. 1 overall seed.
And, by the way, a bequeathed runner is one left out on base by a pitcher who departs the game.
Happy to clear that up.