HOOVER — Alabama baseball will have to wait until at least Sunday to find out its postseason fate, after its SEC Tournament run ended in blowout fashion.
The Crimson Tide (41-16) fell 15-10 to Tennessee after leading by one in the middle of the fifth innings as the bullpen could not stop the Vols’ bats on Wednesday May 21 in Hoover.
Following the loss Alabama head coach Rob Vaughn called it a ‘no-brainer’ on if the Crimson Tide has done enough to host an NCAA Tournament Regional.
“I’m not a politicking coach very much, let your work speak for itself, if you’re good enough, if you’re not, you’re not. I’m sitting around the hotel room yesterday and you’re watching SEC Now and they’re talking about all this stuff, Florida play Ole Miss and Alabama plays Tennessee and that feels like a fight to host,” Vaughn said.
“The reality is we won 17 games in our league, 17 games in this league. Our RPI, I don’t what it is after this game, but it’s got to be in the top 12 at least — to me it’s a no-brainer. This team went out and won every single midweek game all year. We lost one out-of-conference game all year, we’ve done some really good things, we won 17 games in the league with a top 12 RPI. I think it’s kind of silly that we’re talking about, are we hosting or are we not. I think it should (be) where should we be seeded in the top 16.”
The Crimson Tide went 16-14 during the SEC regular season and picked up a round one SEC Tournament win Tuesday over 16-seed Missouri. They went 24-1 in non-conference play, falling to Presbyterian in the final non-conference series of the spring. The Crimson Tide holds an unblemished record against mid-week opponents.
While the Crimson Tide has 17 wins over SEC opponents, seven of those come against Missouri and Texas A&M, two of three worst teams in the conference. Coming into its second round game, Alabama held an RPI of 9.
Alabama knows that they dropped the ball a bit this week with the opportunity to potential lock up a hosting spot if they were able to get a few wins. The one win over bottom seeded Missouri probably isn’t enough to do that, especially followed by offensive explosion that the Vols put on the Crimson Tide.
“Now within that its out of our control. If you come here and win two or three games, you completely take it out of any committees hands but a lot of these teams that you’re seeing as locks to host are teams that we played this year, or teams we beat this year,” Vaughn said.
The 16 host sites will be announced on Sunday, May 25. The regionals and full slate of 64 teams will be announced on Monday, May 26 at 11 a.m. CT on ESPN2 or ESPNU.
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