SEC Baseball Weekend Preview! March 6-8

For the most part this weekend, the SEC should have a pretty comfortable time. But one team will face a bit of an uphill battle to say the least.

That one team is Vanderbilt. The Commodores, ranked fifth in the nation right now, will travel out to Los Angeles for the Southern California College Baseball Classic. They will face the UCLA Bruins, USC Trojans and TCU Horned Frogs this weekend, meaning they will take on two ranked teams (UCLA, TCU) with one of them, the Bruins, being the top-ranked team in the land. TCU is a modest 18th, so Vandy will certainly have their hands full out in the City of Angels.

Apart from that though, it’s pretty easy pickins for the SEC:

• Alabama will face off with Lipscomb. While Lipscomb is 8-3, they have certainly not played a team of Alabama’s caliber quite yet
• Arkansas takes on South Alabama. The Jaguars are 7-7 on the year so far, and are ranked 225th in the RPI. Not great, Bob.
• Auburn, on the other hand, will face 2-11 Chicago State. Chicago State currently sits 280th in the RPI. Auburn is at just 188th, but this should still be a walk in the park for the 10-3 Tigers
• Top-ranked Florida, the 4th-ranked team in the RPI and one of the nation’s few unbeaten teams, goes against the 5-7 South Florida Bulls. USF is just 218th in the RPI at this juncture, so the Gators could very well remain undefeated with ease this weekend
• Georgia, 11-2 on the year, battles lowly UMass, who have played just six games so far this season, and are 1-5 through those first six.
• 7-6 Kentucky gets a chance to get off the schneid this weekend, as they face both Norfolk State and Oakland. Both teams are a combined 4-17 this season, so this represents a chance for Kentucky to get the ball rolling for themselves
• LSU, off to an 8-5 start on the year, gets to play lowly UMass-Lowell this weekend. The Tigers have had it rough, as their SOS is ranked fifth in the entire country. But now they play a UMass-Lowell squad who’s 4-6 and ranked 270th in the RPI.
• 11-1 Ole Miss gets a chance to pad their record up this weekend, as they face Princeton. The Tigers have yet to win a game through their first four of the season. All told, based on all this, the Rebels should be able to emerge victorious this weekend
• Mississippi State, off to a 7-4 start, is set to play Quinnipiac. Quinnipiac is just 1-8 on the year so far and ranked 267th in the RPI. State, ranked 116th, gets a shot to perhaps climb a few rungs in that department and get things rolling
• Mizzou, 6-5 on the season, plays the 0-9 Western Illinois Leathernecks. Needless to say, Missouri should be able to handle the task from the visiting team this weekend.
• South Carolina tangles with an Ivy League squad, as they’re pit against the 1-5 Cornell Big Red. The Gamecocks are 8-4 on the season through their first 12 games of the year, and figure to see that record swell up after this weekend
• 13-0 Tennessee looks to stay in the ranks of the unbeaten this weekend. To do so, they’ll face a team a few SEC teams are familiar with in Wright State. The Raiders are 3-8 on the year, and have already tangled with the likes of Auburn and Mississippi State this year. Auburn and State combined to go 6-0 against the Raiders, so Tennessee will hope that trend continues this weekend
• 11-3 Texas A&M will round things out against New Mexico State. This will indeed be the second-most intriguing series of the weekend. The Aggies will face another pair of Aggies, who’ve gotten out to a 12-1 start. Their lone loss came against #13 Arizona State in extras, and they’ve won four in a row after sweeping IPFW this past week. A&M took down TAMU Corpus Christi earlier this week, which got them out of their rut that they found themselves in against Illinois, UCLA and Oklahoma State last week in Frisco.