from D1 Baseball today.....
SEC - 9 bids
SAFELY IN: Florida, Mississippi State, South Carolina, Vanderbilt, Texas A&M, LSU, Ole Miss, Kentucky
ON THE BUBBLE (IN): Alabama
ON THE BUBBLE (OUT): Georgia
No change from last week. We had a lengthy debate about Alabama vs. Georgia for the last spot, or whether both teams would get in to make the SEC a 10-bid league. Thats within the realm of possibility. Right now, Georgia is in much better shape in the RPI (No. 23 vs. No. 48), and their top 50 records are fairly comparable (UGa. is 9-14, Bama is 8-11). Georgia gets a huge edge in nonconference SOS (No. 20 vs. No. 176), and Georgia won the head-to-head series against the Crimson Tide. But Alabama has two nice high-end series wins against Ole Miss and at LSU, plus a series win against Maryland. Georgia has a premium series win against South Carolina and the afore-mentioned series win against Alabama, but thats it. Alabamas biggest edge is in the conference standings, where it is 9-9 compared with Georgias 7-11. The Bulldogs need to find a way to get to at least 13 conference wins to have a realistic shot, and their path is daunting, with a series at Vandy, then vs. Ole Miss, followed by more manageable series at Missouri and vs. Tennessee. Certainly the RPI gives Georgia a real shot, but we remain skeptical that it will finish strong enough down the stretch to construct a good enough conference record to get in. We have more faith in Alabama, which is home for three of its last four series and has a potentially winnable road series at Arkansas. And that two-game edge in the SEC standings is big.