Column: It’s SEC Championship or Bust For Vanderbilt Baseball – Sports Illustrated

The worst fear Vanderbilt fans have had for weeks now has turned into today’s reality. 
Vanderbilt lost to Missouri 4-1 in the series finale, losing the series all together. The Commodores started the game off up 1-0, but were unable to get any more across the plate after Missouri took a 3-1 lead after the first inning. Vanderbilt had its chances, even loading the bases with nobody out in the third inning. But the missed opportunity ended up in the worst loss of the season.
Vanderbilt drops to 11-16 in SEC play with just one series to go before the SEC Tournament begins May 19. Even if Vanderbilt were to sweep South Carolina at home next week, it would still finish with a losing record.
Losing this weekend's series has officially reached a point where perfection is needed, or else Vanderbilt will be sitting on the couch when the NCAA Tournament begins. At this point, the Commodores are likely going to need to win the SEC Tournament Championship or else the regional streak will be over.
The magic number of SEC wins for Vanderbilt was once thought to be 15 wins. But due to the Commodores’ low RPI, it was thought that 16 SEC wins would be at least enough to be in strong at-large consideration, if not, make the tournament. However, Vanderbilt will not even get to either of those marks with a sweep over South Carolina next weekend.
What was once thought to be a season where Vanderbilt was assumed to make at least a regional was quickly derailed with injuries to the pitching staff that forced other, younger arms to be relied on heavily.
The one thing this series against Missouri showed about Vanderbilt is that the Commodores did not look like a team that should even be in the vicinity of an at-large bid consideration.
Losing to a Missouri team that was 4-20 in the SEC and 125th in the RPI entering the series at a time where Vanderbilt is fighting to get on the front of the bubble makes the result of this weekend even worse. A really bad series loss at the worst time of the year. That is more than enough to knock a team out of being an at-large.
What will be interesting to watch is where Vanderbilt is at when the latest RPI rankings are released. Vanderbilt entered the day 71st in the RPI. Today’s loss will surely drop the Commodores a few spots or more with a series against the team that is 97th in the RPI on deck.
Regardless, Vanderbilt is in a very bad spot now. A spot that is too much to climb out of without a conference tournament championship.
Does that mean that next weekend’s results mean nothing? Maybe not nothing, but it feels like even if Vanderbilt beat the Gamecocks all three times, it would not be as sweet or critical. 
But at the same time, it is technically possible the selection committee could somehow view Vanderbilt much higher than fans are, so getting wins is still important in that sense. That is not likely, though.
This is not the scenario Vanderbilt head coach Tim Corbin imagined his team to be at, nor how the regional streak would likely come to an end. Yet, here is Vanderbilt sitting at the doorstep of the offseason.
Conference tournament runs are not impossible. For many teams that are playing with house money – a position Vanderbilt essentially is at – conference tournaments can be seen as a fresh start following a tough season. But if Vanderbilt were to go on a conference tournament run, it would need to win four games, three of them would be teams in the top half of the SEC.
The Commodores’ path to the NCAA Tournament has officially reached its narrowest point, probably regardless of what happens to close the regular season. The season is not truly over yet, but it is getting extremely close.
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Graham Baakko is a writer for Vanderbilt Commodores On SI, primarily covering football, basketball and baseball. Graham is a recent graduate from the University of Alabama, where he wrote for The Crimson White, WVUA-FM, WVUA 23 as he covered a variety of Crimson Tide sports. He also covered South Carolina athletics as a sportswriting intern for GamecockCentral.
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