Breaking Down Vanderbilt Baseball’s Path to a SEC Tournament Title – Sports Illustrated

At this point in the college baseball season, it is no secret what the state of the union is for Vanderbilt baseball as postseason baseball gets going this week.
The Commodores are on the precipice of having their NCAA regional streak of 19 years snapped if they fall short of making the SEC Championship game and perhaps winning the SEC Tournament this week. 
Vanderbilt has its back against the wall and it knows that. Every game that it plays in Hoover, Alabama this week is a do or die scenario. Either it will live to see the next day or its 2026 season will be over in all likelihood.
Vanderbilt may not have to win the SEC Baseball Tournament, but it will more than likely have to at least get to the tournament championship game Sunday afternoon. Since the Commodores are the No. 12 seed in the bracket, they start their tournament run Tuesday afternoon and would need to win four games to get to Sunday’s title game.
The path to get there will not be easy. In fact, there probably is not a more difficult path to play five games in six days among the power conference brackets.
But if Vanderbilt were to make it to the SEC Championship Game, this would be its path.
To start, Vanderbilt kicks off its tournament run with a matchup against No. 13 seed Kentucky in a rematch of the series the two teams played in Lexington in mid-April. It is a draw that seems to be favorable to Vanderbilt given that it beat Kentucky two of three times on the road and was two strikes away from sweeping the Wildcats.
It is almost a certainty that Vanderbilt will start its pitching ace Connor Fennell Tuesday afternoon. In his last time out against Kentucky, Fennell went 6.1 innings and only surrendered one run off five hits. It was one of his best outings during SEC play that he has had this season.
If Vanderbilt were to beat Kentucky, it would go on to play No. 5 seed Florida. The Commodores and Gators never saw each other during the season. This is where things would get interesting for Vanderbilt.
Who would Wednesday’s starting pitcher be and how does that impact Vanderbilt’s pitching the rest of the week? It could be Tyler Baird that gets the start, but then again, what if he comes in to close the game against Kentucky?
Florida has been middle of the pack offensively during conference play, but was fourth-best in the SEC in team ERA. 
If Vanderbilt were to beat Florida, its quarterfinal game would be against Alabama Thursday. The two teams met in Tuscaloosa three weekends ago, where Vanderbilt was swept by the Crimson Tide.
It would be very interesting to see who is available pitching-wise at that point. Would someone like Wyatt Nadeau be starting on that day or someone else? That is ultimately going to be the looming question about Vanderbilt throughout the week if it goes on a run.
Do the Commodores have enough arms to make it to the weekend and into championship Sunday? If Vanderbilt gets to the quarterfinals and is thin in terms of pitchers that are most reliable, it puts more pressure on Vanderbilt’s offense to score runs.
One thing to think about as well is how teams with a double-bye go about managing their pitching staffs. Do the top four teams save their best pitchers for the semifinals and championship? In Alabama’s case, it may not do that because the Crimson Tide are fighting for a top eight seed in the NCAA Tournament.
If Vanderbilt were to beat Alabama, though, it would have Friday off to rest before likely playing the team that has been at the top of the SEC all season, Georgia.
As much praise as Vanderbilt’s offense has gotten this season (and rightly so), Georgia’s has been even better. The Bulldogs have been a juggernaut at the plate with the best batting average during SEC season and have scored the second-most runs in the conference behind Texas A&M.
While a day off Friday would give Vanderbilt an opportunity to have its pitchers rest, taking on Georgia would be an animal unlike anything the Commodores have seen this season. It could end up being a game where Vanderbilt relies heavily on its bats to go win the game.
And if Vanderbilt wins all four of those games, it sets itself up for a SEC Championship game likely against No. 2 seed Texas or No. 3 seed Texas A&M in a rematch.
Two teams that Vanderbilt lost a series to two games to one. Again, pitching would be the most obvious question in that game for Vanderbilt, especially going against a team like Texas that has a very lethal pitching staff.
If Vanderbilt makes it to Sunday, it could give itself a good case to be one of the final at-large teams in the NCAA Tournament. But it has to get there first. It is the steepest climb into the 64-team field that head coach Tim Corbin has had in the past two decades. Hoover is a place Corbin has a history of winning. The only question is whether he can do it again.
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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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