Playoff Baseball: Inside Vanderbilt Baseball's Messaging Ahead of SEC Tournament Run – Sports Illustrated

NASHVILLE—From now on, every game that Vanderbilt baseball plays is its version of a game seven. If it loses, this is all over and this group goes down as the historically unsuccessful and the least accomplished Vanderbilt baseball team in the last 20 years. If it wins, it gets to live another day. 
Vanderbilt coach Tim Corbin has been on a soapbox in regard to the idea that his team has to approach every game one game at a time and says that his messaging in that way has prevented him from pushing the narrative that every game is a playoff game for this program from here on out, but that hasn’t slowed the roll of his players as they talk about the stakes of everything that faces them the rest of the way. 
In all three media availabilities–the other two were with Vanderbilt shortstop Ryker Waite and Vanderbilt senior Chris Maldonado–after Vanderbilt’s Saturday win over South Carolina, the term playoff baseball was verbalized without prompt. Perhaps it’s a wild coincidence, but Corbin doesn’t seem to be surprised by that. 
“They know it, this is playoff baseball for Vanderbilt,” Corbin said. “It’s like the pink elephant in the room, you know it’s there. I don’t play any games with the guys, it’s just like ‘here’s what it is.”
More than that’s a controversial statement these days, that’s just the state of the union around these parts. Vanderbilt finished the regular season with a 32-24 record, a RPI that would set a dangerous historical precedent if Vanderbilt got an at-large bid and a position firmly outside the NCAA Tournament field. 
That’s put it in a position that will force it to either reach the SEC Championship game or win the whole thing outright. To feel good about getting into a regional, it will likely have to win the whole thing. 
It’s a tall task, but that’s the position it’s put itself in. 
“This is just playoff baseball now,” Maldonado said. “Every game matters, and we got to just play one game at a time and really just not make too much of it because that's when you put too much pressure on yourself. But just playing one game at a time and worrying about the next one is the most important thing right now.” 
Corbin says that his messaging in terms of playoff baseball comes every year around this time and that it's not unique to Vanderbilt's current, dire circumstances. It hadn't come prior to Saturday afternoon, but it will be prevalent in his speech between now and Vanderbilt's Tuesday opener in Hoover against Kentucky.
Waite admits that this group feels a pressure to get to the NCAA Tournament so that it can uphold Vanderbilt’s 19-year regional streak on Corbin’s behalf. Corbin appears to have some guilt that Waite feels that way and wishes he could take himself and the history out of the equation as Vanderbilt goes to Hoover. 
Corbin can’t do that, though. He has to be this group’s coach. All he knows to do at this stage is advise them to treat every game like a game seven. At least Corbin is holding up his end of the bargain in that way. 
Do you have an estimate of how many wins you need to have in Hoover to make the NCAA Tournament? A reporter asked. 
“One right now,” Corbin said. “Then after that, one. After that, one. After that, one more. I don’t know what that equation would be between KPI and RPI, it’s like we’re 14-16 in the league…I think the conference helps you to some degree. Obviously our road record doesn’t help us, but all we can do is take care of what’s in front of us, and that’s just the next game that we’re going to play.” 
Corbin’s group will take the bus down to Hoover to play Tuesday afternoon. If it wins on Tuesday and keeps itself alive, it will have to face a top-five seed in the tournament. If it wins that game, things will continue to get more difficult. 
Vanderbilt can’t think of all of that, though, and it knows it. It’s just got to continue approaching this like it has been. 
“I think we’re just looking to win one game at a time,” Waite said. “We want to do this for Corbs, do this for the program. He puts so much into this. He’s the best of all time, and we love playing for him. We don’t want to be done.”
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Joey Dwyer is the lead writer on Vanderbilt Commodores On SI. He found his first love in college sports at nearby Lipscomb University and decided to make a career of telling its best stories. He got his start doing a Notre Dame basketball podcast from his basement as a 14-year-old during COVID and has since aimed to make that 14-year-old proud. Dwyer has covered Vanderbilt sports for three years and previously worked for 247 Sports and Rivals. He contributes to Seth Davis' Hoops HQ, Basket Under Review and Mainstreet Nashville.
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