Vanderbilt Baseball Shares Mindset with One Week Before Postseason Play – Sports Illustrated

The next step forward in Vanderbilt baseball’s narrow path to the NCAA Tournament was taken Thursday night as it took down South Carolina in convincing 9-1 fashion.
It was one of the most complete games Vanderbilt has played all season as the Commodores got what they needed out of their pitchers and were able to put runs on the board to run away and take the first game of the series.
Though it was a positive sign for Vanderbilt that it played the way it did Thursday, it did not change much as to where the Commodores are in the big picture. Vanderbilt is still 12-16 in conference play and Thursday’s win in all likelihood did not make much of a change in terms of its at-large bid hopes for the NCAA Tournament.
Nonetheless, there are only two more games before the schedule turns to postseason play. But perhaps unsurprisingly, Vanderbilt is not too focused on where it stands in terms of its seeding in the SEC Tournament, nor are the Commodores too worried about their case to be in the NCAA Tournament right now.
By all observations, Vanderbilt head coach Tim Corbin seems to be adopting a “take it one day at a time” approach.
“No,” Corbin simply said as he was asked if there is any thought about the postseason amongst the team right now. “We got to play good baseball. If we play good baseball tomorrow, we’ll worry about what’s in front of us after that.”
The approach and mindset of Corbin and his guys is not much of a surprise. There is no use in stressing about future matchups that have yet to be set in stone and it does not do Vanderbilt any good to be wrapped up in the thoughts of whether it will extend its regional streak.
In the Commodores’ mind, the focus is only on the next day and rightly so. 
The best thing Vanderbilt can do right now is just focus on getting hot at this time of the season. Baseball is a game where any team could come out of nowhere and catch fire. A season ago, Vanderbilt found its groove and used a sweep over Kentucky in the final series of the regular season to go on a SEC Tournament Championship run.
The situation is much more dire this time around, but the premise remains the same: if the Commodores catch fire, who knows what can happen at the SEC Tournament and potentially after that.
Vanderbilt pitcher Connor Fennell backed up Corbin’s thought process as he shared the mindset of the players with under a week to go before the SEC Tournament.
“Our mindset is to go in there and just do what we do. Lay it all out there. Lay everything we got out there and just play with the confidence we got. I mean, we’re very confident in our ability, especially in the SEC Tournament,” Vanderbilt pitcher Connor Fennell said.
As of now, Vanderbilt’s case to be in the NCAA Tournament is not a great one. There is plenty of work to do, and deep down Corbin and his team probably knows that. But they are certainly not accepting defeat. The fight and character of this Vanderbilt team still shows up.
Thinking even more than one day ahead will only distract Vanderbilt from its ultimate goal of finding a way into the tournament. Vanderbilt seems to have the right mindset going forward, it is just about whether that mindset will turn into crucial wins on the field.
“The only thing that really matters right now is can we wake up tomorrow and put a good product on the field and slow them down,” Corbin said.
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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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