STARKVILLE — Many experts believe the Mississippi State baseball team has locked up a national seed for the NCAA tournament.
Winning the Southeastern Conference regular-season championship with a 21-9 record, No. 2 MSU’s resume includes series wins at Vanderbilt, at Florida, and at LSU.
D1Baseball.com’s Kendall Rogers tweeted earlier this week, “Miss State isn’t losing out on a national seed. Zero chance.” On Tuesday, D1Baseball.com projected MSU as the No. 5 national seed.
But Bulldog coach John Cohen isn’t taking anything for granted this week and doesn’t want to leave anything in the hands of the NCAA tournament selection committee.
“Some crazy things can happen in that room,” Cohen said. “I don’t look at RPIs a lot, but I know our RPI isn’t as good as some others. There’s a lot of things that can go on in that room. I’m totally aware of the fact they can go, ‘Well, they won the league, but they went two-and-out.’ Some things can happen in that room.
“The easy thing to do is, ‘Hey, let’s take care of our own business, let’s do everything we can to win our games and let the chips fall.’ You start worrying about all these other factors, that can drive you nuts. There are factors out there, and we can’t assume anything at this point.”
Top-seeded MSU (40-14-1) will look to bolster its resume at 4:30 p.m. today (SEC Network) when it takes on No. 9 seed Alabama on the second day of the SEC tournament at Hoover Metropolitan Stadium in Hoover, Alabama. Alabama defeated No. 8 seed Kentucky 5-2 on Tuesday.
Even though MSU is No. 11 in the RPI, according to D1Baseball.com, Cohen said an Atlantic Coast Conference team could make a run in its tournament and become a national seed. The ACC is the top RPI conference, according to D1Baseball.com
Junior right-handed pitcher Zac Houston (4-0, 2.25 ERA) will start for the Bulldogs, while the Crimson Tide (32-24) will start junior right-hander Geoffrey Bramblett (5-3, 2.76). Cohen expects to use several guys out of the bullpen. The SEC Coach of the Year said junior right-hander and first team All-SEC selection Dakota Hudson (9-3, 2.29) will pitch Thursday. He said he hopes MSU will play a third game so junior right-hander Austin Sexton (7-2, 3.39) will be able to get some work. If not, Sexton will go nearly two weeks without throwing.
Hudson likes how the Bulldogs have approached this week.
“We’re ready to get deep into the tournament,” Hudson said. “I feel like we’ve got guys that haven’t really thrown that much or haven’t really played that much throughout this year. I feel like we’re going to get some experience and really be able to kind of see how we’re going to hold up in Omaha.”
The Bulldogs have won 11 in a row and 16 of the last 18. MSU took two out of three from Alabama in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. MSU’s last loss was a 4-3 decision to Alabama on April 30.
Cohen said there are two extremes when looking at the SEC tournament.
“If you lose two, you have that taste in your mouth of not playing well,” Cohen said. “The opposite extreme of that is if you win five, your team can be a little tired and exhausted and you have to kind of refresh.”
Cohen and the Bulldogs played six games in six days en route to the 2012 SEC tournament championship. But MSU then went 1-2 in the Tallahassee (Fla.) Regional. Samford beat MSU twice in the event.
MSU has won seven SEC tournament championships.
Although MSU’s performance in the SEC tournament likely will have minimal effect on its postseason fate, Cohen and the Bulldogs are taking the opposite approach and are eager to play again.
“Our kids want to win. They want to win and they want to keep winning,” Cohen said.
Follow Dispatch sports writer Ben Wait on Twitter @bcwait
Ben Wait reports on Mississippi State University sports for The Dispatch.
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