Postseason outlook not gloomy for Gameco*ck baseball, national writers say (2024)

COLUMBIA— Omaha reservations were being canceled, coaching hot boards were being refurbished, cardboard boxes were being dropped off at Founders Park. Georgia stomped out of Founders last week after a three-game sweep of South Carolina, the Gameco*cks’ first home sweep since 2019, and the USC faithful were deservedly unhappy.

One win might have been the final keystroke on the announcement that the Gameco*cks would host an NCAA Regional. Now they’re about to start a series at No. 1 Tennessee that, if it goes as projected, leaves them hanging by a fingernail above the abyss of No Postseason.

Right?

“Probably not,” said Kendall Rogers, national baseball writer for D1Baseball.com. “Even if they get swept in Knoxville, their SEC record is 13-17, their RPI is going to be in the top 25. Even if they don’t win a game in Hoover (at the SEC Tournament), I think they’re in.”

Excuse me?

“I can’t emphasize how good their RPI is. The bubble this year is not good. Historically, you really only need 13 wins,” agreed Teddy Cahill of Baseball America. “It’s not a safe thing at 13, but I would be stunned if everything broke the wrong way for South Carolina.”

Oh. Well then.

As Cahill said, it’s nowhere near a sure thing that the Gameco*cks miss the NCAA Tournament, even with the Doomsday projection— that the Volunteers sweep USC and the Gameco*cks go one-and-done in Hoover, which would give them a seven-game losing streak before the regionals. Their SEC record would be 13-17, which was the Gameco*cks’ SEC record in 2015, 2017 and 2022 when they did not make it to a regional.

But this year is different.

As it stands right now, the Gameco*cks are still above five SEC teams still fighting to get into the NCAA Tournament. Vanderbilt (12-15), Alabama (12-15), Florida (11-16), Ole Miss (11-16) and defending national champion LSU (10-17) are the rest of the pecking order.

USC swept Vanderbilt in a series and beat Florida 2-1. The Gameco*cks lost their series to Alabama and Ole Miss, and they did not play LSU.

USC has enough on its plate about to play a red-hot Tennessee team that’s trying to win the SEC regular-season championship (the Vols are tied with Arkansas for second place, one game behind Kentucky). But it can do a bit of scoreboard-watching this weekend, since other results can help even if the Gameco*cks lose.

The Commodores are at Kentucky. Florida is at Georgia. Ole Miss and LSU play each other, so one of them is most likely going to end the weekend out of luck for the NCAA Tournament.

Alabama? It can leap over USC in the standings with a series win at league-worst Auburn if the Gameco*cks can’t win a game or two in Knoxville. But there’s a silver lining there, too— the Gameco*cks’ RPI going to Tennessee is 19, while Tennessee’s is 6.

Win or lose, the RPI will not be badly harmed by playing a top-10 RPI team on the road.

“Right now, Florida’s not going to get in. LSU, Ole Miss, even Vanderbilt aren’t going to get in. All those teams are behind South Carolina,” Rogers said. “South Carolina is very much comfortable. If they can find a way to steal one this weekend, that just improves their case.”

Cahill went a step further, although he of course hedged it by saying how difficult the task would be.

“They find a way to win that series and then do something in Hoover, they’ll get back in the hosting race,” Cahill said. “A sweep at Tennessee would put them back in (as a host).”

The likely scenariois that USC will make the NCAA Tournament but have to travel somewhere. In keeping with the idea that the selection committee likes to keep teams as close as possible to home, that means probably heading to an ACC-hosted regional.

Candidates at this point are Virginia, Wake Forest, North Carolina … and Clemson.

USC has won regionals on the road before, notably at East Carolina in 2018, Mark Kingston’s first season. Its postseason record against Clemson is a bedrock of the program’s success.

But despite the rosy outlook for the postseason, the Gameco*cks are still in a world of hurt right now. They were swept in their final home series, they are facing a tremendously tough team at its park this weekend, their starting pitching is in shambles.

It’s going to be a challenge just to feel good about getting to the point where they can say, “We’re in the postseason now and none of that stuff in the past matters.”

“A sense of urgency is something that’s always in an SEC baseball program,” the embattled Kingston said. “You just have to try to win the next game.”