Why the SEC Tournament is vital for Vanderbilt baseball on the NCAA regional bubble

Not since 2009 has Vanderbilt baseball entered the SEC tournament in a position as precarious as the one it's in right now.

The Commodores (35-20) are one of five SEC teams that finished at 13-17 in the league. Their first opponent in the tournament, Florida (28-26) is another. Each of those five teams sits on the NCAA tournament bubble entering the conference tournament, which begins Tuesday at Hoover Met in Hoover, Alabama.

The D1Baseball projections released Monday had Vanderbilt as one of the last four teams in the tournament.

The last bubble team Vanderbilt had, in 2009, finished 12-17 in the SEC. However, that team helped its case by advancing to the SEC tournament final and was given a bid to a regional.

The Commodores are working with a streak of 17 consecutive regionals, which is the longest active streak in the country and tied for the longest in the history of the SEC. The last time Vanderbilt missed a regional, in 2005, it had a 13-17 conference record and an RPI of 31.

Since the SEC expanded to 14 teams, squads with a resume like the Commodores' have made the NCAA tournament every time. However, there are four other teams in the same situation to go along with six tournament locks. No conference has ever gotten more than 10 teams into a regional.

How Vanderbilt baseball stacks up against SEC bubble teams entering SEC tournament

Among the five SEC teams that finished 13-17, Vanderbilt was second in the tiebreaker selections the conference uses, which gave the Commodores the No. 8 seed. However, that is unlikely to be a factor the committee considers.

Other metrics, such as RPI (rating percentage index) and KPI (key performance indicator), as well as quadrant records and strength of schedule, could help to differentiate the teams. Here's where each one stands entering the SEC tournament.

Vanderbilt sits middle of the pack in most metrics. The Commodores are fourth among the group in RPI but second in KPI. Their Quad 1 record is better than LSU and South Carolina but worse than Alabama and Florida.

While head-to-head is not always considered, Vanderbilt beat Florida (at home) and LSU (on the road) in series and will face the Gators again in Hoover. The Commodores were swept by South Carolina and didn't play Alabama.

Four of the five teams face each other in the SEC tournament, as South Carolina and Alabama also will face off. LSU will face Georgia. That means that at least two of the teams are guaranteed to go one-and-done in Hoover, giving the teams that win a larger opportunity to better their resumes in the double-elimination portion of the bracket.

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Could the SEC get 11 teams in the NCAA tournament?

Although it has never happened, it's not out of the question that all five teams could get in and give the SEC 11 bids. Each of the five squads has several metrics that compare favorably to bubble teams outside the SEC.

For example, even LSU, which has the lowest RPI of the group at 30, still ranks above teams like Nebraska (31), Coastal Carolina (35), TCU (40), UCF (42), Illinois (43) and Georgia Tech (46).

A lot will depend on whether the committee believes that the SEC is so much better than other conferences that the league deserves that many bids. Bid thieves could also play a role. Teams like East Carolina in the American, UConn in the Big East and Indiana State in the Missouri Valley are likely the only teams in their conferences with at-large resumes. If any of those teams lose their conference tournaments, there will be fewer spots. In leagues with several bubble teams, like the ACC, Big Ten and CAA, there is also the possibility of one of those teams grabbing an automatic bid.

Since the SEC expanded to 14 teams, there has not been any similar cases of this many teams being on the bubble. The closest example might be 2005, when Mississippi State finished 13-16; Auburn, Arkansas and Vanderbilt were 13-17 and Georgia was 12-17. All of those teams had strong RPI figures as well. In that year, Mississippi State won the SEC tournament, Auburn and Arkansas received at-large bids and Vanderbilt and Georgia were left out. However, Auburn, Vanderbilt and Georgia all failed to qualify for the SEC tournament, which at the time featured eight teams.

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In the tournament's current format, which began in 2013, the only team with a losing conference record to make the tournament final was Texas A&M a year ago, which lost to the Commodores in the final and had a 14-16 conference record. The Aggies were the No. 10 seed.

No 13-17 team has qualified for the final in the current format, but a handful have made the semifinals, including South Carolina in 2017 and Texas A&M in 2018. Kentucky also made the semifinals in 2022 with a 12-18 conference record.

The Hoover run didn't help South Carolina or Kentucky. Both missed the NCAA tournament; the Gamecocks had an RPI just outside the top 30, while the Wildcats' was not in the top 40. The 2018 Aggies, with a top 20 RPI, did receive a bid.

Aria Gerson covers Vanderbilt athletics for The Tennessean. Contact her at agerson@gannett.com or on Twitter @aria_gerson.

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Why SEC Tournament matters for Vanderbilt baseball on NCAA bubble