Why Southern Miss baseball will — and won't — win the NCAA Tournament's Auburn Regional

Southern Miss baseball went to Auburn for a regional in its first season under coach Scott Berry in 2010, and the Golden Eagles will return to Plainsman Park in Berry's final postseason in charge, the NCAA announced Monday.

The No. 2 seed in the double elimination Auburn Regional, USM will open the NCAA Tournament against No. 3 Samford on Friday (1 p.m. CT, ESPN+). The top-seeded Tigers will take on No. 4 Penn (6 p.m., ESPN+).

Up against the Tigers (34-21-1), Bulldogs (36-23) and Quakers (32-14), here's the argument for and against Southern Miss (41-17) taking another trip to the super regional round in Berry's last ride.

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Why Southern Miss baseball will win the Auburn Regional

Judging strictly by the RPI ‒ flawed as it may be ‒ there weren't many better outcomes for Southern Miss once the Golden Eagles learned they wouldn't be hosting on Sunday night.

At No. 19, Auburn is the lowest-rated host, and Samford, at No. 62 with no wins against top-50 teams, is not an imposing three-seed for the Golden Eagles to open against.

With respect to Auburn's Tommy Vail, who had a strong season in the SEC, Southern Miss has the best starting pitcher in this regional by some distance in Sun Belt Pitcher of the Year Tanner Hall. Berry has almost always opted against withholding his ace in Game One of regionals in years past, but that door is open for him this season should he choose to line Hall up with Auburn and look to get through Samford with one of his other arms.

On offense, this is an experienced Southern Miss lineup. Seven of the players who started last season's regional title game victory over LSU are regular fixtures in this year's lineup. There's a real power threat in Slade Wilks, who hit his 20th of the season in the Sun Belt championship game against Louisiana.

Southern Miss enters the regional having won 19 of its past 21 games, averaging 8.3 runs per game over that stretch. The Golden Eagles' lineup was hit-and-miss late last season. That doesn't appear to be the case this time around.

Why Southern Miss baseball won't win the Auburn regional

It's a good practice to avoid giving too much weight to midweek games, but in making the case against the Golden Eagles, it's probably worth pointing out that Southern Miss hasn't compared well against the SEC this season. In USM's three opportunities against college baseball's top-rated league, it lost to bad Ole Miss and Mississippi State teams and dropped an ugly one to Alabama. (We'll cut the infield sod that canceled a game USM was leading early in against Ole Miss at Trustmark Park some slack, for now.)

And while the Southern Miss pitching staff is still a strong one as a whole, the Golden Eagles don't have the depth in their starting rotation that they did last season when they followed Hall with Hunter Riggins and Hurston Waldrep.

Berry's program has made a habit lately of getting outstanding postseason outings from relatively unheralded pieces, and it feels likely that Southern Miss will need one or two of those to advance.

David Eckert covers sports for the Clarion Ledger. Email him at deckert@gannett.com or reach him on Twitter @davideckert98.

This article originally appeared on Hattiesburg American: Why Southern Miss baseball will — and won't — win the Auburn Regional