What The Metrics Say About South Carolina's Baseball Team Heading Into Conference Tournament Play

Andrew Lyon | May 19, 2024

South Carolina head baseball coach Mark Kingston during a NCAA baseball game at Lindsey Nelson Stadium on Saturday, May 18, 2024. Tennessee won 4-1 against South Carolina. / Angelina Alcantar/News Sentinel / USA

With the regular season having concluded, South Carolina's baseball team is limping, figuratively speaking, into the SEC Baseball Tournament. Two weeks ago, the Gamecocks seemed to have a great chance of being a regional host. However, after being swept in consecutive weekends by the then-No. 15 Georgia Bulldogs at home and No. 1 Tennessee Volunteers on the road, some fans wonder if Mark Kingston's squad has any more work to do to ensure they make the NCAA Tournament.

Let's go ahead and get the obvious out of the way: no matter what happens this week in Hoover, Carolina won't be hosting a regional as a national seed. However, it's also tough to see the Gamecocks being left out of postseason play altogether based on the metrics portion of their résumé. Here are some of the most notable numbers per warrennolan.com:

RPI: 19th (7th in the SEC)

SOS: 7th (5th in the SEC)

Quad 1 Record: 9-18 (11th in the SEC in wins | 12th in in the SEC in Win %)

While South Carolina hasn't performed well on the road or against some of the SEC's best teams at home (except for Kentucky), it appears that their brutal conference schedule that saw them play 5 of the Top 6 teams in the SEC's final regular season standings, plus Clemson and North Carolina (both away from Founders Park), gives them enough of a boost that they won't be left out no matter what happens in Hoover.

The only way I could see things getting interesting is if the Gamecocks go one-and-done in the SEC Tournament and two other bubble teams like Florida and LSU make a run to the Finals, which would then potentially give Carolina fans reason to sweat a little bit. Otherwise, Kington's squad should be in the Field of 64 come next week.

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• Mark Kingston On The Biggest Difference In Game 1 At No. 1 Tennessee: 'They Ran The Ball Out Of The Ballpark'
• Final: Gamecocks Fall Late After Promising Start

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