this is where the teams rank in this week's national polls: BRACKET ONE #2/#2/#5/#6/#7 LSU (previous #4/#7/#9/#9/#9) #11/#12/#12/#13/#18 Kentucky (previous #2/#4/#5/#8/#10) #14/#14/#14/#25/#25 Arkansas (previous #17/#18/#18/#26/NR) #21/#24/#25/#26/#26 Miss State (previous #27/NR/NR/NR/NR) #30/NR/NR/NR/NR Ole Miss (previous #22/#25/#25/NR/NR) BRACKET TWO #2/#2/#2/#3/#4 Florida (previous #2/#3/#3/#3/#5) #3/#4/#5/#7/#7 South Carolina (previous #1/#2/#2/#3/#4) #33/NR/NR/NR/NR Vanderbilt (previous #44/NR/NR/NR/NR) #42/NR/NR/NR/NR Georgia (previous #36/NR/NR/NR/NR) NR/NR/NR/NR/NR Auburn (previous #45/NR/NR/NR/NR) (Florida State is #1 in four polls, Oregon #1 in the other)
Shreveport Times: LSU coach Paul Mainieri announced Monday that No. 2 starter Aaron Nola (6-4, 4.03 ERA) will start the Tigers' opening game of the SEC tournament Wednesday at approximately 1 p.m. in Hoover, Ala., but he will pitch no more than an inning or two. "If we were on the bubble to get an NCAA bid, I'd probably have Kevin Gausman (staff ace) pitching the opening game," Mainieri said. "We're going to approach Wednesday's game similar to how we've done mid-week games all year. ... We may use as many as seven pitchers."
it'll be like in 2009, when were were in the same place were were now, SEC Champs (which virtually guarantees you a national seed), and in the SECT we threw Ross in our first game instead of our two aces, Fri guy Ranaudo and Sat guy Coleman that way, if we happen to win the game 1 without using too much of our best pitchers, we'll have them ready for games 2, 3, and 4 which, if win all 3 of them, we win the SECT of course, the disadvantage is if we go 2 and done, that's a momentum kill
the good news is that Ole Miss burned their ace pitcher and Golden Spikes Award Top60, Bobby Wahl... he threw 99 pitches over 6 innings this morning. the only other pitcher Ole Miss used was Tanner Bailey (27 pitches, 2.0 innings), who is one of their bull pen guys... meaning their 2 other weekend starters and their stud closer, Brett Huber, are all fully rested as for Kentucky, they have an interesting strategy: they used their ace starting pitcher Taylor Rogers as relief guy this morning, he threw the last 3.1 innings of the game (36 pitches). so Kentucky might use him a few innings over two of their remaining games, or they might save him just to throw at us, we'll see. the starter UK used today was A.J. Reed, who is one of their bullpen guys (and didn't even pitch against LSU when we played them @Kentucky earlier this season). today, he pitched the first 5.2 innings (68 pitches). those were the only 2 pitchers UK used today, meaning that Kentucky's 2 other weekend starters and their stud closer, Trevor Gott, are all fully rested
regarding the Arkansas/Miss State game today, the good news is that Arkansas burned their ace Golden Spikes Award Top60 starting pitcher, Ryne Stanek. he threw 108 pitches over 5.2 innings as for Miss State, who is loaded with great pitchers, they didn't use any of their 3 weekend starters today (Stratton, Graveman, E. Mitchell), and their stud closer, Caleb Reed, only threw 14 pitches today in 0.2 innings. they didn't use their other top 5 pitcher, Routt, today either. those were the only five pitchers they used in their series @LSU earlier this season, and that was a tough battle (Miss State won game one 7-1, then LSU won game two 4-3, and LSU won game three in 10 innings 3-2). i'd assume Miss State will throw their Friday ace and Golden Spikes Award Top60 pitcher Chris Stratton at us... and earlier this season he was incredible against us: he went 8.2 innings, had 17 K's, and only allowed 4 hits and 1 run the good news is that Miss State only has one guy on their team batting over .300 -- Adam Frazier who just got selected to the Team USA collegiate team, and is hitting .367 this season
Streaming audio from the SEC website here: http://www.secdigitalnetwork.com/SECSPORTS/BPLiveShow.aspx
