The SEC begins its baseball tournament at Hoover Metropolitan Stadium at 9:30 p.m. CDT Tuesday. The Ole Miss-Alabama game is the first of four single-elimination contests on Tuesday’s schedule. Missouri-South Carolina, Kentucky-Auburn and Arkansas-Tennessee are the other games, with the four higher-seeded teams – LSU, Vanderbilt, Texas A&M and Florida – in line to start play on Wednesday.
0 Players in NCAA Division I have a higher slugging percentage than Arkansas’ Andrew Benintendi. Benintendi has a national-best .771 slugging percentage. He has 145 total bases on 47 singles, 12 doubles, two triples and 17 home runs this season. Benintendi’s league-leading .415 batting average ranks sixth in the nation and his .511 on-base percentage is fourth-best.
0 Teams in the nation have played a tougher schedule than Ole Miss this season, according to the NCAA. The NCAA rates the Rebels’ schedule as the toughest based on a cumulative .603 winning percentage by its NCAA Division I opponents in games against other NCAA Division I teams (not counting the games against Ole Miss). Auburn has played the fourth-toughest schedule. The other teams in the SEC tournament and their schedule ranks include Alabama, sixth; Vanderbilt, seventh; Missouri, eighth; Arkansas, 14th; Florida, 22nd; South Carolina, 41st; Kentucky, 42nd; Tennessee, 53rd; LSU, 89th; and Texas A&M, 90th.
0 Times during the regular season was an Alabama player chosen as the SEC Player of the Week or SEC Pitcher of the Week. Georgia also was shut out in the weekly awards, but the Bulldogs missed making the SEC tournament. Every other team in the conference tourney has had at least two weekly award-winners this season.
0 SEC tournament championships for five of the teams in this year’s tourney. Missouri has played only one previous SEC tournament game. Texas A&M is playing in its third SEC tournament. Arkansas, Kentucky and Tennessee have never won the conference tourney either. Tennessee won the Eastern Division tournament in each of the three years that the SEC held separate East and West tournaments (1993, 1994 and 1995), but the Volunteers have never won a full SEC tourney.
1 Team in the nation has a better record than LSU. The Tigers finished the regular season at 46-9 for an .836 winning percentage. At 45-6-1, Illinois has a winning percentage of .875.
1 Victory for Alabama in 23 games this season in which the Crimson Tide has the same number or fewer hits than its opponent. In the games in which Alabama has outhit its opponent, the Tide has a 29-4 record.
2 Consecutive SEC tournaments have been won by LSU. Only once has a league member won the conference tournament three straight years – LSU from 2008 through 2011. The Tigers have won seven straight tournament games since a 4-1 loss to Arkansas in its second game in 2013.
2 Of the nation’s top five home run hitters will be in the SEC tournament. Arkansas’ Andrew Benintendi ranks third with 17 home runs and Ole Miss’ Sikes Orvis ranks fifth with 16.
2 Victories without a loss for Auburn against Kentucky in the SEC tournament. The Tigers take on the Wildcats at 4:30 p.m. Tuesday in the tournament. Auburn beat Kentucky in the tourney in 1987 and 1991. The Tigers lead the all-time series with the Wildcats 75-42.
2 Of the 10 College World Series champions from the SEC also won the SEC tournament – LSU in 2000 and 2009. Six of those CWS winners had the best SEC regular-season conference records the year they won the national crown. Last year, Vanderbilt won the College World Series without winning the SEC tournament or posting the SEC best conference record. However, the Commodores did have the SEC’s best overall record during the 2014 regular season.
3 Winners in the past 23 SEC tournaments also were the league’s outright regular-season champ. In the first 12 years of the tournament, the regular-season champ won the tourney, too. Vanderbilt in 2007 is the most recent team to finish with a conference record better than anyone else in the league and win the SEC tourney, too. LSU had the best conference record this season at 21-8.
3 SEC tournament champions have had losing league records in the regular season, starting with Alabama in 2003, when the Crimson Tide had a 14-16 conference record. Mississippi State won in 2005 after going 13-16 in league play. LSU went 14-16 in 2010 conference play, then won the league tourney. Five teams carry losing conference records into this year’s tournament – Alabama, Auburn, Kentucky, South Carolina and Tennessee.
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5 SEC teams are ranked in the major polls entering the SEC tournament. LSU is No. 1 in the Baseball America, Collegiate Baseball, coaches, DI Baseball and NCBWA polls. Florida carries rankings of sixth, ninth, seventh, sixth and seventh; Vanderbilt is seventh, 10th, 10th, 10th and 11th; Texas A&M is eighth, sixth, sixth, seventh and sixth; and Arkansas is 20th, 27th, 24th, 21st and 24th.
7 Shutouts for the Auburn pitching staff this season, the most for the Tigers since they had eight in 1989. Auburn has shut out four SEC opponents in 2015. In the previous four seasons, the Tigers had shut out only three conference opponents.
8 Previous meetings between Alabama and Ole Miss in the SEC tournament, with the Rebels owning five victories, although the Crimson Tide has won the past two. The teams square off to open the 2015 tournament at 9:30 a.m. Tuesday. Alabama leads the all-time series with Ole Miss 205-143-2.
11 Shutouts tossed by the Vanderbilt pitching staff this season, giving the Commodores two more than any other team in the nation. The Vanderbilt pitching staff also leads the nation with 556 strikeouts.
11 More home runs hit by Texas A&M than by any other SEC team this season. The Aggies have clouted 61 four-baggers in 2015. Florida is second on the league list with 50. Auburn is in the conference tournament even though it hit a league-low 17 homers. While Texas A&M hitters led the SEC in home runs, the Aggies pitching staff has given up only 18 homers this season, the fewest in the league – seven better than second-place Auburn.
14 Of the 29 SEC tournaments played in seasons with divisions have featured a division champ as the tourney winner. Nine of those winners have been the Western Division champs. This year’s division winners were Vanderbilt in the East and LSU in the West.
17 Games in the 2015 SEC tournament, with all of them televised nationally for the first time. The first 16 will be carried on the SEC Network. The championship game at 3:30 p.m. CDT Sunday will be televised by ESPN2.
20 Game hitting streak carried into the SEC tournament by Tennessee’s Andrew Lee. Lee’s hitting streak is the second-longest in the SEC this season, behind a 23-game streak by LSU’s Kade Scivicque.
24 Consecutive games won by Texas A&M this season to set an SEC record. The Aggies won their first 24 games of the season before falling 6-2 to Alabama on March 21. The SEC record for consecutive victories had belonged to LSU’s 2008 team, which won 23 games in a row. Texas A&M completed the regular season with a 43-10 mark.
72 Victories in 110 SEC tournament games for LSU, giving the Tigers 24 more tourney victories than the No. 2 team on the list, Mississippi State.
132 Strikeouts for Vanderbilt pitcher Carson Fulmer in 95.2 innings this season. Fulmer ranks second in the nation in strikeouts to Missouri State’s Matt Hall, who has 136 in 98.1 innings.
200 Victories at Alabama for coach Mitch Gaspard, who earned the milestone win in the regular-season finale against Vanderbilt.
.985 Fielding percentage for Florida, the highest in the nation. The Gators have made 32 errors in 2,114 fielding chances this season.
