Beginning next season, the SEC Baseball Tournament will expand to 16 teams with the addition of Texas and Oklahoma into the conference. With that comes a change in the double-elimination format that the conference has used since the last realignment.
The new format will feature a simplified single-elimination format. The 9-16 seeds will battle it out in the first round while the 5-8 seeds will play the winners of those games in the second round. The top four seeds will receive double byes.
For some coaches in the league, this is the preferred way to play the tournament.
“I will not miss it,” Kentucky baseball coach Nick Mingione said of the current format. “As a matter of fact, I will say, I will go on record and say this. The format that we’re doing is the one that I voted for. … Our conference does an amazing job with this tournament. When you just look up and down, the staff, the people, I was personally really happy that the 3 — there was no rain up to this point, and it was a 3:00 game because all the people from the grounds crew to the office to you name it, they have spent a lot of time here, and a 9:30 game was early.
“Just so thankful for the job that our league and all the folks that have worked at this tournament have done. It is as good as it gets, and there is none better. But I will say this: The format that we’re moving to, change is not something that bothers me. I just think that we have to be able to make changes and adapt, and I think there’s a lot of times in life where we’re just like, man, change can be really hard.
Mingione told his players in the very first meeting this year that if they don’t like something — “change it. If you can’t change it, change the way you think about it.”
Still, Mingione is looking forward to the format which mirrors the NCAA Tournament in college basketball. Single elimination all the way through and see which team can string together the best run.
“I’m looking forward to it,” Mingione said. “Obviously there’s no changing our format that we have now, so I’m looking forward to a new challenge and a new way to compete at the highest level against some of the best teams in America.”
While Kentucky’s stay in Hoover this year didn’t end how they would have liked, the Wildcats can look forward to hosting the Lexington Regional this weekend as the NCAA Tournament’s No. 2 overall seed.
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