11 of 14 SEC schools were selected to participate in this year’s NCAA Tournament, including five that were named as regional hosts.
For Vanderbilt, they’re headed to the Clemson Regional as a 2-seed in their tournament this weekend. Commodores head coach Tim Corbin believes that the conference-wide success rate will be high over the next couple of weekends.
“I think they will all handle themselves well. I say that because — I don’t know the rest of the country real well, so it would be unfair of me to speak,” Corbin said. “But I think what these kids do — whether it’s Tennessee or LSU or any of these kids, they play in hot-temperature situations. I mean, there’s a lot on their shoulders on a weekly basis, and it’s very important to the people around ’em, which kind of creates that little bubble of pressure that — or you can call it whatever you want, bubble of heat that occurs around them.”
Four of the top five seeds in this year’s tournament are coming from the SEC. Tennessee (1), Kentucky (2), Texas A&M (3) and Arkansas (5) are all expected to find themselves in Omaha next month. UK is looking for their first trip to the College World Series while the rest have previous experience in the postseason.
All 11 of these teams, regardless of seedings, were matched up together throughout the regular season. They all have experience playing against the best of the best in the SEC, and in turn, the country, on a weekly basis.
“I would suspect, if they play up to their abilities, I would say that you’re going to see a favorable amount of teams in Omaha again,” Corbin continued. “There’s been a lot of great players in this league for a long period of time and as good or better, but in totality, the league is just very strong from 1 to 9.
“You look at this Tennessee lineup and any one of those kids can do damage, from 1 to 9, and even us, you know, we get down to [Jack] Bulger, who is hitting 8th, and that’s a proven hitter who has hit in the league for four years. Calvin Hewett‘s had a great [SEC] Tournament, great last couple of weeks. Yeah, I can see [all of them] them doing well.”
Vanderbilt will kick off NCAA Tournament action at the Clemson Regional against Coastal Carolina on Friday beginning at Noon ET. The game will air live on ESPN2.
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