The 2016 SEC Baseball Tournament was a wild success and it was made so much more intriguing by all the story lines going in and the hype amongst the teams playing. Going into the tournament, 7 SEC teams were ranked in the top 12. This supported the argument that this was hands down the biggest post season baseball tournament in the nation leading up to the College World Series. Did I mention the event set an attendance record by drawing 150,064 fans to the event? So yeah, it was kind of a big deal.
The Texas A&M Aggies emerged victorious, winning their first SEC Tournament title by demolishing the #1 Florida Gators 12-5. This was the second game in a row that Texas A&M came back from an early deficit to blow a game wide open in victory as they came back to beat Ole Miss 12-8 in the semifinal.
But, is winning the SEC Baseball Tournament actually a good thing?
I know that sounds like a stupid question when it is said out loud, but statistics show it really isn’t that crazy of a question. Since 1990, the SEC has been crowned champion of the College World Series 10 times. Of those 10 champions, only 2 of them also won the SEC Baseball Tournament.
District on Deck
We’re not used to that type of oxymoron. How can we have 10 national championships in baseball as a conference, but only 2 of those teams managed to win their conference tournament? It isn’t that way in basketball. It is near impossible to do in football (swear somebody reading this just said “Roll Tide”), and simply it goes against logic.
Then again, baseball isn’t football. Baseball isn’t basketball. It is game played by the numbers more than any other sport. An argument could be made that the extra rest benefited the other 8 champions, but considering that the College World Series is slated to begin June 18th, rest shouldn’t be a problem for Texas A&M as they try to duplicate the success of the 2000 and 2009 LSU Tigers.