What Ole Miss has to do to make the postseason
OXFORD - Two weekends remain between now and the end of Ole Miss' regular season.
And a recent sweep at Florida dropped the Rebels (29-20) to 11-13 overall in the SEC with series remaining against No. 19 Texas A&M, which opens Friday (6:30 p.m., WatchESPN.com) at Swayze Field, and at No. 14 Auburn.
The Clarion-Ledger spoke with two national college baseball writers who maintain Ole Miss needs to at least split those six remaining SEC games to feel comfortable about making it to the NCAA Tournament.
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"I think 3-3 in those last two weekends, I'll feel pretty good about their chances. If they lose both of those series, it might get hairy," said Aaron Fitt, editor and national writer for D1baseball.com. "Momentum matters. You don't want to enter selection weekend on a series losing streak. If they can go 3-3, I think they're in. That's the mission right now, 3-3."
Teddy Cahill, national writer for Baseball America, shared Fitt's sentiment that the Rebels need to go at least .500, or win both of their remaining series.
"Getting swept at Florida was damaging to some extent, (but) it didn't do anything bad to their RPI," Cahill said. "They're back under .500 in the league now. You can get in under .500 but that's not where you want to be. There's more pressure on these last two weeks now."
The Aggies (34-15, 14-10 SEC) dropped a series to Mississippi State this past weekend, but won five series in a row before that, so they're coming into this weekend playing fairly well.
The Tigers (32-18, 14-10) had won six of their seven conference series to start the season, but suffered an ugly sweep at the hands of last-place Alabama last week.
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Texas A&M and Auburn are two of eight teams with better conference records than Ole Miss at the moment, and South Carolina owns the same 11-13 record in SEC play.
Cahill feels at 14-16 and with a win in the SEC tournament and Ole Miss should be able to feel good about its chances. But he also mentioned it's worth keeping track of the Gamecocks, who've lost six consecutive conference series.
"If South Carolina's slide continues, then maybe Ole Miss is able to get ahead of South Carolina and be the ninth team in the SEC as opposed to the 10th team. That would make a difference," Cahill said. "There's only been 10 teams in from one conference twice. It would still be better to be ninth rather than 10th."
The SEC placed 10 teams into the tournament in 2014, while the ACC placed 10 teams into the field last year.
As of now, Ole Miss is No. 36 in RPI. Cahill said it would be beneficial if the Rebels could get in the top 30, but he and Fitt said RPI shouldn't be an issue.
"Those are going to be good RPI series (against Texas A&M and Auburn)," Fitt said. "I don't think RPI would be a factor, it's a matter of their conference record."
According to Fitt, Conference USA houses a some of the teams which live on the tournament bubble with Ole Miss.
"Certainly keep an eye on Conference USA. You have Louisiana Tech in that range, you've got Florida Atlantic, even Rice is starting to creep up there. Charlotte had been in the mix till this past weekend. Conference USA is a big one," he said. "There's a lot of bubble-range teams in that league. In the Pac-12, you can look at a team like Oregon out there, Washington. Those are teams if I was an Ole Miss fan I'd be rooting against down the stretch."
Notes
Ryan Olenek, who missed the Florida series with a concussion, has been released from the concussion protocol and said he's been cleared to play this weekend. Wednesday was his first day practicing with the team since his concussion. ... Colby Bortles did not practice Wednesday because of a back issue that flared up earlier this week. Mike Bianco said Bortles is day-to-day.
Contact Antonio Morales at 601-961-7117 or amorales2@gannett.com . Follow him on Twitter .