COLUMBIA — The SEC is so strong in baseball, that finishing with a .500 mark in conference play — or close to it — has traditionally been enough to get member schools into the NCAA Tournament. At least, that’s the theory everyone was holding to when South Carolina played No. 1 LSU in its final league series of the regular season.
Turns out, we were all wrong. No one really expected the Gamecocks to squeeze into the field of 64 when it was announced Monday, but the fact that Missouri — which indeed hit that magical break-even mark in regular-season conference play — was also left out probably means that USC was finished even before it took the field for that Saturday night rubber game against the Tigers, barring a run to the SEC Tournament championship.