SEC Soccer Tournament Day 1

[Dawgg]

Match 1: (7) Georgia beat (10) Texas A&M 1-0.
Georgia will play (2) Arkansas Tuesday.
Texas A&M finishes below .500, so their season is over.

Match 2: (11) LSU beat (6) Auburn 2-1.
LSU will play (3) Texas Tuesday.
Auburn will probably get an at-large NCAA tourney bid. This was a pretty big upset. Auburn beat LSU 4-0 earlier this season, has an RPI rank of 18 (LSU is 51), and was in the initial NCAA Committee's Top 16 at #9.

Match 3: (9) Tennessee is beating (8) Kentucky 1-0 at the half.
We’ll play the winner Tuesday.

Match 4: (5) Vanderbilt vs (12) Alabama will be right after that.
Winner plays (4) South Carolina Tuesday.

 

[patdog]

Big surprise Auburn lost. Don’t think it matters much if we see Tennessee or Kentucky.

 

[BulldogBlitz]

So we didn't win today. Fire keenum!

 

[Dawgg]

Tennessee beats Kentucky 1-0. Kentucky beat Tennessee 4-0 earlier this season.

We’ll play Tennessee Tuesday at 4:30 pm Central on the SEC Network.

 

[Dawgg]

Big surprise Auburn lost. Don’t think it matters much if we see Tennessee or Kentucky.

I don’t think there’s a big gulf talent-wise, but Kentucky is ranked 21 in RPI while Tennessee is 50. I’m not sure it makes a huge difference, but with us battling for a top 4 seed, I’m taking nothing for granted.

 

[patdog]

I don’t think there’s a big gulf talent-wise, but Kentucky is ranked 21 in RPI while Tennessee is 50. I’m not sure it makes a huge difference, but with us battling for a top 4 seed, I’m taking nothing for granted.

Looks like Tennessee won 1-0. So not great for us. Not sure it matters much. I think we just need to make the finals to get a top 4 seed & we’ve got a top 8 locked up.

 

[patdog]

#12 Bama leads #5 Vandy 2-0. If this holds up, we’d surely see a South Carolina rematch Thursday, assuming we beat Tennessee.

 

[Dawgg]

Bama and their 88 ranked RPI are wrecking Vandy 2-0 halfway through the first half. Must be revenge for football.

 

[Dawgg]

Some other games of interest in the battle for a top 4 seed:
UNC beat VT - not good for us. A VT win would have probably eliminated UNC from the top 4. They will play Duke in the ACC semis on Thursday. Duke is a foregone conclusion for Top 4, so we want them to beat UNC.

FSU is beating ND - not good for us. FSU has been up and down all season, but right now, they’re hovering at 7 in RPI and 6 in the coaches poll. Winner plays Wake on Thursday.

USC plays Ohio State tomorrow. We want Ohio State to win that one. USC is sitting at 4 in RPI and 5 in the coaches poll while Ohio State is in the 10-15 range.

Arkansas plays Georgia on Tuesday. We want Georgia winning that one. Arkansas is 3 RPI and 5 in the coaches poll.

 

[BulldogBlitz]

Is Kacey White trying to look like a zombie?

 

[Dawgg]

Alabama beats Vandy and will play South Carolina on Tuesday night. 3 of the 4 games tonight saw the lower seed take out the higher seed. Hopefully, that trend doesn’t continue to Tuesday.

Florida State ended up beating Notre Dame. They’ll play Wake Forest Thursday. I’m not sure it matters who wins that one. The winner is probably in.

I think the ACC gets two in the top 4 no matter what. One of those will be Duke, even if they lose one of the next two games. Their resume is just too good. If UNC wins the ACC tournament, they’re probably also a top 4 seed. The winner of Wake Forest & Florida State game is probably in the top 4 too.

 

[Darryl Steight]

Looks like Tennessee won 1-0. So not great for us. Not sure it matters much. I think we just need to make the finals to get a top 4 seed & we’ve got a top 8 locked up.

Also don't get to see the UK team out there again, so doubly bad**

 

[Dawgg]

USCw beats Ohio State 1-0 in overtime. If USCw wins the Big Ten Tournament, they're probably a top 4 seed. Their only loss is to Stanford. They play Rutgers on Thursday.

ETA: I know posting the scores and hoping for the losses of teams in the same hemisphere as us ranking wise sounds defeatist or that I'm resigned to the idea that we're going to lose an SEC tournament game. To be clear, I don't expect us to lose, but to win the SEC Tournament, you're talking about winning 3 games in 5 days while we're already shorthanded and flukes, RATs, bad calls, etc. can all happen. Also, Soccer is one sport where being in the SEC kind of hurts us. All of these ACC teams are playing against another RPI top 10 team in every ACC tournament game, so if they lose, it doesn't kill their ranking and if they win, it only solidifies it.

We're about to play 40 RPI Tennessee and if Alabama fools around and beats South Carolina, they'll be about a 70 RPI. We only have one opportunity at a final signature win and that's a tournament championship win over Arkansas with a 4 RPI. The highest RPI ranked team remaining on the other side of the bracket after Arkansas is South Carolina at 17 and Texas at 23. Basically, right now, I feel like we have zero margin for error and I was hoping for a little margin for error.