The SEC Tournament hoped to be an opportunity for the Kentucky Wildcats to boost their NCAA Tournament resume.
Instead, it turned into the latest blemish on a resume that is going to have them dangerously close to the cut line come Selection Monday.
Despite jumping out to an early 4-1 lead over Vanderbilt in Tuesday’s opening round, the Bat Cats came unglued and ultimately fell 8-5, highlighted by a sixth-inning meltdown in which they allowed four runs after leading 4-1. Three more runs by the Dores
in the eighth inning were enough to put this one out of reach.
The loss sends Kentucky home early from the conference tournament and very much in danger of missing the NCAA Tournament. At 31-21 overall and now riding a three-game losing streak — along with the controversial cancellation of the NKU game that could have negative repercussions — Kentucky was already painfully close to the cut line before today.
D1 Baseball had Kentucky as the second-to-last team in the field in their most recent projection. Making matters worse, Vanderbilt is one of the teams on the outside of the bubble entering today, so a good showing in the SEC Tournament could push the Dores past the Cats.
And that’s before several bid-stealers likely emerge in the coming days.
As of now, Kentucky does rank 34th in RPI after facing another brutal SEC gauntlet — eight of the top-15 RPI teams are from the league.
Going to be a stressful week for the Bat Cats leading into Monday.
