Georgia’s baseball season is over, as the NCAA Tournament selection committee failed to select the Bulldogs for its field of 64.
The Bulldogs finished their season at 31-25.
Nine other programs from the SEC made the tournament. Along with regional hosts Arkansas, Vanderbilt, Ole Miss, Tennessee, Mississippi State, and Florida, South Carolina, Alabama, and LSU all made the field. Georgia defeated LSU last Tuesday in the SEC Tournament.
Georgia finished with a national strength of schedule of 13th.
"I'm really disappointed. I'm disappointed for our players, our program—it was one of those things where I thought we were going to get in over LSU," head coach Scott Stricklin said. "I honestly felt that. We had the same (SEC) record, our RPI and strength of schedule were in the same territory. We beat them head-to-head on a neutral site field, beat their No. 1 starter in what felt like a must-win game. They treated it that way and we did, too, and we won. I feel like, and I'm not alone, other coaches in the league felt it was Georgia, LSU and Alabama."
Making the pill even tougher to swallow for the Bulldogs was the fact that three at-large selections—North Carolina (47), UC-Santa Barbara (51) and Michigan (88)—each had RPIs higher than Georgia (41).
However, according to selection chair Jeff Altier, a team's RPI was not the sole factor used to determining who did and who did not receive bids.
“That was a tough question for us, and I know the SEC is a tremendous baseball league. The fact that the SEC played outside competition, they played probably more conference games than anyone in the country, so at least we were able to get an assessment of them relative to the people they played,” Altier said. “When we look at the strength of schedule, it helps us understand that with Georgia, specifically. They’re an excellent team; but they struggled at the end of the year; they were 8-15 against tournament field teams; their overall RPI of games they won was a 104. The other teams that got in the field just seemed to have more wins against teams that will be in the tournament.”
The fact Georgia stumbled down the stretch during the final month of the season ultimately hurt the Bulldogs’ cause.
Georgia dropped 12 of its final 17 games, and despite its SEC Tournament victory over LSU, it was simply not able to overcome losing its final four series to Auburn, Arkansas, Florida, and Ole Miss.
"The bottom line is, when you're on the bubble, every team has an argument for and against. When you start asking questions of why, they're going to give you a reason," Stricklin said. "You can always argue against that reason, but the goal is not to be on the bubble. When you leave it in the hands of the committee, anything can happen, and that's what we saw."
Stricklin pointed to three specific losses that contributed the most to his team remaining at home.
"The three that stick out are Texas A&M—up 5-0 and let it get away; the Auburn game, when we had chances to win and didn't take care of it; and Ole Miss two weeks ago: it's 5-1 in the eighth with one out and nobody on base," Stricklin said. "You're always going to say, when the season ends, 'Uh, that one got away from us.' You play so many games in baseball, it's going to happen, but those are the three that sting. Those are the three that stand out."
Injuries did not help the Bulldogs’ cause.
After losing Garrett Brown and Will Childers in the fall, projected weekend starter CJ Smith went down three appearances into the year, before ace Ryan Webb was knocked out with an elbow injury with three weeks to go in the regular season.
The Bulldogs also played without leading hitter Connor Tate (lower leg) for the final three weeks, while left fielder Riley King fought through a knee injury over that same time period.
