Parham: Ole Miss needs to follow Texas A&M's lead
Ole Miss torpedoed back into the NCAA at-large conversation over the weekend, sweeping LSU in a three-game set in Baton Rouge for the first time in school history.
The Rebels are 31-19 overall and 13-14 in the SEC with a week remaining in the regular season. Anything less than 15-15 in the league and selection Monday may need to be served with a side of antacid.
With a road trip to Arkansas State on Tuesday and a home series with Texas A&M left before Hoover, Ole Miss needs to take a page from the Aggies.
The Rebels need to cancel that drive to Jonesboro, Arkansas. Texas A&M, which is 17-10 in the SEC and is coming off a sweep of Mississippi State, canceled a home date with Incarnate Word last week to protect its RPI for regional host purposes.
“I’m not going to hide it,” TAMU coach Jim Schlossnagle said. “When the NCAA (selection) committee puts such an emphasis on RPI, and conference games mean so much, when you get to this time of year, you have to manage that.”
The Aggies didn’t catch much heat for the move, and honestly Incarnate Word wasn’t that upset considering it had just finished up three extra-inning games in five days.
But as much as Texas A&M had an argument for the cancellation, Ole Miss’ situation is more dire. The 2014 Aggies are the only SEC team in the last 15 seasons to get into the NCAA Tournament with an under-500 regular season league record and an RPI outside the top 40. Those Aggies had 10 top 25 wins.
The Rebels' RPI is up to 38 after being near 60 a week ago.
Ole Miss needs a good weekend against TAMU or at least a win in the SEC Tournament to feel solid about its at-large chances, but the more immediate thing is to not play Arkansas State.
The 11-35 Red Wolves are 228 in the RPI, and it’s a nothing to gain win or a cataclysmic scenario for the Rebels if they play that game.
RPIs are calculated by a team’s winning percentage, opponents’ winning percentage and opponents’ opponents’ winning percentage, so it’s impossible to know for sure, but in a vacuum beating Arkansas State would result in a net zero or a small decrease in RPI.
A loss at Arkansas State could drop the Rebels as many as 12 spots, which would negate the LSU weekend from an RPI standpoint and effectively end Ole Miss’ postseason chances, barring a big weekend against the Aggies and a Hoover run or an SEC Tournament championship.
There are some other variables to why a last-week midweek game isn’t a great idea, such as potentially impacting the bullpen 48 hours before a critical SEC series.
Canceling the game would put Ole Miss three games short of it’s scheduled 56 games because of two early rainouts, and I’d want some level of assurance from the selection committee that canceling it wouldn’t be a black mark, but given the situation, a midweek game that could get weird isn’t how I’d want the season decided if I were the Rebels.
Ole Miss, already this season, lost a road midweek at Southeastern Louisiana and was run-ruled in Oxford by Southeast Missouri.
It’s not the best look. Almost always I trend toward playing the games as scheduled and schedule better if that’s the issue, but regional midweek games are necessities and this is an anomaly with a season and a coaching tenure up in the air.
Most midweek games have small buyout amounts in the range of $10,000-$20,000, and that’s a well-worth-it amount for the Rebels. A&M showed the roadmap, and Ole Miss should follow the Aggies.
The Rebels as an athletics department have the leverage and the need to make an exception, to do what gives Ole Miss the best chance at making the NCAA Tournament.
On Tuesday it’s to stay in Oxford, rest the bullpen, avoid a potential disaster and get ready for the Aggies. Texas A&M will certainly understand.