SEC race big mess in middle

With two weekends remaining in the SEC regular season, only the top and bottom looks clear-cut with Georgia comfortably ahead of everyone else and Mississippi State likely to finish last overall.

In between is a muddled mess. Georgia has locked up an NCAA Tournament bid, but Vanderbilt and South Carolina look like the only others that have NCAA bids in the bag.

Here’s a quick look at the rest of the conference’s NCAA hopefuls: LSU (32-16, 12-11 SEC, Rating Percentage Index 23 ) It won’t take much to get the surging Tigers off the bubble list. A ninegame winning streak, topped by sw f South Carolina and Kentucky, made an impression and got LSU into national Top 25 polls. A series victory this weekend over Mississippi State could clinch a No. 1 seed in a regional. FLORIDA (29-18, 13-11 SEC, RPI 19 ) The Gators can’t decide if they are SEC title contenders or pretenders. Florida appeared to be back on an upswing after beating Georgia twice and winning the first game of the arolina series last Friday, but the Gamecocks won the last two days and Florida has two tough series (at Alabama, Vanderbilt ) left. ALABAMA (28-22, 12-12 SEC, RPI 61 ) The Crimson Tide took

ep toward playing its way into the field of 64 by winning a big road series at Arkansas, but a home series loss to Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and midweek losses to Texas-Arlington, New Orleans (twice ) and South Alabama hurt the power rating. If the Tide wins the West, pencil it in.

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OLE MISS (31-19, 12-12 SEC, RPI 47 ) Coach Mike Bianco can’t figure out why his team’s RPI is only in the 40 s. A road series loss at TCU is respectable, but that was one of the few quality nonconference opponents the Rebels played, and they have lost 5 of 8 SEC series. A favorable remaining schedule should get Ole Miss a bid.

KENTUCKY (35-14, 11-13, RPI 37 ) The overall record is a little inflated by the soft nonconference schedule, so it’s imperative that the Wildcats beat Tennessee this weekend and grab a couple of conference tournament victories. The NCAA selection committee will penalize teams that don’t schedule quality nonconfernece opponents.

ARKANSAS (28-20, 10-13 SEC, RPI 28 ) High RPI or not, some with the Razorbacks program feel an NCAA bid is only going to happen if Arkansas makes the SEC Tournament. That’s still a realistic goal, but the last two weekends are tough. The Hogs get a hungry South Carolina team at Fayetteville, where the Razorbacks are just 5-7 in SEC play, and then go on the road to Mississippi State, where Coach Ron Polk’s final games figure to provide plenty of emotion for the Bulldogs. Harris gets it done Ty’Relle Harris is turning heads for Tennessee. Harris, a junior left-hander, moved into the Volunteers’ rotation as the Sunday starter during the middle of the season and has been solid in that role, compiling a 2-1 record

1 with a 3. 83 ERA in 56 / 3 innings. He’s drawing attention in another way as well.

Harris is the SEC’s only black starting pitcher, and one of only two black pitchers listed on SEC rosters this season. The other is Kellen St. Luce, a freshman from St. Thomas, Virgin Islands, who has appeared in one game for Vanderbilt.

Those numbers don’t come as a shock to anyone who has been around college or major-league baseball in recent years as the number of American-born black players has dwindled. Major League Baseball reported Americanborn black players made up only 8. 2 percent of its players in 2007, and the percentage was even smaller for pitchers.

None of that has dampened Harris’ hopes of making it to the big leagues. In fact, he doesn’t have to look far at all for inspiration after growing up in Fairfield, Calif., which is in the San Francisco Bay area of Northern California.

Two of the major league’s best pitchers, Detroit’s Dontrelle Willis and Cleveland’s C. C. Sabathia, are from northern California, and both are black. Willis is from Oakland and Sabathia, the 2007 Cy Young Award winner, grew up right next door to Fairfield in Vallejo.

“Dontrelle and C. C. are huge role models for me, and C. C. grew up like 10 minutes from my house,” said Harris, who also roots for Bay Area major leaguers Jermaine Dye (Chicago White Sox ) and Jimmy Rollins (Philadelphia Phillies ). “[Sabathia and Willis ] are probably my two favorite pitchers. I would love to meet those guys one day.”

Harris, 6-4, almost chose not to try and follow their paths. He decided football was his future at one point in high school, but eventually ended up turning down scholarship offers to play football so he could stick with pitching.

“I knew I couldn’t give it up,” he said.

Check swings LSU is playing the final home games this weekend in 70-year-old Alex Box Stadium before a new facility with the same name opens next door. It’s only fitting that the last opponent will be Mississippi State and Coach Ron Polk. The longtime Bulldogs coach is on a farewell tour after announcing he will step down at the end of the season. “I’ve gone through five [LSU ] coaches down there, but I’ve probably gone through just about that many coaches at almost every school,” Polk said. “It’s a celebration of a great old stadium, and it’s going to be sad to see it go.” Ole Miss junior Cody Satterwhite is one of the hardest-throwing pitchers in the SEC and is expected to be a high draft pick, but he’s 1-5 with a 5. 84 ERA in SEC play. “When we watched Cody throw last weekend [in a loss to Georgia ], it may have been the best I’ve ever seen him throw,” Rebels Coach Mike Bianco said. “What happens sometimes is even when you make good pitches, guys get hits. I think he’s had some bad fortune.” Series of the week Kentucky at Tennessee

Arkansas fans hoping for a trip to the SEC Tournament are paying close attention to this series in Knoxville, Tenn. The Wildcats and Volunteers are in a dead heat for the eighth and final tournament spot, but whoever wins this series will have a leg up on a tightly-bunched pack, many of whom need to reach the conference tournament to earn an NCAA Tournament at-large bid. Nobody understands that better than Tennessee, which, after a promising start, is limping home with three consecutive series defeats and bad nonconference losses to East Tennessee State, Western Carolina and Belmont. Kentucky (35-14 ) seems like a shoo-in for an NCAA bid, but a closer look reveals a deceiving record if you count a less-than-stellar nonconference slate and sweeps by SEC division leaders Georgia and LSU. At this point, any team not making the SEC Tournament will sweat out the at-large selections. As for Razorbacks fans, a sweep by either could potentially put Arkansas further back.