FAYETTEVILLE — Southeastern Conference alone doesn’t define the SEC acronym.
Standard Excellence Conference will do, too.
College baseball will spell its national champion punctuated with SEC.
On Saturday in Omaha, the SEC Overall/West champion LSU Tigers and SEC East champion Florida Gators clinched their College World Series bracket-winning games over Oregon State and TCU, respectively.
Starting tonight, LSU and Florida play the best two of three College World Series finals to determine the national champion.
Three-eighths of the CWS field came stamped from the SEC. Though two and through after arrival, the Texas A&M Aggies were among the Elite Eight advanced to Omaha.
The Mississippi State Bulldogs might have made it, too. It was their unfortunate lot to be matched with LSU in the Super Regional in Baton Rouge, La.
Kentucky and Vanderbilt also advanced to Super Regionals. Though defeated 3-2 in the finals of the Fayetteville Regional, Arkansas completed one the nation’s biggest baseball turnarounds. Coach Dave Van Horn’s Razorbacks, 26-29 overall and 7-23 in the SEC in 2016, closed 2017 with a 45-19 overall mark and 18-11 for second best in the SEC West.
In men’s track at the NCAA Outdoor in Eugene, Ore., eight of the top 10 spelled their conference “SEC.” It started with the national one-two punch of NCAA Outdoor champion Florida and SEC Outdoor champion Texas A&M.
After third-place Virginia, the SEC placed Arkansas — the 2016 NCAA Outdoor runner-up — Auburn and Georgia fourth through sixth. LSU and Tennessee tied for seventh with Alabama (10th) just a half point behind ninth-place Pac 12 host Oregon.
At the NCAA Women’s Outdoor, Oregon was touted as the best women’s college team ever assembled. Yet the Ducks required winning the meet’s last event, the 4x400 relay, to overtake Georgia 64-62.2.
After third-place Southern California came the SEC salvo fourth through sixth: Kentucky, Florida and Arkansas, the 2016 NCAA Outdoor champion. LSU tied for seventh with Texas of the Big 12.
Like the College World Series, women’s basketball spells its national championship final “SEC.” South Carolina won but shares fame with Mississippi State, beaten by South Carolina in the championship game but forever remembered for its semifinal beating of the unbeatable UConn Huskies.
Perhaps jealous of SEC football success, it became nationally fashionable for pundits belittling SEC men’s basketball as Kentucky and the 13 Dwarfs.
Well, SEC champion Kentucky, 32-6 and in the Elite Eight, was great again, but South Carolina forged furthest. The Gamecocks achieved their first Final Four, winning their Elite Eight final over Florida.
Arkansas improved from 16-16 in 2015-2016 to 26-10 in 2016-2017, with eventual national champion North Carolina getting see no evil help from a no-call on a Tar Heels charge to subdue the Razorbacks in the NCAA Tournament’s second round.
Now the pundits’ trend, below Alabama of course, seems casting SEC football below par.
Given the SEC’s resources and resolve, that trend likely won’t last, either.