In her first news conference of the season, Mississippi State softball fifth-year head coach Vann Stuedeman threw out an interesting statistic.
Stuedeman pointed out that last season Southeastern Conference rival Kentucky won 17 percent of its conference games and still played in a super regional.
Stuedeman said Kentucky finished 4-20 in league play but a top 30 Ratings Percentage Index (RPI) was enough to help the Wildcats earn an invitation to the NCAA tournament. From there, Kentucky won a regional at South Bend, Indiana, before falling to Florida in a Super Regional in Gainesville, Florida.
Kentucky finished 32-26. The Wildcats were 5-19 in league play. However, Stuedeman’s point was simple: In the SEC, it doesn’t matter where you finish in the league standings because almost every team is capable of advancing to the Women’s College World Series.
With that thought in mind, Stuedeman is preparing her team for arguably the nation’s most difficult schedule. MSU will face six of the eight teams that played in last season’s WCWS.
In other words, RPI points won’t be hard to come by. In reality, MSU most likely will have to win one-fourth of its 24 conference games as long as it takes care of business in a challenging non-conference schedule. It it does both of those things, it most likely will make a fifth-straight NCAA tournament regional.
If you step away from the schedule for a moment, the buzz around the program is at an all-time high.
Stuedeman has taken the same approach to softball that Vic Schaefer has taken to women’s basketball. In four seasons, Schaefer has taken MSU to the top 10 nationally. His squad continues to set attendance records for women’s basketball in the state. Granted, he inherited a program with recent tradition — the women’s basketball program made the Sweet 16 in 2010. However, Schaefer donned the marketing hat long before he donned the coaching and recruiting hat.
Stuedeman has followed a similar approach. It is now an “in thing” to attend MSU softball games. The Bulldogs have made four-straight regional appearances under the longtime Alabama assistant. However, the inability to take that next step has been disheartening.
When hired, Stuedeman was promised a stadium. Typically, MSU has always spent the least amount of money of any of the 13 SEC softball-playing schools. With the extra cash flow provided by the SEC Network, those days are changing.
MSU will open the season Feb. 11 in a brand new state-of-the-art $6M stadium. Some have called it among the league’s best. That says something in a league where you either keep up with the elite or get left behind.
The stadium has been delayed, but those who doubted it would happen are being proven wrong. For the first time, MSU will play host to the 12-team SEC tournament in May. The opportunity to play host to the event will feature four days of national television exposure for MSU and the city of Starkville.
The stadium should boost the program’s profile immediately. Many elite high school players were playing in better facilities than what MSU was using a year ago. The school has had to pass on regional hosting opportunities and previous SEC tournaments due to the lack of a proper facility to host such an event.
On the field, it is hard to gauge how good these Bulldogs can be. Offensively, some legitimate firepower — such as Katie Anne Bailey and Caroline Seitz — returns. Alexis Silkwood should remain as one of the league’s best pitchers. However, she needs help. That help didn’t come a year ago.
On defense, Seitz and Kayla Winkfield should give MSU arguably the league’s best left-side infield combination. Samantha Ricketts is back for her second season as hitting instructor. In her first season, the team’s batting average improved by 55 points (.257 in 2014 and .312 in 2015).
A year ago, the Bulldogs won 36 games before falling in a regional at Lafayette, Louisiana.
Back to the schedule. Ole Miss, Kentucky, and Arkansas finished below MSU in the 2015 SEC standings. South Carolina was tied with MSU. Neither South Carolina nor Arkansas appear on MSU’s schedule this season, while Kentucky will be a road series.
To make the gigantic leap from NCAA regional participant to NCAA regional host (which MSU has never done), MSU most likely will need to at least break even in its conference slate. To achieve, MSU will need to beat some top-10 teams on a consistent basis.
To return to a regional, MSU will have to win almost all of its non-conference games. That schedule also will be grueling with South Alabama, Baylor, and UCLA highlighting that docket.
The stadium will be nice. It will be filled. The team will play with relentless effort. All of Stuedeman’s teams do. The SEC tournament will be a marquee event that will bring exposure to the stadium and to the campus.
All of the elements are in place. Starting Feb. 11, we will find out of if the team will be able to take the next step. Here’s hoping it can accomplish that goal with a conference record better than 5-19.
Scott Walters is a sports writer for The Dispatch. You can email him at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @dispatchscott.
Scott was sports editor for The Dispatch.
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