Mississippi State likely played its way into the NCAA Tournament with its three-game sweep of No. 1 Florida last weekend. At least, that’s what it hopes happened because it won’t get another chance to bolster its case.

The Bulldogs were eliminated from the Southeastern Conference Tournament with an 8-5 loss to LSU in the first round Tuesday night. They’ll head to Selection Day with a 31-25 record and No. 26 RPI ranking hoping that’s enough to keep the season alive.

Of the 12 SEC teams in the top 50 of the RPI rankings, Mississippi State is eighth. The league has not received more than eight bids to the NCAA Tournament since 2014, when it got 10.

If the Bulldogs are on the cutline, then LSU is trying to get there. The Tigers (34-23) entered Wednesday ranked No. 40 in RPI and 11th among SEC teams. Their win Tuesday earned them another chance to boost their status — they started the double-elimination portion of the tournament Wednesday against No. 1 Florida.

LSU coach Paul Mainieri said all his team could do was keep winning and hope for the best.

“I have no idea what the selection committee thinks of us, or anybody else in the country for that matter. But the more games we win, certainly the easier we make the decision for the selection committee for the NCAA Tournament,” Mainieri said. “I like to think that this one today helped a lot. Certainly another one would, but whether or not it’s necessary, I have no idea. I think our team deserves to play in the big dance. Right now all my thoughts are just on this tournament and trying to win tomorrow.”

The Tigers certainly picked up a big win Tuesday, in the single-elimination round against Mississippi State. They rallied from a 3-0 deficit with two runs in the fifth inning, two in the sixth and two more in the seventh.

After Mississippi State pulled to within 6-5 on Jake Mangum’s RBI single in the eighth inning, Antoine Duplantis hit an RBI triple and scored on a base hit by Austin Bain to put LSU ahead 8-5 in the eighth.
Mississippi State had the tying run at the plate with two outs in the ninth, but Josh Hatcher grounded out to shortstop to end the game.

The Bulldogs had 14 hits and left 13 runners on base. Mangum, Rowdey Jordan, Tanner Allen and Dustin Skelton all had two hits apiece. Allen drove in two runs, as did Justin Foscue with an early double.

Duplantis was 3-for-5 with a triple, two RBIs and two runs scored for LSU, and Nick Coomes had two hits and scored twice.

“We had a lot of opportunities, no question. A couple of more big hits there and we score some more runs. But they caught two or three infield line drives. We hit some hard, deep balls in this park that they caught and obviously if a couple of those fall in with some guys on base it’s a different game,” Mississippi State coach Gary Henderson said. “I don’t fault our hitters. I thought we did really good. When they scored, we came back. Our body language and our approach at the plate were good. It’s a big environment, but not too big for us. In that regard, we did a good job.”