HI NOTES: Big Mach Attack, Conference Hokey-Pokey™

GAME DAY

♦ @ShawnDizzle77 on Twitter: With UT's win over Baylor, @MUTigerBaseball will play Texas in the first round of the Big 12 Tournament next Wednesday. Time TBA.

♦ Kansas Drops Finale With Mizzou (WIBW)

Saturday’s matchup not only marked the Jayhawks’ Senior Day, all eight of which were honored prior to first pitch, but was also amped up by the end of an 118-year old history between the conference rivals. Kansas and Missouri met for the first time in 1894 before closing the storied tradition in 2012.
. . .
For the Tigers, senior third baseman Conner Mach led the offense with a 4-for-5 performance. All three of his RBIs came with two outs. Catcher Ben Turner contributed a 3-for-4 effort. Junior lefty Blake Holovach (6-4) earned the win on the mound, while Dusty Ross picked up his third save of the season.

♦ They’re in! KU beats Mizzou, earns trip to tourney (KUSports.com)

They’re in. And they made it in the sweetest way possible.

Friday night at Hoglund Ballpark, in front of a loud and proud pack of more than 1,500 Jayhawk supporters, Kansas University’s baseball team clinched a berth in next week’s Big 12 tournament in Oklahoma City with a 6-3 victory over Missouri.

CONFERENCE HOKEY POKEY™

♦ More SEC expansion coming, but where? (Tennessean)

Although there is no official wait list, the SEC would have no trouble filling a couple of extra spots. Like Commissioner Mike Slive said last year when asked if schools other than Texas A&M and Missouri had expressed interest in the SEC:

“I could get to 16 in 15 minutes.”
. . .
With 16 teams, the SEC could divide into four four-team divisions and adopt a scaled down NFL-style model for football scheduling purposes. It would be easier to maintain traditional rivalry games such as Tennessee-Alabama and Georgia-Auburn that are imperiled by the current division makeup.

So who’s it going to be? If the SEC stays the course from its previous two expansions, it will attempt to broaden its borders rather than admit new members from areas that already have been annexed.

Read the rest

♦ And here's an interesting message board thread from SECRant.com about possible SEC candidates and possible division alignments. In every scenario mentioned, Mizzou ends up with Arkansas, Texas A&M, and LSU (and possibly others as well). Sounds good to me.