Missouri baseball eliminated from SEC Tournament contention after loss at Mississippi State

On Saturday, the season will be over for Missouri baseball.

After a 4-3 loss Thursday against Mississippi State in the first game of a series in Starkville, Mississippi, Mizzou was officially eliminated from contention for the 2024 SEC Baseball Tournament.

The Tigers faced an uphill battle heading into the regular season’s final series, as they needed to sweep the Bulldogs at Dudy Noble Field and hope that Florida was swept by Georgia. Or that either LSU or Ole Miss took all three games in their set against one another.

This is the last season that the SEC Baseball Tournament will have a cut at the end of the regular season. When Texas and Oklahoma join the conference this summer, the league expands to 16 teams. With that change, the conference tournament will expand to 16 teams and become a straight knockout event.

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MU coach Kerrick Jackson took over the program last offseason for Steve Bieser, meaning Jackson’s first season at the helm will end without a postseason. Mizzou is not projected to earn an NCAA Regional berth.

After a series loss against Auburn last weekend, Missouri’s shot at making the tournament became mathematically unlikely. Jackson had been candid throughout the year discussing the team’s strengths and weaknesses, frequently saying that the team’s only consistency was its inconsistency.

Were his team’s highs good enough in Year 1 to get to Hoover?

“I think they were capable. Were they ready? Obviously not. But definitely capable,” Jackson told the Tribune last Sunday after the Auburn series loss. “We talked about it at the beginning of the year — where we were; who we were; what we had to do to put ourselves in a position to (make the SEC Tournament). And unfortunately, the biggest thing was: Just play good baseball consistently. And we couldn't do that on a regular basis.

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“And so that's where we have to continue to drive that point home these last three games, and then really, really make that a point of emphasis — and be very fundamentally sound and elementary — when we come back in the fall next year to start getting them to understand we have to do the little things right all the time. Not just some of the time, but we have to do them right all the time, and then that will lead to bigger things.”

This article originally appeared on Columbia Daily Tribune: Missouri baseball eliminated from SEC Tournament contention