KNOXVILLE - Bragging rights and potential last-minute improvements to national seeding are at stake for 12 of the Southeastern Conference's 13 softball programs at this week's postseason tournament in Knoxville.
But Tennessee co-head coaches Ralph and Karen Weekly believe the single-elimination event, which began Wednesday, should have no bearing on how many SEC teams are selected for next week's NCAA regionals.
"By far, this is the strongest the SEC has ever been, and if we don't get all 13 teams in the NCAA regionals, I will be shocked and I will question what happened," Karen Weekly said Monday.
Georgia, which finished last in league play and did not qualify for the conference tournament, is ranked 25th nationally. At No. 32, Missouri is the SEC's lowest team in the Rating Percentage Index, which measures win-loss records and strength of schedule. (Vanderbilt is the lone SEC school without a softball team.)
Sixty-four teams qualify for NCAA regionals.
"I've never seen a team with a 32 RPI left out," Karen Weekly said. "So I can only imagine if anyone was left out this year that it would be some kind of bias about not wanting every team out of one conference to get in. That would be unfair, because I think, as a conference, we've proven top to bottom that every one of our teams deserves to move into postseason play."
The ninth-ranked Volunteers (44-9) are seeded third in the SEC tournament and open play at 7:30 tonight against LSU. The Tigers defeated Missouri 6-5 on Wednesday night. LSU is 39-17 for the season.
In other first-round games, No. 5 seed Alabama beat No. 12 seed Arkansas 4-1, No. 8 seed Ole Miss beat No. 9 seed Mississippi State 9-1 and No. 7 seed Kentucky beat No. 10 seed South Carolina 10-3. Today, Alabama faces No. 4 seed Texas A&M at noon, Ole Miss plays top-seeded Florida at 2:30 and Kentucky faces second-seeded Auburn at 5.
The championship is set to be decided Saturday, and the NCAA selection show is Sunday night. Tennessee is in line to host a regional, but a strong performance this weekend could land the Vols one of the top eight seeds, which would position them to host a potential super regional as well.
"I'm just hoping that regardless of what happens here (in the conference tournament) that our body of work stands up," Ralph Weekly said, "because I would suggest we've played one of the top three schedules in the entire country and played more Top 25 teams than most other schools."
Gregg in the running
Junior shortstop Meghan Gregg is one of 10 finalists for 2017 USA Softball collegiate player of the year. The finalists were announced Wednesday.
The top three will be announced May 24, and the winner will be revealed May 30, before the start of the Women's College World Series in Oklahoma City.
Gregg was named SEC player of the year on Tuesday.
Contact David Cobb at dcobb@timesfreepress.com.