Ten Thoughts for Monday Morning
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Let's start with the spring sports because they were the only ones to actually play last week.
Baseball: The Tigers took 2/3 from Kentucky (which they absolutely had to) and actually have themselves in solid position to make the NCAA Tournament. The RPI right now sits at 25. That's really impressive because the non-con SOS is 142. From here on out, Missouri is going to play games that are likely going to help the RPI as long as they can win some. Mizzou is 5-6-1 in the SEC. If you can finish close to .500 in the league, you're going to the tournament. Mizzou has six SEC series left. Four are against ranked teams, one against a team receiving votes and only one (South Carolina) against a team outside of that range. All are in the top 44 in the RPI. Let's say Mizzou can find a way to go 8-10 in those 18 games and not wet the bed in the remaining mid-week games. I think that's probably good enough to put them in the field (that would be 13-16-1 in the league). I'm no bracket expert, so I may be off on that, but that would be a great goal IMO.
Softball: Mizzou was 2-2 in four non-con games against Oregon and Pitt. The NCAA chances may be more tenuous here. The Tigers are 21-16, 6-6 and 43rd in the RPI. Again, .500 in the league gets you in because the SEC is really good. The remaining series are against teams that are 12, 23, 25 and 40 in the RPI. So all are above Mizzou and very good tests. If they can go 6-6 in those 12 games, I think they'll have a very, very strong argument to get in. Every team in the SEC got in last year, so Mizzou may not even have to be that good. I'm not sure how softball weighs home/road/neutral record, but the Tigers are 5-6 at home while they're 6-4 on the road and 10-6 in neutral games. They've proven they can beat good tournament level teams. They just need to beat a few more.