Vanderbilt will take on the Oklahoma Sooners in their first game of the SEC tournament today in the late-night slot. They will have a chance to even the season series versus the Sooners, as they lost 2-1, including a 14-0 run rule shutout, in arguably the lowest part of their season when they traveled to Norman in early April. Oklahoma beat both Kentucky and Georgia in low scoring affairs to fight their way into the quarter finals.

Of note, Oklahoma has been playing since Tuesday and has burned a good amount of their pitching including ace and projected top-10 pick Kyson Witherspoon. Witherspoon was the pitcher when Vanderbilt lost 14-0 and pitched a complete game shutout. Vanderbilt will likely face either Malachi Witherspoon (Kyson’s twin brother) or Cade Crossland. When they matched up early in the year Crossland went 5.2 innings while only allowing 1 earned run, Malachi Witherspoon struck out 11 batters in 6 innings but also gave up 6 earned runs.

Vanderbilt will look to continue their strong form, as they have won their last 3 SEC series and their 5 game win streak (all SEC games) is the longest in the conference at the moment. These last few series have seen the offense explode but the starting pitching regress a bit, Vanderbilt will want to keep the bats going in Hoover while giving pitchers an opportunity to play in the most pitcher-friendly they have seen all year.

JD Thompson will get the start against Oklahoma tonight. He will be given an opportunity to rectify the nightmare first inning he had in Norman that sucked the wind from Vandy’s sails before they could even get started.

The age old question once again rears its head as Vanderbilt heads down to Hoover. Will (or should) Vanderbilt try their best to win? Or will they instead not care and head home before burning too much pitching?

To put it in the plainest terms possible: a Tim Corbin team will never, ever play a game that they are not trying to win. Vandy has always done well in the SEC tournament under Corbin, and much of that is thanks to the fact that he cares more about the tournament than a lot of other coaches.

Adding to this fact is the new format that really helps Vanderbilt. Given that with a top-4 seed, this is effectively just like a weekend series for the ‘Dores. Even if they advance to the championship they, in theory, should not have to burn more pitching than any normal weekend series. In fact, given this new format, one could even make the argument that Vanderbilt should want to get to the finals so that no key pitcher is going to the regional after having not thrown live in-game in 2 weeks.

All that is to say yes, I expect Vanderbilt to come out and give it their full effort. They won’t even have the excuse of saving pitching if they lose early. Plus, who doesn’t love a bit more hardware to bring home?