To say it’s been a good year for the Southeastern Conference in baseball would be a huge understatement. As the schedule hurtles toward the last weekend of the regular season, eight teams from the league have a chance to finish in the top 25 of the NCAA’s RPI rankings and four could finish in the top 10.

This final series will cement the seeding for the SEC Tournament, which kicks off Tuesday in Hoover, Ala.
Defending national champion Florida has held the throne as the No. 1 team in the nation for a while, and has also locked in the top seed in the SEC Tournament with room to spare. The Gators clinched the regular-season championship last weekend, and are 41-12 overall and 20-7 in SEC play.

Florida plays Mississippi State (28-24, 12-15 SEC) in Starkville, beginning Thursday night.

“It’s an older club. It’s a talented club,” Mississippi State coach Gary Henderson said at a press conference on Wednesday. “They’ve got some real balance and some power in their lineup. It’s a good team, obviously. They were a good team last year and they returned a lot of players and are playing at a high level.”

Meanwhile, after an early-season coaching change, Mississippi State was all but counted out in the SEC race. It has bounced back to play its way into contention for an NCAA Tournament berth, but a series loss to Kentucky and the three-game set with Florida this weekend have put the Bulldogs in a must-win situation the rest of the way.

The Bulldogs could even miss the SEC Tournament if they’re swept by Florida and some other results don’t go their way.

“It’s the most important weekend of the year,” Henderson, echoing a familiar coaching cliché, said with a laugh. “We need to play well. You’re very much black and white, very much direct. The kids know as much as you do in terms of the repercussions, and we need some wins.”

The Nos. 2-4 seeds in the SEC Tournament will likely be some combination of Georgia (35-16, 16-11 SEC), Arkansas (36-15, 17-10) and Ole Miss (40-13, 16-11). Arkansas and Georgia meet this weekend, so their series will decide one of the top four seeds.

The top four seeds earn a bye past Tuesday’s single-elimination first round.

Either Arkansas or Ole Miss can get the second seed as the champions in the Western Division, and Ole Miss holds the tiebreaker because it won their head-to-head series in March.

Ole Miss faces last-place Alabama (26-27, 7-20) this weekend, and in order to finish ahead of the Razorbacks the Rebels will have to win one more game in their series than Arkansas wins in its series.

Ole Miss, which began the season predicted by many outlets to finish at the bottom of the SEC, has put together its best regular season in recent history and holds a top-five ranking across the board in the top 25 polls. Its 13-1 win over Arkansas State on Tuesday tied Ole Miss’ school record for wins in the regular season.

The Rebels hold the second-best overall record in the SEC, and they’re hot after sweeping Auburn last weekend.

Fighting for the next couple of spots are South Carolina (15-12 in SEC play), LSU (14-13), Auburn (13-14), Kentucky (13-14) and Vanderbilt (13-14), with Mississippi State (12-15) and Texas A&M (12-15) close behind.

Twelve of the SEC’s 14 teams qualify for the tournament. Only Alabama has been eliminated. Tennessee (11-16) and Missouri (10-17) play a three-game series this weekend that will likely eliminate the loser.

For the LSU Tigers, it’s been a relatively down year at 31-21 overall, but even so, they have a chance to make some noise in the SEC Tournament if they take down Auburn in their final series of the year. Auburn comes in with a significantly better overall record at 35-17, but their SEC standing after last weekend’s series loss to Ole Miss gives LSU a good chance to jump them.