Depending on how you look at it, what happened at this weekend’s SEC Baseball Tournament either helped or hurt Auburn’s chances of making the NCAA Tournament.

No. 8 seed Vanderbilt, which came into the tournament with a lower RPI than Auburn and lost two games to the Tigers earlier in the season, advanced all the way to the championship game before losing to LSU on Sunday. If the Commodores came into the eight-team tournament on the bubble, they left with an extra-solid coating of suds.

In theory, this may have eliminated the Tigers’ chances of stealing an at-large bid from Vanderbilt, or any other team that finished higher than them in the SEC standings. But, if the selection committee looks at it with the perspective that Vanderbilt’s strong play this weekend reaffirmed the strength and balance of the conference, then the Tigers could be in better shape than they were five days ago.

It will all be sorted out today when the NCAA announces the field at 11:30 a.m. on ESPN (Channel 31 in Lee County).

“You never know what the committee is going to decide to do,” Coach John Pawlowski said last week. “There’s a lot of upsets and things that can happen in tournaments down the road.”

Only a few major upsets occurred over the weekend, like Utah (26-29) winning its first-ever Mountain West Conference title, but favorites largely triumphed.

This, again, may have helped the Tigers, but their hopes, according to national experts, appear bleak at best.

Baseball America’s Aaron Fitt wrote Sunday that there are seven open-ended spots remaining among the field of 64 and listed 18 teams with a possibility of filling them. Auburn wasn’t on the list.

The Tigers’ RPI appears to be the only thing going for them.

According to WarrenNolan.com, a reputable college baseball RPI Web site, the Tigers sit at 31st in the nation. That’s better than all but one of the teams on Fitt’s list and even two spots higher than Alabama, which finished 18-11 in the SEC and 37-17 overall.

The Tigers’ record (31-25, 11-19 SEC), however, might be too much to overcome.

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