Breaking down Mississippi State baseball's NCAA regional opponent: Southern University
Southern University’s Wllie Ward is batting .245 for the Jaguars this season, but many of his teammates are hitting much higher than that on a Southern team that ranks favorably in many offensive statistical categories.
STARKVILLE – Mississippi State begins its quest to return to Omaha this week at Dudy Noble Field. The Bulldogs (46-13) earned the No. 6 overall seed in the NCAA Tournament, and they are the hosts of this week's Starkville Regional.
Play begins Friday at noon when State takes on Southern University (32-22). Here are five things to know about the Southern Jaguars, a team that ranks No. 206 in RPI Rankings.
More: See what teams will play in NCAA Tournament's Starkville Regional
1. They're conference champions
The Jags won the Southwest Athletic Conference Tournament to earn their at-large bid into the NCAA Tournament. Southern entered the tournament as the No. 1 seed in the West division.
Southern beat the top overall seed in the tournament, Alabama State, in the championship game and did so in dominant fashion, winning 15-0.
Overall, the Jaguars went 4-1 during the tourney, which was played at Wesley Barrow Stadium in New Orleans. They nearly averaged five runs per game; they scored 49 runs over the course of the five games.
2. New to the show
This is the first time Southern is playing in an NCAA Regional since 2009, which was also the last time Southern won the SWAC Conference Tournament. Southern lost 10-2 against LSU and 11-8 against Minnesota in the Baton Rouge Regional that year.
The program's all-time winningest coach, Roger Cador, was still at the helm then. The 2009 NCAA Tournament appearance was the eighth of his coaching career while at Southern. In 1987, Cador's Southern team became the first HBCU to win an NCAA Tournament game. The Jaguars beat Cal State Fullerton 1-0 in the regional round.
Kerrick Jackson, a former assistant coach at Missouri from 2011-15, took over for Cador ahead of the 2018 season. Jackson went 9-33 in his first season at Southern. He turned the program around in a big way this year as Southern returned to the form of Cador's teams of the past.
3. Common opponents
Mississippi State and Southern played a bevy of the same opponents this season. Here's the full list: Grambling State, LSU, Southern Miss, Arkansas-Pine Bluff, ULM, Texas Southern and Memphis.
By nature of the type of teams those are, Southern played quite a bit more games against them than Mississippi State did. The Bulldogs had a midweek game here and there against most of those programs.
Still, here are the combined records of how MSU and Southern fared against those foes:
Mississippi State: 9-4, with losses to LSU (three times) and Southern Miss
Southern: 19-11, with one of those wins coming against LSU
Southern did decently well against a lot of the teams Mississippi State matched up against in midweek games. Mississippi State played two games against SWAC opponents that Southern did not have on its schedule. The Bulldogs beat Jackson State 17-4 and Mississippi Valley State 18-5.
4. The Jags 'can really hit'
MSU head coach Chris Lemonis said it himself mere minutes after learning that Southern was one of the teams on its way to Starkville this week. The Jags can put the ball in play.
Southern has the seventh-best team batting average in the country this season at .313. Seniors Javeyan Williams and Tyler LaPorte pace the Jaguars in that category. Williams is batting .385, and LaPorte is hitting .381.
Senior center fielder Jake Mangum leads MSU in that statistic at .363. Mississippi State still has a better team average than Southern at .316, and the Bulldogs are playing at home where they've been a much better team offensively than on the road.
Southern simply knows how to get on base, though, and that goes a long way in any ballpark. The Jaguars rank No. 8 nationally in on-base percentage at .413. They've racked up 101 HBP's. Only three teams in the country have totaled more than that.
5. But as for the pitching…
It's not so great, to say the least. Southern ranks No. 231 in team ERA. The Jaguars have a collective ERA of 5.75.
The team's WHIP (walks plus hits per inning pitched) is also toward the very bottom of the national list, coming in at No. 233. For reference, Mississippi State ranks No. 19 and No. 11 in those respective statistical categories.
Southern does have a few reliable arms out of the bullpen who will likely see the mound against Mississippi State. Senior Connor Whalen has an ERA of 0.00 through 20.2 innings pitched.
The pitchers who have completed more innings than any other players on the roster, Eli Finney and Austin Haensel, both have ERA's better than that of the team average. Finney, who has appeared in 14 games with 10 starts, has an ERA of 4.45. Haensel, who has appeared in 19 games with two starts, has an ERA of 4.44.
With the good comes some bad.
The pitcher with more appearances (22) than anyone else, Rhett Herbert, has a 7.31 ERA in 28.1 innings pitched. There are five other players on the roster who have ERA's of 7.00 or higher. Mississippi State likes to hit at Dudy Noble Field, and they should have no problem doing so Friday afternoon.
Contact Tyler Horka at thorka@gannett.com. Follow @tbhorka on Twitter. To read more of Tyler's work, subscribe to the Clarion Ledger today!