Jackson Free Press

Rock 'n' roll superstar Meatloaf once sang, “Two out three ain’t bad.” That lyric could be used for college baseball teams from Mississippi in their respective tournaments.

As conference baseball tournaments drag toward the weekend, both the University of Mississippi and the University of Southern Mississippi are off today. The Rebels and the Eagles have reached the semifinals of the SEC and C-USA Tournaments.

More on those semifinals in a bit.

But first, let's spend a little time discussing Mississippi State University. The Bulldogs' 6-2 loss to Louisiana State University has put MSU in the loser's bracket of the SEC Tournament.

That means MSU has to beat No. 4 seed the University of Florida tonight at 6:30 p.m., in an elimination game that will be broadcasted on the SEC Network.

Beating the Gators is no small task, and that just gets the Bulldogs past the foothills of the mountain they now have to climb. And by losing to LSU, MSU is going to have to climb a mountain if it wants to win this tournament.

If MSU wins tonight, the team will have to beat LSU twice on Saturday. Advantage goes to the Tigers. If the Bulldogs do accomplish that feat, they will reach the championship game.

The question is what kind of shape the pitching staff be in after playing six games in five days. That is why today’s rest day is so important for both LSU and the Rebels.

The Tigers and Rebels began play on Tuesday when the tournament was single elimination. The fact that LSU and UM have had some of the hottest bats in the tournament has helped both teams.

LSU beat the University of Tennessee 5-4, Florida 5-3 and MSU 6-2, committing six errors along the way. While LSU has gotten away with errors, three from the Bulldogs cost them the game against the Tigers.

The Rebels, on the other hand, have been crushing teams. They beat the University of Georgia 5-1, University of South Carolina 10-4 and Vanderbilt University 12-9.

UM can reach the championship game if the team can beat the winner of the Vanderbilt and Texas A&M University game. Whoever faces the Rebels, the Commodores or Aggies will have to win twice to reach the title game.

The Rebels and Tigers are in great position to advance if they don’t get cold having the day off.

Speaking of days off, USM is also off today. The Golden Eagles have had some of the hottest bats in the C-USA Tournament.

USM has beaten Old Dominion University 17-5 and Marshall University 9-3. Southern Miss has hit a grand slam on each tournament game.

Now, the Golden Eagles await the winner of the Marshall and Florida International University game. Whatever team meets USM, it will have to beat the Golden Eagles twice to reach the championship game.

On the other side of the C-USA Tournament bracket, Rice University is off …

Malik Newman tested the NBA Draft waters and has decided that he didn’t like his current chances. The current Mississippi State University player and former Callaway High School star has decided to withdraw from the draft.

Newman still decided to drop out after working out for the New York Knicks yesterday. He also worked out for the Milwaukee Bucks and the Brooklyn Nets.

Today is the final day that players who haven’t signed with an agent can withdraw from the draft and return to school. Anyone who doesn’t withdraw forfeits their college eligibility and will remain in the draft.

Newman was one of the top players in the country coming out of high school. The popular thought was that he would showcase his skills for one college season before jumping to the NBA.

But things didn’t go as planned. He was hit with injuries and was inconsistent on the court. During his first season at MSU, Newman averaged 11.3 points, 2.8 rebounds and 2.2 assists per game. He also had 1.9 turnovers per game and shot just 39.1 percent from the field and 37.9 percent from the three-point line.

Still, even after an up-and-down freshman season, Newman was right to take advantage of the new rule that allows players to go to the NBA Combine.

Several blogs reported that Newman shot the ball well during shooting drills on day one of the event, but he didn’t stand out during the team drills. Mock drafts had Newman anywhere from being a late second-round pick to being undrafted.

Coming back to school isn’t the worst thing for Newman. He can use his time at college to better his game and still test the NBA waters after next season. Under the current rules, he can declare for the draft for three seasons (freshman, sophomore, junior) and go back to school if he doesn’t sign with an agent.

Where he will play next season might be the next question. ESPN, citing multiple sources, says Newman may transfer to another Division I school after being unhappy in his role under first-year coach Ben Howland.

If Newman does transfer to another Division I, he will have to sit out a year due to NCAA rules. That would likely mean he would have to wait two years before giving the NBA Draft another try.

MSU has another highly talented class—in most cases considered a top 10 class—coming in next season. Newman could also decide to stay with the Bulldogs and be part of a major turn around.

No matter where Newman ends up, he will have to put his NBA dreams on hold for at least one more year.

Scandals are nothing new in college sports, especially in football. It wouldn’t be shocking if every school in the country engaged in some sort of rule violation.

Schools in the Power Five conferences—ACC, Big 12, Big Ten, Pac 12 and SEC—are going to garner most of the spotlight for those violations. But in reality, not every scandal is equal.

Sure, it is a scandal if a kid asks for money to pay his mom’s rent and utility bills. That story will have legs and be discussed at length by the media, but besides the NCAA, do we really care that much that a kid got money while in college?

To the rival school, it means something, but in the grand scheme of things, it really isn’t that major.

The major story in college athletics is the way coaches, administrators and even school presidents turn a blind eye to sexual assaults.

The recent scandal at Baylor isn’t anything new. It just highlights, again, how schools try to sweep sexual assaults under the rug.

Right now the U.S. Department of Education is investigating 161 institutions for their handling of sexual-assault investigations. Baylor currently isn’t on that list, but you should expect that to change at some point.

It also makes one question if winning on the field is more important than the safety of women on campus.

ESPN has investigated and documented the Baylor scandal in great detail. Baylor looked the other way over sexual assaults from at least 2009 to 2015.

At the same time, the Bears were starting to turn things around on the field. In late 2007 Baylor hired Art Briles away from the University of Houston.

Baylor went 8-16 from 2008 to 2009 on the field but finished with a winning record of 7-6 in 2010. It was the first winning season for the Bears since 1995, and the team went to its first bowl game since 1994.

The Bears were the "feel good" story of college football during the 2011 season, as the team tied a then-school record for wins with 10, won a bowl game for the first time since 1992 and finished the season ranked for the first time since 1986.

Baylor quarterback Robert Griffin III became the first player from the university to win the Heisman Trophy.

To the outside world, this was one of the great turnaround stories in college football history.

Off the field was another story for Baylor.

The university failed to investigate sexual assault cases for two years from 2013 to 2015, a violation of Title IX federal law. Baylor didn’t even hire a full-time Title IX coordinator to comply with a federal directive until late 2014.

One glaring case involved two players, Tre’von Armstead and Myke Chatman, who were named in a Waco police department report involving sexual assault in April 2013. The university knew of the report, but …

Conference USA heads to Pete Taylor Park in Hattiesburg, Miss., for the sixth time to hold the conference’s baseball tournament. The University of Southern Mississippi also hosted in 1996, 2005, 2009, 2014 and 2015.

Being back in the friendly confines of home might be just what USM needed after the final weekend of C-USA play. The Golden Eagles hit the road to play against Florida International University.

USM was in first place in the conference before the series with FIU and led Rice University, Marshall University and Florida Atlantic University by a half a game to a full game. Instead of having a chance to capture its fourth C-USA regular season title, the Golden Eagles lost to FIU three times.

The losses dropped USM from a possible No. 1 seed in the eight-team C-USA Tournament to the No. 3 seed. Florida Atlantic and Marshall were able to pass the Golden Eagles for the top two seeds this week. Rice was the only team that USM was able to stay ahead of in the final weekend of conference play.

The tournament begins on Wednesday, May 24, at 9 a.m., as the No. 5 seed, Louisiana Tech University, faces off against the No. 4 seed, Rice. USM will play in the third game of the day against Old Dominion University, who is the No. 7 seed.

USM didn’t face Old Dominion during the regular season. Most of the season, the Golden Eagles have been ranked in the top 25 polls, going as high as No. 13, but are currently ranked 23rd in the nation.

Florida Atlantic and Rice are currently ranked at 18th and 24th, respectively.

If the Golden Eagles win, they will face the winner of the nightcap game between No. 7-seed FIU and No. 2-seed Marshall. The winner of the first game of the day faces the winner of the second game between topseed FAU and the No. 8-seed University of North Carolina at Charlotte.

This is a double-elimination tournament, meaning it takes two losses, excluding the championship game, for a team to be eliminated from contention. USM is the only team to have taken part in all 21 C-USA Baseball Tournaments.

For Southern Miss to reach the championship game, the Golden Eagles will have to defeat the other three teams in their side of the bracket: Marshall, FIU and Old Dominion. The winner of each side of the bracket will meet at 1 p.m. for the conference-title game, which will air on the CBS Sports Network.

The championship game is single elimination. The winner of the championship game earns an automatic berth into the NCAA Tournament.