From the Birmingham News, a look at the revamped SEC tournament and a longer run in Hoover.

Highlights from Mike Bianco's time on the SEC teleconference. ...

On having to win to enhance NCAA resume: “I think everybody does. Everybody feels that way. When you look at our league, it's so close. There are the top four teams, but from five on down, you look at just a game or two dividing everybody else. The last five or six teams RPI-wise are within 10 points of each other. We're not the only ones. Everybody feels the better you can do, the better your resume for postseason.”

The thought process in starting Bobby Wahl: “I talked to Bobby Saturday night on the bus, and he said he felt great. He did his short work yesterday and said he feels how he normally feels. With us in our situation, finishing the season the way we did and having your ace feel 100 percent, to not run him out there would not be a good thing.

“Everybody talks about short rest, but one of the things that concerns me has always been with the SEC tournament that the earlier you throw your No. 1 guy, the longer he has to wait until he pitches again in the NCAA tournament. Sometimes that's tough. We've had issues with that before where we've had guys with 10 days off. Right now it's more important for us to have success in the tournament, to win some baseball games after the way we finished last weekend.”

On lack of consistency: “We haven't had that big streak where you win eight in a row of 10 of 12 or something like that. We've struggled to be consistent. We've been good on certain days, certain weekends, but we haven't put that big run together.”