Tennessee baseball is approaching the home stretch of the regular season with just two more weekend series left before the Vols head to Hoover for the SEC Tournament and then prepare for the NCAA Tournament.
The Vols (33-16, 12-12 SEC) still need a couple of conference wins to insure their spot in the NCAA Tournament and still have an outside shot at making a run to host a regional the opening weekend of the tournament.
So where does Tennessee baseball stand in the latest NCAA Tournament projections ahead of this weekend’s penultimate SEC series against Kentucky?
D1Baseball has Tennessee as a No. 2 seed in the Conway Regional which would putt the Vols in No. 12 overall seed Coastal Carolina’s regional. Tennessee would face No. 3 seed North Carolina State in the first game of the event and No. 4 seed Wofford is also projected to be in Conway.
Coastal Carolina enters this weekend 30-17 (17-7 Sun Belt) with wins over Wake Forest, Illinois and North Carolina.
In D1Baseball’s projection, the winner of the Conway Regional would face the winner of the Stanford Regional in the super regional. The Stanford Regional includes the No. 5 overall seed Cardinal, Alabama, UC Santa Barbara and San Diego State.
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Baseball America’s projections also have Tennessee as a two-seed but in the Terre Haute Regional where they’d have to get past No. 15 overall seed Indiana State. The Vols would match up with three-seed Notre Dame — who knocked Tennessee out of the 2022 tournament — in the first game while No. 4 seed Central Michigan is also projected for the regional.
With two weeks left in the regular season, Indiana State boasts a 33-13 (19-2 MVC) record. The Sycamores have faced an abundance of power five opponents this season. Kentucky swept Indiana State. Iowa and Miami won solo games against the Sycamores. Indiana State split a pair of games with Indiana, won two games against Illinois and Purdue and beat Vanderbilt.
The winner of the Terre Haute Regional would match up with the winner of the Baton Rouge Regional. That could set up a second trip for Tennessee to LSU this season.
Before then, Tennessee has to secure its spot in the NCAA Tournament and they have an opportunity to do that this weekend against Kentucky. First pitch for the weekend series between the Vols and Wildcats is at 6:30 p.m. ET Friday night at Lindsey Nelson Stadium.
