Now solidly in the field — can they host a regional?
There was a time not too long ago that we had real questions about Tennessee’s NCAA Tournament status. Coming off of a sweep against Arkansas and a bad loss at home to Tennessee Tech, the Volunteers were in real danger of missing the entire thing. However, since then, Tennessee has ripped off seven straight games.
Tony Vitello’s team has put together back to back sweeps, taking three from both Vanderbilt and Mississippi State. They’ve moved to 30-14 overall, now holding an 11-10 record in SEC play. We don’t want to get ahead of ourselves, but Tennessee appears to have turned a corner, powered by an offense that has finally woken up.
Tennessee has put up ten runs in five of their last seven games. Griffin Merritt, Christian Scott and Jared Dickey have all gotten hot, and the results are showing up in the win column.
Now, suddenly, Tennessee is making a push to host a regional. That’s a sentence that would have gotten you laughed out of the room a couple of weeks back, but it’s true today. The Volunteers have been moving up the seeding list, and it wouldn’t take much to land them in the top 16.
2023 NCAA Baseball Tournament Projections
College Sports Madness: No. 2 seed playing in No. 14 national seed West Virginia’s region
D1 Baseball: No. 2 seed playing in No. 12 national seed Indiana’s region
NOLA.com: No. 2 seed playing in No. 13 national seed Virginia’s region
RPI: 22nd overall
Tennessee will travel to bubble-team Georgia for a series this weekend. They’ll then host No. 15 Kentucky, then travel to No. 3 South Carolina for a huge series to close out the regular season. The opportunity is certainly there for Tennessee to land one of those top 16 national seeds.
The Volunteers are back in action tonight against Wofford in Knoxville (6:30 p.m. ET, SEC Network+).