Tennessee baseball will square off with Evansville in the Knoxville Super Regional beginning on Friday.

Vols coach Tony Vitello met with the media before the super regional to give his thoughts on the Purple Aces.

Here's what he had to say.

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"They're an older team. Certainly can swing the bat well and those two things kind of go hand-in-hand. They've got a lot of players that have been there a while and accumulated some reps. Pitching, it kind of starts with the left who was conference pitcher of the year as a freshman, for being a freshman. And then they lean on their closer who's got a real good breaking ball a lot. There's a lot of good pieces there, center fielder can run down a ball as good as anybody. There's a lot of pieces there that are similar to the good teams in our league. The one way they've done it, I've known (Evansville coach Wes Carroll) for a long time, he's always been real good of kind of running around, beating bushes, finding guys that he knows are going to develop into something better than they already are. That's kind of been the makeup of that team. There's a lot of guys who've developed and become even better than they are and all together that makes a really good team."

"A little bit of Kentucky with the well-balanced offense. They play with a real fun style. I think that's one thing that kind of gets lost in the mix. These game times, ESPN is I assume the one who has to juggle, there's only so many slots and you've got (Jac) Caglianone and you've got these guys so where are you going to put everybody? I think the one thing and my conversations yesterday I kept reminding people, their style of play is fun. They're very confident. They get after it, play hard. So on top of the talent that's there, they've got a style of play too that makes maybe the sum better than the parts. And I think that's something that was entertaining for the folks out east watching their regional which was highly competitive and then again something that's kind of been their engine to helped them go. Off the bat, just that team is the one that sticks out but I'm sure there's other similarities in certain categories."

"Honestly, what we wanted was to play on Friday. That's the coaching staff, all the guys will take extra rest if they can have it. It helps you kind of stay in a rhythm a little bit. We were able to replicate our week we did last week this week without the travel back from Hoover. So for us, it was good to play on Friday. And we know exactly what's going on with what games are out there. There's some exciting matchups so everybody kind of has to go somewhere. I think seeding maybe kind of plays into it at times but that's overrated. If you're still playing, you've got the talent but you also have the locker room thing going on so you've got a good group. The seeding does matter in a regional because you've got one, two, three, four and they sort it out and it can effect pitching and things like that. But this weekend, all it is is a series. It's either a road series or a home series but either way, it's a series against two great teams at all the sites. We're just blessed that we're playing at home here. We'll play at whatever time and our fans will show out. We've got Friday to worry about but it'll be like a football Saturday around here at 11. The only difference is I won't get to have fun, I'll have to work. So, again, happy to be on our field, happy to be playing on Friday but once the first pitch is thrown, like all the other sites, it'll be two teams hooking it up."

"Fortunately, that noise doesn't get to me. At this point, the seeding doesn't matter. You're either good enough to be at this spot or not. And you don't get any extra credit. We're not alternating sites, you don't get to be home team all weekend. It's whether you're on your field or not. That's the benefit we see as it relates to the matchup. They know what a hostile environment looks like from where they just came from. That's one of the more fun environments really in all of college baseball. To me, I'm just ready to get on and play a series. Because last week it was the opposite, what about being this seed or that seed for us. Now that the regional is over where they're slated one, two, three, four, they don't matter. At the start of the tournament, I think actually 75% are the top eight. So to me, you want to be in the top 16 but its a little better to be in the top eight by percentage. After that, you can throw the rest of it out the window from what I think. Those regionals are not about lets get the very best with the bottom and things like that. It's regionals, its based off travel and things like that. We went to a very tough place and beat an extremely well-coached team along with beating another team that's pretty dang good, too."

"(Mark) Shallenberger has always been good and now, again, he's got so many repetitions that he could make an argument for most valuable player in their offense. But, like we talked about Indiana in specific last weekend, that offense is kind of one through nine. And even Southern Miss, seven, eight, nine kind of gave us big-time headaches in that game. So, you get to this point, it's not blowing smoke, it's a fact that everybody in the lineup is capable of doing damage but he kind of leads the way. And then (Kenton) Deverman, he's for a lefty, you kind of make jokes for quirky lefty and stuff like that, but he's about as good of an athlete out there defensively as you're going to find. So, his pitching numbers and awards and accolades he got in the league this year speak for themselves on the pitching end, but he's also a guy that's got a good pick-off move, can really field his position and has some savvy to really mix things up a little bit on the mound. He's got a full arsenal."

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