The Tennessee baseball team will be one third of the way into its conference schedule Friday night after Game 1 of its series against Mississippi State. The Volunteers are 30 games into their 56 game schedule and currently sit firmly on the bubble for the NCAA Tournament.
In the SEC, Tennessee currently holds a 3-6 record in league play, sitting at fifth place in the Eastern Division. The Vols are only one game back from third place as they sit narrowly behind Missouri (3-5-1) and Florida (4-5).
While looking at the SEC as a whole the Vols currently sit in 11th place, but would be the 10 seed in the SEC Tournament due to Missouri’s postseason ban.
Tennessee sits a game behind Florida in the standings and two games behind both Ole Miss (5-4) and Mississippi State (5-4). Behind the Vols sits Alabama (2-7) and South Carolina (2-7). Tennessee has to feel good about its chances to stay above both schools due to its head-to-head tiebreaker over South Carolina and Alabama playing every team in the superior SEC West.
Since they only have to beat out one team to make it to the SEC Tournament, the Vols should be confident that they’ll make it back to Hoover for the first time since 2016. The main question there is about how high of a seed Tennessee could get?
While Tennessee sits firmly in the field that will make the SEC Tournament, the Vols are firmly on the bubble as they attempt to return to the NCAA Tournament.
Tennessee finds itself in the field of 64 in both D1 Baseball and Baseball America’s projected field this week.
In the Baseball America poll, Tennessee is the very last team in the field drawing a No. 3 seed in the Phoenix, Arizona region. Tennessee would match up with UC Irvine in the first game, while the Vols would hope to play Arizona State while trying to make the Super Regional.
Tennessee sits more comfortably in the D1 Baseball poll as they are a No. 2 seed in the Raleigh, North Carolina region matching up No. 3 seed Virginia Commonwealth University and top seed North Carolina State.
The conference is no stranger to success in the postseason and both polls show a plethora of SEC teams in the field as Baseball America has nine and D1 Baseball has 11.
Tennessee can thank its schedule thus far in the season for getting them in contention for the NCAA Tournament. The Vols' strength of schedule currently ranks number 14 in the nation, and the Vols RPI is the third best in the SEC ranking ninth nationally.
Tennessee’s RPI will likely drop. The Vols have already played Vanderbilt and Auburn, whose RPIs are two and four respectably, and while there are plenty of difficult series ahead only two, Georgia and Arkansas, will come against teams ranked in the Top 25 of RPI.
While it’s easy to overlook due to their SEC failure in years past, don’t discount the wins Tennessee picked up over Indiana and Liberty earlier in the year — four wins over teams that will likely make it to the tournament.
With that being said, Tony Vitello and his team have done a great job of positioning itself for a chance to make the tournament, though it’s something they aren’t concerning themselves with at this time of the year.
“With this group, I think we have so many things in front of us that we’re trying to get better at, it’s been a blessing cause it kinda drowns out some of that outside noise,” Vitello said. “I think for the most part, guys like Andre (Lipcius) are worried about getting better at a new position, at third base. Coaches are getting used to new roles. For now it’s been a benefit… It’s out there, but I think we’ve done a good job of managing it.”
For now Tennessee is just focused on the task at hand, trying to pick up wins in SEC play. They’ll need to do just that if they want to stay on the right side of the bubble.
