Tennessee remains a top 16 national seed and host in the latest D1Baseball Field of 64 projections, but the Vols have taken a step back.

After dropping its third-straight series to Auburn and its fourth in its last five, Tennessee dropped three spots to the 9-seed this week.

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The Vols (37-11, 14-10 SEC) were previously projected as the 6-seed last week, and the 4-seed two weeks ago.

The current projected Knoxville Regional features Tennessee, Wake Forest, East Tennessee State and Kent State.

That projection would set up a potential rematch between the Vols and Buccaneers after ETSU beat Tennessee, 7-6 in 10 innings at Lindsey Nelson Stadium in a midweek game on March 18.

That wouldn’t be the only potential in-state postseason match up for the Vols, either. The projection has Tennessee paired with the Nashville Regional and host Vanderbilt.

The Commodores, who will come to Knoxville for a three-game, top 15 series this weekend, are projected to be the 8-seed and a Super Regional host if they can win the Nashville Regional.

Tennessee and Vanderbilt are one of 14 teams from the SEC projected to make the postseason, with seven listed among the 16 national seeds.

The Vols’ slide in the seedings comes after a sluggish month of April that carried over into the first weekend in May.

MORE FROM VOLREPORT: Tennessee baseball rolls past Indiana State in midweek bout

Tennessee, which started season 20-1, lost its first conference series in more than a year against Texas A&M back on April 4-5, then dropped two of three to Kentucky at home two weeks later.

The Vols squandered a three-run lead in the ninth inning of Game 1 against LSU, then were run-ruled by the Tigers in Game 3 before following it up with the two losses to Auburn last weekend.

Tennessee has two regular season series left against No. 11 Vanderbilt at home and No. 7 Arkansas on the road.

The SEC Tournament is slated for May 20-25 in Hoover, Alabama.

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