Look: SEC Tournament bracket set with Tennessee Baseball as the No. 1 seed
Top-ranked Tennessee is the No. 1 seed in this week’s SEC Tournament and will begin play at the Hoover Metropolitan Complex in Hoover, Ala., on Wednesday, a 5:30 p.m. Eastern Time start.
The Vols will await the winner of 8-seed Vanderbilt and 9-seed Florida, who will play in single-elimination round on Tuesday at approximately 5:30 pm Eastern Time.
Following the ‘play-in’ round on Tuesday, the next two days of the tournament that follow are a double-elimination format. It becomes single elimination on Saturday. Should Tennessee win on Wednesday and Thursday, Friday would be an off day before the semifinals on Saturday and the championship game on Sunday.
🚨 NO. 1 SEED
— Southeastern Conference (@SEC) May 19, 2024
🟠 @Vol_Baseball #SECBSB x #SECTourney pic.twitter.com/V33cBK5VGM
Tennessee (46-10, 22-8 SEC) earned a share of the SEC’s regular-season championship after the 4-1 win over South Carolina Saturday afternoon at Lindsey Nelson Stadium. Vanderbilt’s win at Kentucky Saturday helped the Vols split the season title with the Wildcats.
The regular season ended with a sweep of South Carolina — Tennessee winning 9-3 on Thursday and 8-3 on Saturday — and nine straight SEC series wins for the Vols.
Tennessee was one-and-done at the SEC Tournament a year ago, losing 3-0 to Texas A&M. The Vols won the SEC Tournament championship in 2022, beating Vanderbilt, LSU, Kentucky and Florida on the way to the title.
Tony Vitello led Tennessee to the SEC Tournament championship game in 2021, too, but the Vols lost to Arkansas 7-2.
Vols projected as one of the top overall seeds for NCAA postseason
Entering the weekend series with South Carolina, the final series of the regular season, Tennessee was projected by D1Baseball.com as the No. 2 national seed in the NCAA Tournament while Baseball America had the Vols as the No. 3 national seed.
Both outlets had Kentucky as the No. 1 overall seed while North Carolina was the No. 2 in Baseball America’s projection.
D1Baseball had West Virginia (No. 2), Xavier (No. 3) and Bryant (No. 4) in the Knoxville Regional and Baseball America had Tennessee hosting Louisiana Tech (No. 2), Indiana (No. 3) and Wright State (No. 4).
Tennessee’s NCAA Baseball postseason history under Tony Vitello
Vitello in 2019 took Tennessee back to college baseball’s postseason for the first time since 2005 with a 40-win season in just his second year on the job. The Vols were eliminated by North Carolina in the Chapel Hill Regional final after wins over UNC Wilmington and Liberty.
In 2021, after the COVID pandemic cancelled the 2020 season, Tennessee won 50 games and went back to the College World Series for the first time since 2005, sweeping LSU in the Knoxville Super Regional before losing to No. 8 Virginia then No. 2 Texas in Omaha.
The Vols won 57 games in 2022 and were the No. 1 overall seed in the postseason, but were upset by Notre Dame in the Knoxville Super Regional.
Tennessee’s 44-win team last season advanced out of the Clemson Regional and won in three games in the Southern Miss Super Regional to go back to Omaha. There, the Vols lost to LSU 6-3, bounced back with a 6-4 win over Stanford but were sent home after a 5-0 loss to LSU.
