Tennessee Baseball moves up to No. 1 overall seed in Baseball America postseason projection
Tennessee Baseball on Tuesday moved up to the No. 1 overall seed in the latest NCAA Baseball Tournament projections from Baseball America. The Vols stayed as the No. 2 overall seed in D1Baseball’s ‘Field of 64’ projections, behind No. 1 Kentucky.
Baseball America had No. 1 Tennessee (46-10) hosting UConn, Louisville and Wright State, respectively, in the Knoxville Regional while D1Baseball had the Vols at home with UConn, Georgia Tech and Fairfield. Tennessee was opposite of No. 16-seed UC Santa Barbara in the Baseball America bracket and opposite of No. 15 East Carolina per D1Baseball.
Baseball America had Tennessee as the No. 3 overall seed last week.
The Vols were the No. 1 overall seed in 2022, advancing out of the regional round before losing to Notre Dame in three games in the Knoxville Super Regional.
Tennessee wasn’t one of the 16 national seeds a year ago, but advance out of the Clemson Regional, upsetting the No. 4-seed Tigers. Southern Miss advanced out of No. 13 Auburn’s regional and hosted the Vols in Super Regionals, with Tennessee rallying from a game down to win the three-game series and advance to Omaha for the College World Series.
Tennessee was the No. 3 seed in 2021 and sweep LSU in the Super Regional round to go to Omaha for the first time under Tony Vitello.
Vols are the No. 1 seed in the SEC Tournament after winning regular-season title
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.
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.
