Tennessee baseball enters the SEC Tournament as the unanimous No. 1 team in the country and the co-SEC Regular Season Champions.
But the Vols still aren’t projected to be the No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament according to the latest D1Baseball projections.
The premier college baseball site projects Tennessee to the No. 2 overall seed in the NCAA Tournament behind only Kentucky— the team the Vols’ split the regular season conference title with.
D1Baseball’s projections have Tennessee hosting two-seed UConn, three-seed Georgia Tech and four-seed Fairfield in the Knoxville Regional to open up the NCAA Tournament.
UConn enters this week’s Big East Tournament 32-21 (17-4 BE) and as the regular season conference champion for the fourth straight year. The Huskies have played a handful of games against power five opponents this season, dropping two out of three against Auburn and getting swept at Cal. UConn did win midweek games against UCLA and Kansas State.
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Three-seed Georgia Tech enters the ACC Tournament with the a 32-21 (15-15 ACC) record and has gone exactly 6-6 in its last four weekend series.
Fairfield won the MAAC regular-season championship but will have to win the MAAC conference tournament to make it to the NCAA Tournament. The Stags enter the conference tournament with a 32-22 (20-4 MAAC) record.
The Knoxville Regional is matchup up with the Greenville Regional for a potential Super Regional meeting. The Greenville Regional includes No. 15 overall seed East Carolina, Duke, Charleston and Presbyterian.
While D1Basebll doesn’t currently project Tennessee to land the No. 1 overall seed in the NCAA Tournament, that might not be a bad thing. The No. 1 overall seed hasn’t won the National Championship since 1999 and the Vols failed to make the College World Series as the nation’s top seed in 2022.
The Vols will have a chance to bolster their NCAA Tournament resume this week at the SEC Tournament in Hoover. Tennessee begins postseason play at 5:30 p.m. ET on Wednesday evening against either Florida or Vanderbilt.
