Tennessee baseball comes in as the No. 8 seed in next week’s SEC Baseball Tournament after posting a 41-15 (16-14 SEC) record in the regular season. The Vols will open up play at the SEC Tournament at 10:30 a.m. ET Wednesday against the winner of nine-seed Alabama versus 16-seed Missouri on Tuesday morning.
If Tennessee wins its first game against either the Crimson Tide or Tigers, they’ll face SEC Regular-Season Champion Texas at 4 p.m. ET Thursday.
The SEC Tournament format changed this season with the addition of Texas and Oklahoma to the league. It’s a 16-team, single elimination tournament with the top four seeds earning double byes and teams seeded five to eight earning a one round bye.
The first two rounds of the tournament are on Tuesday and Wednesday respectively. The quarterfinals will take place on two days, Thursday and Friday, before the semifinals on Saturday and the championship game on Sunday afternoon.
More From RTI: Tennessee Baseball Drops Fifth Straight Series With Loss Against Arkansas
Tennessee got off to a red-hot start to conference play this season, sweeping Florida in its SEC opening series before getting out to an impressive 10-1 start in conference play. But after a series opening run-rule victory over Texas A&M, the Vols’ season’s gone sideways.
The Vols dropped the next two games of the weekend set and proceeded to lose six of their final seven series to end the regular season. Tennessee avoided a sweep, winning one of three games in series against Texas A&M, Kentucky, Auburn, Vanderbilt and Arkansas. They won two out of three against Ole Miss.
Tony Vitello’s program has had plenty of success at the SEC Tournament in recent seasons. Tennessee won the event in 2022 and 2024 and lost in the championship game to Arkansas in 2021. The Vols only poor showing in the event in recent years came in a first round exit in 2023.
