A note on Tennessee baseball and SEC teams hosting after noncon losses

Think it’d help if Kent State won the MAC (think they’re the favorites fwiw), but we certainly control our destiny.

They’re gonna have to grow up fast.

Need a catcher that can throw it to second base and not right center field!

Voltistic said:

Think it’d help if Kent State won the MAC (think they’re the favorites fwiw), but we certainly control our destiny.

We play Wright St in 2 weeks. They’ve already played at UGA and went 1-2…UGA’s only loss of the season. Absolutely cannot afford to lose that series.

Mike_Wilson said:

A friend in college baseball media sent me this list last night. These six SEC teams hosted a regional after losing a nonconference series between 2022-24. It did not happen last year. -2022 Auburn (MTSU) -2022 Florida (Liberty) -2022 Texas A&M (Penn) -2023 Auburn (SELA) -2023 Alabama (Columbia) -2024 Kentucky (Kennesaw State) Obviously, many more games and weekends to go and a lot of opportunities to move into the hosting mix in the NCAA Tournament. This is just to say it is not a death knell to UT's hosting hopes. It is, after all, February 23.

Two seed in the Honolulu regional. Speak it into existence Mikey.

Mike_Wilson said:

A friend in college baseball media sent me this list last night. These six SEC teams hosted a regional after losing a nonconference series between 2022-24. It did not happen last year. -2022 Auburn (MTSU) -2022 Florida (Liberty) -2022 Texas A&M (Penn) -2023 Auburn (SELA) -2023 Alabama (Columbia) -2024 Kentucky (Kennesaw State) Obviously, many more games and weekends to go and a lot of opportunities to move into the hosting mix in the NCAA Tournament. This is just to say it is not a death knell to UT's hosting hopes. It is, after all, February 23.

How many SEC teams total lost a non-conference series since 2022. Trying to understand if those are the only 6 that lost a series, and all of them still went on to host, or if it happened 12 times for example, and half of them still went on to host. Would be nice to know the percentage. Thanks. @Mike_Wilson

Bigun said:

We play Wright St in 2 weeks. They’ve already played at UGA and went 1-2…UGA’s only loss of the season. Absolutely cannot afford to lose that series.

I agree @Bigun You have to correct a chunk of these problems asap as a staff. This will show what this new staff is made of. In my humble opinion

Bigun said:

We play Wright St in 2 weeks. They’ve already played at UGA and went 1-2…UGA’s only loss of the season. Absolutely cannot afford to lose that series.

Actually, i am more concerned about, #1 UCLA, Arizona State and Virginia Tech. I will think about Wright State next week

Bigun said:

We play Wright St in 2 weeks. They’ve already played at UGA and went 1-2…UGA’s only loss of the season. Absolutely cannot afford to lose that series.

Yeah, I think if we lose that one we’d need to win all our conference weekends in order to host.

Duluthvol68 said:

Actually, i am more concerned about, #1 UCLA, Arizona State and Virginia Tech. I will think about Wright State next week

I am too. We need at least two out of three this weekend. If we play like we did last weekend, we won’t win one

This team didn’t look a team that’d make a regional let alone host one this weekend. Seems like we have the same flaws that we’ve always had for the last 5-6 years but not enough bats to mask most of this mistakes. I don’t know if you can expect a clean disciplined team on defense when it hasn’t been the case aside from maybe 2 teams since 2019. The bats on the other hand hopefully can be fixed with guys coming back from injury. He have 3-4 guys that simply can’t be starters for this team if they want to win a lot of games. Dont have the power in the lineup anywhere close to teams of past so we need to convince this team to be a contact team and stop trying to hit one out every at bat.

Bigun said:

We play Wright St in 2 weeks. They’ve already played at UGA and went 1-2…UGA’s only loss of the season. Absolutely cannot afford to lose that series.

Yeah we can afford the Kent state L but it absolutely cannot happen again. Based off what we saw this weekend I have a feeling it’s gonna be kinda rough but I’m trying to stay optimistic — there’s only one way to go at the plate 📈 🤷‍♂️ These numbers are atrocious — I can’t remember a series in recent memory with numbers like this.

Thanks to this post I now know it’s Death Knell and not Death Nail.

puts a lot of pressure on the team quickly. Maybe they are a team that thrives on pressure, we will see. The Wright State series will be huge.

I’d be interested in overall number of SEC teams that lost a non-conference series in same period. Aka - this says it’s possible to recover, but if you told me there were 30 other times it happened and they didn’t host then I start to think it’s a pretty bad omen.

MAVOL said:

I agree @Bigun You have to correct a chunk of these problems asap as a staff. This will show what this new staff is made of. In my humble opinion

They can't hit for them.

HeupelsDisciples said:

I’d be interested in overall number of SEC teams that lost a non-conference series in same period. Aka - this says it’s possible to recover, but if you told me there were 30 other times it happened and they didn’t host then I start to think it’s a pretty bad omen.

Exactly what I was asking earlier.

MinnesotaVol said:

How many SEC teams total lost a non-conference series since 2022. Trying to understand if those are the only 6 that lost a series, and all of them still went on to host, or if it happened 12 times for example, and half of them still went on to host. Would be nice to know the percentage. Thanks. @Mike_Wilson

Bump @Mike_Wilson

When you are not a consistent dependable Long Ball hitting team, you have to learn to play baseball.. 1-Make the routine defensive plays 2-Bunting runners over & strong base running. 3-Work pitchers to get more RISP, & cause more pitches to be thrown 4-Timely hitting

AllVol3 said:

They can't hit for them.

agreed, they can only just get the right ones in the lineup and in the right spots in the order

we won a natty as a 1 seed for the first time in 25 years. let the team grow and play

Raynoch22 said:

puts a lot of pressure on the team quickly. Maybe they are a team that thrives on pressure, we will see. The Wright State series will be huge.

Great point. Let’s hope they are. I’m hoping it’s just a classic case of getting ahead yourselves and thinking you’re the sh*t after experiencing some initial success. You can get humbled real quick with that mindset. Hopefully that’s all we’re dealing with here. Young team, makes sense IMO.

MAVOL said:

agreed, they can only just get the right ones in the lineup and in the right spots in the order

Don't you have to do that as you go , to see who's hitting and how? I mean 7 games in is early to know that, especially when you expect the ones not hitting to hit. Do you just give up on them or let it play out over some time. He's changed the lineup, put other guys in the lineup. Only thing that cures slump is time and hard work. I would wager that the work is being put in.

HeupelsDisciples said:

I’d be interested in overall number of SEC teams that lost a non-conference series in same period. Aka - this says it’s possible to recover, but if you told me there were 30 other times it happened and they didn’t host then I start to think it’s a pretty bad omen.

my research shows for the years 2021-2025 Texas, Vanderbilt and Ole Miss did not lose a non-conference series.. LSU lost to Oral Roberts in 2021 and did not host a regional Oklahoma lost to Wright St in 2025 and did not host a regional Georgia lost to Georgia Southern in 2022 and did not host a regional Missouri lost two non-conference series in 2021 and did not qualify for post season Mississippi State lost a non-conference series in 2022 and did not qualify for post season South Carolina lost 2 non-conference series in 2025 and did not qualify for post season