HOOVER, Alabama – LSU coach Jay Johnson and his Tigers will be very happy to leave the Southeastern Conference for a spell – physically, emotionally and mentally.
OLE MISS STIFLES LSU HITTING, 2-0
A night and a day at the SEC Tournament here at Hoover Metropolitan Stadium, and the No. 1-ranked Tigers registered all of six hits and four runs with a 4-3 win on Friday night over pesky No. 14 seed Texas A&M and a 2-0 loss Saturday to No. 7 seed Ole Miss for the Tigers’ first shutout loss since 2022.
JAY JOHNSON GOES ALL SKIP BERTMAN WITH PITCHING STRATEGY IN 4-3 WIN OVER TEXAS A&M
That’s 32 games for LSU (43-14) against the nation’s best baseball conference since March 14 with nine one-run games. The Tigers won 20 and lost 12 (1-1 in the SEC Tournament) with a 7-2 mark in one-run games. So, everyone should take a breath.
It’s over … for now, at least until Omaha, Nebraska, and the College World Series, unless the scheduling gods match LSU with another SEC team in the Super Regional round. It would be hard not to as there figures to be six SEC teams as top eight seeds (LSU, Texas, Auburn, Vanderbilt, Georgia and Arkansas) and a record 13 league teams reaching the field of 64 with only Texas A&M, South Carolina and Missouri not making it. The SEC set the national record with 11 invites last year.
“That will be shattered,” Johnson said at mid-season.
They’ll meet again soon – LSU and the SEC. Do the math, and LSU can’t win another national championship without getting by someone from the SEC. But at least the 11-weeks-straight death march is over.
JARED JONES COULD BE PLAYING FOOTBALL AT GEORGIA TECH
“I just think it’s the SEC,” LSU power hitter Jared Jones said after going 0-for-4 with two strikeouts on Saturday after coming in leading the team with 19 home runs and 66 RBIs. “And you’re going to get the best players day in and day out. There’s no time to make excuses and no time to feel bad for yourself.”
You just go back to your corner.
“Cut me,” Jones and the other eight hitless LSU hitters Saturday may tell their trainer as puffy-eyed Rocky Balboa told his in the first “Rocky” movie.
“When you look at what is ahead of us,” Johnson said, “we won’t see anything we haven’t seen from a talent perspective. I thought 15 of the 16 teams could compete to probably go to Omaha this year.”
Johnson said it best back on May 10 after beating No. 3 Arkansas in the first two games of a three-game series at Alex Box after losing two of three at Texas A&M.
“Somebody made fun of me in the media session the other day for saying that it’s the fourth or fifth week in a row that I said we’re playing an Omaha-caliber team,” he said. “And it’s like, ‘OK, you make fun of me, but it’s totally true.’ I heard this from one of the coaches in the league kind of indirectly. ‘You’re going to take a punch. You’re going to get swept on the road, and your ability to maintain level-headedness and focus on what’s next and what’s now and what’s most important is going to determine your success.'”
LSU was swept on the road at Auburn on April 12-15, then bounced back to take two of three at home against No. 21 Alabama and No. 5 Tennessee. Funny, the Texas A&M team that LSU lost two of three to turned around the next weekend and got swept by an 0-24 (SEC) Missouri, which LSU swept to open SEC play. Tennessee coach Tony Vitello won the Vols’ first national title last season started out 20-0 overall and was 26-2 and 8-1 in the SEC early this season. They finished 16-14 in the league and played their way out of a top eight seed.
Mississippi State coach Chris Lemons won the national championship in 2021, then cratered to 26-30 and 9-21, 27-26 and 9-21 before a 40-23 and 17-13 season last year with an NCAA appearance. He got fired earlier this season before the Bulldogs finished 25-19 and 7-14.
Ole Miss coach Mike Bianco was about to be let go in 2022 before rallying late to win the national championship and proceeded to go 25-29 and 6-24 and 27-29 and 11-19. He recovered for a 40-18 mark at the moment – 16-14 in the SEC regular season and 3-0 here going into the SEC Tournament title game against Vanderbilt on Sunday (12 p.m., ESPN2).
LSU won the national championship in 2023 and found itself at 3-12 in the SEC last year before sneaking into the NCAA postseason at 13-17. It has the team to win it all again this season.
“It’s like the old WWF (World Wrestling Federation, now World Wrestling Entertainment) in what they call the ‘Royal Rumble,'” Johnson said a few weeks ago. Hmm, he doesn’t just watch game film.
“Where all the guys are in the ring at one time, and they’re just throwing haymakers at each other,” he said. “That’s what the SEC is, and I would say what I’m proud of about our team is they’ve done a good job of being consistent.”
Not on Saturday, but you should catch his drift.
“How they respond to a difficult game, like the weekend at Auburn, and we’re right back winning,” he said. “We’ve learned to do that. We’ve been successful through the melee, and that should develop a lot of confidence.”
The SEC melee is over for now. Bring on a No. 4 seed Wright State and 3 seed Xavier and 2 seed Dallas Baptist in the NCAA Regional this weekend in Baton Rouge. There are tough teams outside the SEC, particularly a Dallas Baptist, which LSU beat, 7-3, in Arlington, Texas, back in February. But next weekend will not be another WWF rumble.
In the rest of the country, college baseball teams are getting ready for the Big Dance postseason – the most difficult part of their schedule. In these parts, most SEC teams are about to take a Holiday before one last blood bath soon enough.
“There’s not a lot that we’ll see that we have not seen,” Johnson said.
It’s called SEC tested, and at last a respite from it … aka an NCAA Regional.
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