Where does LSU baseball stand in NCAA Tournament projections ahead of final SEC series?
Stakes have never been higher this season for LSU baseball.
The Tigers (33-20, 10-17 SEC) enter the final weekend of the regular season with their postseason fate unknown but needing to find the way to play their best baseball with everything on the line. All against an opponent who's squarely in the same position as they're in in Ole Miss (27-25, 11-16 SEC), which comes to Alex Box Stadium for a three-game series starting Thursday night with an outside chance of playing its way into the NCAA tournament.
Timing is everything and for LSU, what matters most is still attainable. But it needs to play better than what it did last weekend at Alabama, where it lost two of three games but was one pitch away from winning a key series on the road.
Heading into last weekend, LSU was projected to be just on the outside looking in to making the field of 64 by all of the main prognosticators in college baseball.
"We still have a chance," LSU baseball coach Jay Johnson said Wednesday. "We didn't lose much outside of league. Looking at the field, I think we have 13 wins against teams that are projected to be in the field. Third-most nonconference wins, won a premier tournament; when you throw the conference schedule in, we've played a good schedule."
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"So here we are. Do I want to be 10-17 in SEC? No, but we still have a chance."
With one more crucial series remaining on the schedule, here's what the Tigers' NCAA Tournament forecast looks like.
Where is LSU baseball in D1 Baseball NCAA Tournament projections?
After one week of being among D1 Baseball's "First Four Out" group, LSU has fallen from those four spots after the series loss in Tuscaloosa.
The Tigers' opponent this weekend Ole Miss, after winning the series over No. 2 Texas A&M last week, leapfrogged them and is now listed in that group for D1 Baseball. The talk around LSU the past few weeks has been, with the extremely slow start to SEC play, the Tigers are going to need to get to 13 conference wins to be strongly considered for an at-large berth for NCAA regionals.
Where is LSU baseball in Baseball America NCAA Tournament projections?
Baseball America, in its "bubble watch" piece this week, mentioned it believes LSU's resume should warrant consideration for an at-large even if it finishes with just 12 SEC wins but that precedent isn't on LSU's side.
LSU has a 34 RPI and its strength of schedule is 12, all good numbers working in its favor as the regular season draws to a close. And those numbers are a reason that, despite the series loss at Alabama last weekend, Baseball America still lists the Tigers among its "First Four Out" group.
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St. John's, Louisville and Illinois are the other teams next to LSU. Ole Miss fell in BA's "Next Four Out" list.
Cory Diaz covers the LSU Tigers for The Daily Advertiser as part of the USA TODAY Network. Follow his Tigers coverage on Twitter: @ByCoryDiaz. Got questions regarding LSU athletics? Send them to Cory Diaz at bdiaz@gannett.com.
This article originally appeared on Lafayette Daily Advertiser: Where LSU baseball stands in NCAA Tournament projections
