Where Tennessee baseball is seeded in the latest Field of 64 projections  

Tennessee baseball is expected to be an NCAA Tournament team in three Field of 64 projections released early this week.

The Vols (31-17) sit with 11 wins in Southeastern Conference play with six games remaining in the league slate. Tennessee hosts Texas this weekend for the final weekend series at Lindsey Nelson Stadium and will conclude the regular season on the road against Oklahoma for a three-game series to be played in Oklahoma City.

Josh Elander’s club is coming off a disappointing series loss last weekend where they dropped two games at Kentucky. Tennessee was outscored 21-4 in the first two games before holding on for the 10-9 final in Game 3.  

Tennessee a No. 3 seed in three national projections

Tennessee baseball has been listed as a No. 3 seed in three recent Field of 64 projections from Baseball America, USA TODAY and On3.

Baseball America has the Vols as the No. 3 seed in the Atlanta Regional with host Georgia Tech (No. 2 overall seed), No. 2 Oklahoma State and No. 4 Niagara.

USA TODAY pits the Vols in the Los Angeles Regional as the No. 3 seed with host UCLA (top overall seed), No. 2 UC Santa Barbara and No. 4 Fairleigh Dickinson.

On3 projected Tennessee to the Los Angeles Regional as well, but with host USC, who is the 13^th overall seed. In this projection, Oregon State is the No. 2 sed and Cal Poly is the no. 4 seed.

“USC remains in pretty good standing to host, but is far from locked in. The Trojans are No. 10 in RPI with the No. 39 strength of schedule, currently 37-12 overall and 19-8 in Big Ten play. Oregon State has been a host all year in our NCAA Tournament projections, but fell out this week,” On3 wrote. “The Beavers drop down to the first team out of the hosting race after a 3-2 week that dropped their RPI to No. 15. Tennessee, meanwhile, lost a series to Kentucky and drops back down to being a 3-seed.”

What Tennessee baseball needs to do the final two weeks to make the field

The threshold for most SEC teams to make a regional is 13 wins, but that is not a guarantee. One more win and the feeling is much better with 14 victories in the conference slate as no 14-win SEC team has been left out of the dance since 2017.

Due to the strength of the SEC every year, the team’s RPI is usually good enough to get them in at 13 wins. Will that be the case this year? We will see.

Teams want to shoot to be inside the top-30 in RPI. Teams in the 40-50 RPI range with 13 SEC wins will have something to sweat prior to Hoover.

Tennessee’s RPI sits at No. 35 as of Tuesday morning.

Texas and Oklahoma are next on the schedule. The Longhorns are one of the better teams in the conference and Oklahoma is right at .500 on the year in SEC games. Though it won’t be played on campus, one would assume the Sooners will have the homefield advantage acting as the ‘home’ team for the series in OKC.

Both teams rank ahead of Tennessee in the RPI standings.

It’s not just RPI, however. Teams on the bubble will need to mindful of KPI (Kevin Pauga Index) and DSR (Diamond Sports Rankings) as both will be taken into consideration, just as RPI.

KPI focuses on who you play, where you play and the final score of games. It grades good wins and bad wins. DSR is similar as it assesses team’s strengths at the time of the game. The NCAA baseball committee uses these metrics as resources for selecting teams, seeds, etc.

As of Tuesday morning, Tennessee is ranked No. 27 in KPI and No. 18 in DSR. Teams obviously want to be ranked higher than other bubble teams.