LSU baseball erased all doubt about whether it was an NCAA Tournament team during a white-knuckle run to the SEC Tournament title game, and they found out their regional destination Monday morning.
The Tigers will ship out to Chapel Hill for the regional hosted by the No. 4 seed North Carolina Tar Heels.
Here's how all four regional opponents stack up:
4. NORTH CAROLINA TAR HEELS
- Coach: Scott Forbes
- Record: 42-13 (22-8, 1st in ACC Coastal)
- RPI: 4
vs
LONG ISLAND SHARKS
- Coach: Dan Pirillo
- Record: 33-23 (24-9, 2nd in Northeast Conference)
- RPI: 195
━━
WOFFORD TERRIERS
- Coach: J.J. Edwards
- Record: 41-18 (12-8, 5th in Southern Conference)
- RPI: 195
vs
LSU TIGERS
- Coach: Jay Johnson
- Record: 40-21 (13-17, 4th in SEC West)
- RPI: 46
Both opening matchups will be played on Friday. Games 3 and 4 will be Saturday, while Game 6 will be played Sunday and an if-necessary Game 7 on Monday.
This will be the LSU program's 36th regional appearance, of which they've won 26. The Tigers have found themselves winners of nine super regional series and seven national titles, the most recent of which came in 2023.
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It'll be a difficult road to become the first repeat College World Series champion since South Carolina in 2011, with last year's group hosting both the regional and super regional at Alex Box Stadium. This year they'll have to fight out of Chapel Hill to reach the supers, where they'd match up with the winner of the Tuscon regional (Arizona, Grand Canyon, West Virginia, Dallas Baptist). That means there's potential for a super regional showdown with Arizona, LSU coach Jay Johnson's former school.
LSU is just one of several Louisiana programs in the field, including Louisiana Tech (Fayetteville regional), Tulane (Corvallis regional), Grambling State & Louisiana (both in Bryan-College Station regional).
In total the SEC got a record-setting 11 teams into the field, all in different regionals and setting up a host of possible conference supers. That group, along with LSU, includes, top-seeded Tennessee, Alabama, Arkansas, Mississippi State, Texas A&M, Florida, Vanderbilt, Georgia, South Carolina and Kentucky.
LSU does have recent experience in fighting through such a format, battling out of the loser's bracket to take the Corvallis regional in 2021, the final year of Paul Mainieri's coaching tenure, falling in the Supers to Tennessee. The Tigers were also in the catbird seat of the Hattiesburg regional in 2022, but lost back-to-back games to Southern Miss for a disappointing exit.