Why Tennessee, Texas A&M are favored to reach College World Series (2024)

By Mitch Light and Mitch Sherman

May 27, 2024

Tennessee was named the No. 1 overall seed in the NCAA baseball tournament for the second time in the past three seasons on Monday. The Volunteers were one of 11 teams from the SEC to make the 64-team field, the most ever from a single conference.

Kentucky, which shared the SEC regular-season championship with Tennessee, earned the No. 2 seed. The Wildcats, who won a program-record 22 SEC games, are making consecutive postseason appearances for the first time in program history.

Who are the betting favorites?

According to BetMGM, Tennessee and Texas A&M are the favorites to win the national title, at +550 and +600, respectively.

Tennessee features arguably the top offense in college baseball. The Vols lead the SEC in average (.311), home runs (147) and runs scored (553) and have five starters with an OPS of more than 1.000.

Texas A&M slumped a bit down the stretch — losing two of its final three SEC series and going two-and-out in the league tournament — but the Aggies were ranked No. 1 in the nation for several weeks in the middle of the season. They have three players with 20-plus home runs, including Braden Montgomery, a top prospect in the 2024 MLB Draft, and Gavin Grahovac, the SEC Freshman of the Year. — Light

Vols are the pick

Perhaps four of the five most complete teams in college baseball come from the SEC — Tennessee, Kentucky, Arkansas and Texas A&M. I’m going all in on the Volunteers. They roll into the postseason playing their best baseball at the right time. Tennessee won the SEC Tournament and hasn’t endured a losing weekend since mid-March.

Tournament dark horse

Florida snuck into the field with a 28-27 record and is the No. 3 seed in the Stillwater Regional. The Gators had their struggles this season, but this is still a very talented team that is capable of reaching the College World Series.

The Gators own series wins against two No. 1 seeds (Texas A&M and Georgia) and two No. 2 seeds (Mississippi State and LSU) — part of a brutal schedule that included series against Tennessee, Kentucky, Arkansas, Vanderbilt and South Carolina as well as three mid-week games against Florida State.

It’s dangerous to rely on a team that has been so inconsistent, but the Gators at their best are very, very good. —Light

Storylines to watch

UC Santa Barbara enters the postseason on a 14-game winning streak and as the Big West champion. The Gauchos are hosting a Regional for the first time on campus at Caesar Uyesaka Stadium. UCSB last served as a host in 2015, with the games played in Lake Elsinore, Calif. Amid a fractured future for baseball on the West Coast as Pac-12 schools transition to the Big 12, Big Ten and ACC, UCSB sits in position to boost its recruiting power.

Coach Andrew Checketts has taken the Gauchos to the postseason four times since 2019. They advanced to Omaha in 2016. A second visit next month would come at an opportune moment for the emerging Big West beast. — Sherman

This is looking down the road, but if Wake Forest wins the Greenville Regional and Tennessee holds serve at home, we will have a Chase Burns vs. Tennessee matchup in the Supers.

Burns started 14 games for Tennessee as a freshman in 2022 and was a key member of the Vols’ bullpen during last season’s run to Omaha, but he left the program after a falling out with the coaching staff. He’s now the ace at Wake Forest, where he was recently named the ACC Pitcher of the Year. He is 10-1 with a 2.46 ERA and 0.874 WHIP, and he leads the nation with 184 strikeouts.

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A Burns vs. Tennessee matchup — before a jam-packed Lindsey Nelson Stadium — would be incredible drama. — Light

Defending champs are back

LSU was 3-12 in the SEC in mid-April and well on its way to being the third straight national champion to miss the NCAA Tournament the following season. Fast forward six weeks, and the Tigers are now a No. 2 seed in the Chapel Hill Regional after closing the season with 18 wins in their final 24 games.

This is not a vintage LSU offense, but the bats came alive in the SEC Tournament last week. The Tigers averaged 10.8 runs in their four wins in Hoover, Ala., before losing to Tennesee 4-3 in the championship game.

What makes this team dangerous going forward is the one-two punch of starting pitchers Luke Holman and Gage Jump. Holman has been one of the top pitchers in the SEC all season while Jump, who missed the 2023 season after undergoing Tommy Johnson surgery, has been terrific down the stretch. —Light

Toughest Regional

With apologies to Long Island and Wofford, the star power is easy to identify at the Chapel Hill Regional. And it doesn’t involve the Sharks out of the Northeast Conference or the Terriers of the Southern Conference. Coaches and players at North Carolina, as the No. 4 national seed, can’t be thrilled to see LSU on the No. 2 seed line at Boshamer Stadium. The Tigers beat Kentucky and Georgia to open play in the SEC tournament. They are the defending national champions and won’t back down against any opponent after rebounding from a difficult five first weeks of conference play. LSU has advanced to the CWS 19 times. North Carolina has had the better season among the two power programs after winning the ACC at 22-8. The Tar Heels made the most recent of their 11 Omaha appearances in 2018. They’re itching to get back. A second-round game against LSU would feel like a CWS-caliber matchup. — Sherman

Required reading

Dream season still in reach for Wake Forest team loaded with MLB Draft prospects
Charlie Condon’s incredible journey from unwanted recruit to college baseball’s premier slugger
Big Ten baseball continues to improve but faces uphill battle in current landscape

(Photo of Dylan Loy: Vasha Hunt / USA Today)