Coming off an impressive series victory over Ole Miss, LSU baseball coach Jay Johnson had some excellent things to say about his team as they begin to look ahead to the upcoming 2024 SEC Tournament this week.
LSU baseball coach Jay Johnson displays full confidence in his team ahead of 2024 SEC Tournament
More often than not, the greatest compliments in sports are the ones that come from your coaches. It’s not so much the compliment itself that sticks out, but it’s the fact that they are the ones who’ve witnessed all the work that went into making the compliment happen. Notably, that just so happens to be exactly the case for coach Jay Johnson and the LSU baseball team.
After winning the 2023 National Championship just last season, the energy around the Tiger baseball program was electric, and expectations didn’t fall off much. Unfortunately, said expectations didn’t exactly match the early results for the purple and gold, as they started conference play with an abysmal 3-12 record.
However, since their rough start, there’s been a stark change in level of play. Coach Jay Johnson has most recently witnessed his team go on a 14-5 run to end the regular season, and all of a sudden, his program is playing like they not only could make the NCAA Tournament, but possibly even make some noise once they get there.
“There’s no doubt we’re one of the top 10-15 teams in college baseball. That is not even debatable,” the Tiger head coach said following his team’s sweep of Ole Miss over the weekend.
“If we lost today, you could start peeling it back and finding a reason and give the committee an excuse to not put us in; there’s no excuse now. This is one of the best teams in the country.”
LSU baseball earned its first sweep of the season as they took down the Rebels of Ole Miss in dominant fashion, beating them by a total score of 18-6. Notably, it was an all-around team effort led by players such as pitcher Luke Holman, third baseman Tommy White, catcher Hayden Travinski and catcher Alex Milazzo, many of which may have just played their final game in Alex Box Stadium on Saturday.
Whether the Tigers are a top 10-15 team in the country is up for debate, but with the way they’ve been playing recently, it’s hard to say that they aren’t at the very least in the discussion. Even so, none of that matters if you don’t continue to go out and compete, no matter who you’re up against.
The purple and gold will next take to the diamond this coming Tuesday at 9:30 a.m. CST vs. Georgia in the first round of the 2024 SEC Tournament. From there, it’s just a matter of how much they can continue to win, but if you ask coach Jay Johnson, the LSU baseball season might not be close to being finalized quite yet.
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