BATON ROUGE, La. (BRPROUD) – LSU Baseball started the year off with a mindset of attacking another national championship, and not defending one. Yet with less than a month in the season, the Tigers are far from securing a spot in the NCAA tournament.

Head coach Jay Johnson’s team is currently 7-14 in SEC play. Traditionally, 14 wins in SEC play is the magic number of wins to land a NCAA tournament bid. With only nine conference games remaining, the pressure is on for the Tigers to perform.

The final three series of the 2024 season for LSU are a mixed bag. The Tigers start with No. 1 Texas A&M at Alex Box Stadium this weekend, followed by a weekend in Tuscaloosa against No. 23 Alabama and the regular season finale at home against Ole Miss.

“Playing the number one team in the country, it’s a great opportunity in terms of opponent winning percentage and they’re two teams that are kind of like us,” Johnson said.

LSU could easily be in a much better spot had a pair of games in their early conference slate gone a different way. Jac Caglianone hit a game-winning home run in the 11th inning of a game the Tigers had a chance to win, and a blown lead in the 8th inning against Vanderbilt negated a series win.

Still, the Tigers found some resolve the past two weeks and notched their first SEC series wins at Missouri and at home against Auburn.

“You wouldn’t be able to convince me that they’re not still competing and trying to win every game that we play. And that’s probably the most important part of that,” Johnson said.

In order to secure a spot in the NCAA Tournament, LSU will most likely need to win at least one game against Texas A&M, take a pair from Alabama, sweep Ole Miss and then get some victories at the SEC Tournament in Hoover.

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