Mississippi State might have missed out on hosting in the NCAA Baseball Tournament for 2024, but the Bulldogs are back in the postseason for the first time in three years.
That last trip to the bracket was quite a memorable one for Chris Lemonis and his team as the Bulldogs rode it all the way to the National Championship. To win it all this year, the Bulldogs will have to do it on the road.
Shortly after the selections were made on Memorial Day, the coach spoke to the media about the draw at Virginia and getting snubbed out of a host site.
CL: “Well our first impression was excitement. Just excited to be in, excited to play. I think we’ve got a tough Regional. St. John’s, I played against them a bunch in the Big East. Penn had a great year last year in the postseason and obviously Virginia the host has had a great year. Very offensive club. We have our work in front of us.”
CL: “I got a little feedback. It’s just so subjective in that room. They take the pieces that they want and move them around. Obviously, yeah, our RPI wasn’t as good as it should have been. We lost a couple early in the year, first week of the season, that you can look at. I heard the Commissioner of the Committee talk about consistency and common opponents and a lot of what he talked about didn’t have anything to do with us.
“We didn’t get swept on any road trips, we played one of the toughest schedules in the country. The Quad I wins… You take four hosts and add them together and they don’t have as many as us. It is what it is.
“It’s frustrating because it’s so subjective. You don’t know who’s fighting for you or what’s the fight for? Sometimes the fight is for RPI because it helps a lot of teams get in, but I look up and we have the most SEC teams ever and we finish fifth in the SEC. We had 20 wins and we’re not a host. Our resume and Georgia’s resumes are very close.
