LSU baseball is headed to Chapel Hill Regional to begin the NCAA Tournament on Friday afternoon, fresh off of a run to the SEC championship game last week. For a team that did not win their conference tournament, there aren’t many squads with more confidence than the Jay Johnson’s right now.
LSU has rattled of wins in 18 of its last 24 games and heads into the regional with No. 1 North Carolina, No. 3 Wofford, and No. 4 Long Island, looking to advance to the Super Regional round the following week. There’s a lot for Johnson to cover as he met with the media after the announcement of the bracket. Here’s what he said about the most important topics.
How familiar are you with the region?
“I’m not familiar, but this is my favorite day of the year, honestly. I’m very proud of our team for being in the NCAA Tournament and I can’t wait to dive in and look at three other teams in the regional. I believe Carolina won the ACC, Wofford won the conference tournament, playing seven games last week to win it. Congratulations to Long Island, I don’t know much about them, but the enthusiasm they had when their name was announced always stands out to me as a mid-major from a one-bid league. We’re playing three championship teams and that’s awesome.”
Have you thought about being paired with Arizona’s regional?
“Not really just because there’s so much ahead of that. Congratulations to them for winning the PAC 12 and the PAC 12 tournament. Obviously I pull for their program if we’re not playing each other. Once I saw Wofford, there’s a brand and a style of baseball they have even though I’m not familiar with them and I started running through that in my head. Then it went to ‘where are we going? We’re obviously flying, so this is when we’ll leave.’ There’s so much ahead of that happening for both of us that I haven’t thought about that.”
Have you played in Chapel Hill?
“I have not played at UNC. Matter of fact, when we played Wake Forest last year, it’s the only time I’ve played an ACC team since my very first game as a head coach at Nevada when we played Boston College. I have great respect for their program. Kind of like LSU, they had a long stretch with Omaha trips. They’re one of the best brands in the sport, so I think it’s awesome.”
On being a team with a lot of momentum…
“It’s so day to day. What I do like about our team is we have a mindset and belief that is stronger than its been. They had to win to earn it and they did – they won a lot. Having 40 wins before the NCAA Tournament starts is a good accomplishment. We have a brand of baseball now and an identity with good starting pitching and the real positive of the SEC tournament is I know we gave up a lot of runs, but when we needed to get zeros in the back half against South Carolina we absolutely did. Then yesterday, that’s No. 1. Those first four guys are all major leaguers and we held them to four runs and had a chance to win the game. The pitching dynamic is good and the bats have gotten better. Our defense has gotten better. We have an identity and we have confidence and that’s what makes us tough to play.”
On the rest the pitchers have gotten…
“I think it’s good because those are workhorse type pitchers. The best teams I’ve had had workhorse pitchers and they fit that. I’ve won a lot of games with average pitchers and it’s so nice to have two really awesome dudes to put out there.”
Christian Little’s health…
“He’s doing OK, but we’ll have to see. It’s tricky because we’re in that time of year where if you can’t pitch, you can’t be on the roster because of potentially playing five games in three or four days. I’m optimistic based on where the pain is and talking to Isaac Trujillo, but it will be about how fast he recuperates. He’ll travel with us, but it’s a Thursday decision if he’ll be on the active roster with us or not.”
Louisiana baseball getting six teams in the tournament
“I’m telling ya, it’s one of the hidden gems of being the coach at LSU. Not just playing in the SEC but you always have a chance to have a good RPI because of the quality of baseball in the state. It is awesome. I talked to Mike Silva last night, I talked to Jay Uhllman today. I’m going to give Gavin, Matt, and Lane today. It’s really good and I’m proud to be a part of that. Those are all great programs and I’m sure all of them if they choose to will coach at bigger programs some day because they are all quality coaches. I’ve only been here three years, but I’m taking a lot of pride in that.”
Did your team have to learn how to compete?
“There’s just no pathway to be prepared for playing here, so it takes a little bit of time. When you get more talented guys that are mature, like your Dylan Crews’ of the world, there aren’t a lot of those guys, but we have good baseball players, great aptitude, they just needed some experience of success and failure and move on. Our meeting was like two minutes just now, because we’re at the point where we can just stay focused and keep moving.”
On the SEC getting the most teams in the tournament…
“I’m really happy 11 teams are in because, this is with respect to the rest of the country, this is not like anything else. I talk about Coach Bertman all the time, he made this the best job in the world and the toughest job in the world because people took his blueprint and now you have 14 teams that have something similar and it will be 16 next year. I think it’s great we all got in the field.”
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