Both LSU and Nicholls are headed to their respective conference tournaments next week – both with premium seeding.
The Colonels will be the No. 1 seed in the Southland Conference Tournament, which begins early next week in Lake Charles. The Colonels are the regular season Southland Conference Champions, but have a long road to try and win the Conference Title.
Nicholls will face the winner between No. 6 McNeese and No. 7 Texas A&M – Corpus Christi on Wednesday. That game between the Cowboys and Islanders will be played on Tuesday and is a single-elimination game with the winner entering the double elimination, 6-team bracket.
The Southland Conference Tournament is an absolute grind. To win the tournament, the Colonels will have to win several games in a short stretch – a tournament that will showcase who has the deepest pitching staff in the league. The conference also has tremendous parity and depth with just 3 games separating the Colonels (the top seed) and Corpus Christi (the last team in).
Nicholls took 2/3 games from both McNeese and Corpus Christi during the season. The Cowboys also beat Nicholls in a mid-week game that did not count for conference play, so they are 2-2 against McNeese.
Nicholls must win the Southland Conference Tournament to make the NCAA Tournament.
Over in the SEC, LSU has an opening-round bye and will be the No. 3 seed in Hoover.
The Tigers will face the winner between No. 6 South Carolina and No. 11 Georgia – two teams who will play a single elimination game on Tuesday. The first LSU game will be on Wednesday at 9:30 a.m. The SEC Tournament has 4 single-elimination games on Tuesday, which then sets up an 8-team double elimination tournament for the 4 winners and the top 4 seeds who all have byes. Once the teams get to the semifinals, it then becomes a single elimination tournament to allow teams to preserve their pitching for the NCAA Tournament.
LSU is going to host a Regional regardless of how things go in Hoover. The Tigers are going to be looking to lock up a national seed with a strong showing, though it’s still highly likely that the Tigers will be in the Top 8, even if they lose both games in Hoover.
The Tigers split with South Carolina and took 2/3 from Georgia this past weekend.
See the brackets below:
SOUTHLAND:
SEC:
