The reigning national champion is sinking into a real likelihood of missing this year’s NCAA Tournament entirely.
LSU, amid an already up-and-down season, has now lost seven of its past eight games and finds itself outside of Baseball America’s projected field of 64 teams for the second straight week and only losing even further ground after being swept at home by 8 Texas A&M.
The Tigers (23-18, 6-11) had slipped last week into the “next four out” category as essentially the eighth team on the outside looking in and have now falling completely off even that range of the bubble.
“It’s becoming increasingly difficult to envision LSU in this year’s postseason, a surprising turn after the Tigers opened the season ranked No. 2 in the Baseball America Top 25, with some arguing they should have ben No. 1 following their second championship in three years,” national college baseball reporter Jacob Rudner wrote. “Recent history suggests the selection committee is willing to show leniency toward SEC teams. Programs that go 13-17 in conference play have made the field comfortably, and last year no SEC team landed in the ‘Last Four In.’ In 2024, Florida reached the postseason just one game above .500 overall.
“LSU, though, lacks the same résumé strength as some of those past teams. The Tigers are 23-18 overall, 6-12 in SEC play and sit at No. 67 in RPI. While series at Mississippi State and Georgia, along with a home set against Florida, offer a path to improve the profile, recent performance doesn’t suggest they will stack enough wins in those matchups. Vanderbilt, despite trailing LSU in RPO, is in a better position.”
A reigning national champion missing the field wouldn’t be as rare as one might expect.
LSU would be the seventh to do so since 2000, including the third of the past five winners along with SEC foes Mississippi State and Ole Miss, the 2021 and 2022 champs who finished last in the SEC the following seasons.
But, as Rudner noted, the Tigers’ disappointing spring has been a particular surprise after a roster coach Jay Johnson and company appeared to retool in impressive fashion around a strong returning core was anticipated to be a top contender once again.
LSU has reached 16 of the past 17 tournaments and 36 of the past 40 with its only absences since 1985 coming in 1988, 2006, 2007 and 2011.
Coach Jay Johnson opened up at length this weekend about the team’s shortcomings in situational hitting and consistently putting together quality at-bats and pointed to his own miscalculations in constructing the team.
“I think it’s a deep-rooted thing,” he told reporters following Friday’s series-opening loss. “We’re off, and this will never happen again. We need to be able to stay on the ball better and hit the ball to the middle of the field and the other way and hit the ball lower with shorter swings. It’s not the era that these players that we are coaching right now have grown up in. A lot of ’em talk about exit velo(city) and distance and home runs and all that, and those are great. And we have plenty of home runs. Honestly, we actually do. I think we’re fourth in the league or fifth in the league in homers.
“If you attached professional at-bats, which is what we’re known for, what we’re a staple of, why we have two national championships with the power on this team, it would be plenty. I made some mistakes in constructing the team and trying to replace two guys that were irreplaceable, where we should’ve looked at replacing them through guys that were already in the program and then replace the guys that were athletic and can play defense and be more complete players. We won’t make that mistake again.”
The team now ranks ninth in the SEC in batting average (.280), seventh in slugging (.481) and on-base (.400) percentages, fifth in home runs (66) with the eighth-fewest strikeouts
But the Tigers have struggled all-around, including a 5.03 ERA that ranks No. 14 in the league with the third-most walks, third-most hit batters, most wild pitches and third-fewest shutouts among the group.
LSU has ranked fifth-best in opponent batting average and allowed the sixth-fewest hits and eighth-fewest home runs — all metrics in the middle of the pack at worst — but compounded issues with free passes and other free bases.
Additionally, the Tigers have stolen the third-fewest bases (33) — barely one-third of SEC leader Kentucky’s 98 — and have posted the second-lowest fielding percentage (.964) in the league.
Baseball America does not currently project any Louisiana programs in the 2026 field with Louisiana (Lafayette) in the best standing in the “next four out” category.
Barring someone’s strong finish, particularly a potential conference tournament run, the state’s ballparks could be quiet early this summer.
