NCAA Baseball Postseason: LSU Has Top 2 MLB Draft Picks, So It Better Make It To Omaha - TV Times
BATON ROUGE, La. - LSU hired women's basketball coach Kim Mulkey away from Baylor in April of 2021.
Two months later, LSU tapped baseball coach Jay Johnson from Arizona. And the following December, Brian Kelly left Notre Dame to be the Tigers' football coach.
Mulkey won the national championship two months ago.
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"I'm happy for them for sure because I know how hard it is to do that," Johnson said when asked if he feels pressure to win the national title next later this month. Mulkey just got LSU's first in basketball - men or women.
LSU Tigers Have Not Won National Title Since 2009
"Nobody wants to do that worse than me. They could've finished in last place, and that would have no bearing on me wanting to do that some day," he said.
Some day may not be soon enough, particularly since Johnson admittedly has the best player and best pitcher in all of college baseball. That would be center fielder Dylan Crews and right-hander Paul Skenes. And probably the best everyday lineup in the game.
LSU junior center fielder Dylan Crews is expected to be the first pick of the 2023 Major League Baseball Draft on July 9 to the Pittsburgh Pirates. (Getty Images).
Crews (6-0, 205) is a junior from Altamonte Springs, Florida, near Orlando who is the consensus projection to be the first player taken in the Major League Baseball Draft on July 9. Skenes (6-6, 247) is a junior from Lake Forest, California, in Orange County via Air Force. He is slated as the No. 2 pick by MLB.com. The SEC has never had the first two picks of the MLB Draft.
Dylan Crews Is Projected No. 1 Pick
Crews is a consummate five-tool player - hits for average, hits for power, has speed, has arm strength and fielding prowess. He is No. 2 in the nation in on base percentage at .567 and No. 7 in average at .420. Crews has 15 home runs and 59 RBIs. He is the SEC's first back-to-back player of the year in history.
LSU 6-foot-6 right-hander Paul Skenes is averaging more 16 strikeouts per nine innings this season. (Getty Images).
LSU Pitcher Paul Skenes Leads Nation With 167 Strikeouts
Skenes (10-2) is No. 1 in the country in strikeouts per nine innings at 16.64 and in strikeouts with 167 - 29 more than his closest competitor. He is also No. 1 in the nation in fewest walks and hits allowed per innings pitched (WHIP) at a 0.79 rate. Skenes is No. 4 in earned run average at 1.89 and eighth in victories. Collegiate Baseball named him its national player of the year on Thursday.
With 36 strikeouts, Skenes will beat the SEC record of 202 set in 1989 by LSU's Ben McDonald - the first player taken in the '89 MLB Draft by Baltimore. McDonald threw 152 and a third innings that season. Skenes is at just 90 and a third at the moment.
NCAA REGIONAL FIELD OF 64 ANNOUNCED
Skenes started Friday the NCAA Regional opener for No. 5 national seed LSU (43-15) on Friday (3 p.m. ESPNU) against No. 4 Regional seed Tulane (19-40). A win advances LSU to a 9 p.m. game Saturday against the winner of No. 2 seed Oregon State (39-18) and No. 3 Sam Houston State (38-23). they play Friday (9 p.m., ESPN+). Skenes could come back for short relief if needed on Sunday.
LSU's Dylan Crews 'Best College Hitter I've Seen'
"They're the best player and the best pitcher in college baseball," Johnson said. "Dylan is the best college hitter I've ever seen. And that's all encompassing. There are guys in the Major Leagues that can't do what he does as far as managing the strike zone and staying away from bad pitches. Paul is what a Major League Baseball pitcher looks like. He just absolutely models how you do it at the highest level, and he'll pitch for as long as he wants to because of his talent and the habits he has."
The reporter droned on about the women's basketball team, though.
"They really wanted it," he said.
"Not as much as I do," Johnson interrupted.
And how bad would it look for Johnson if LSU does not even make it to Omaha or not win a game there with such talent? In addition to Crews and Skenes, third baseman Tommy White is third nationally in RBIs with 91 and has 20 home runs. Collegiate Baseball named all three first team All-Americans on Thursday.
"It's not lost on me the impact that they make," Johnson said of Crews and Skenes. "And I hope it's not on everybody else, because those guys are hard to get to show up."
NCAA Regionals Open Friday Across The Country
The first step toward LSU's seventh national championship, but first since 2009, is Friday as the 64-team NCAA Regionals open around the nation. The winners of the 16 double-elimination, four-team tournaments advance to the best-of-three Super Regionals next week with those eight winners moving on to Omaha, Nebraska, and the College World Series, June 16-26.
The eight national seeds host Super Regionals if they advance to them. LSU is a national seed for the first time since 2017 and hosting at raucous, 13,000-seat Alex Box for the first time since 2019. LSU hosted as a top eight seed for an NCAA record six straight seasons from 2012-17.
"Hard to imagine any better crowd anywhere else," Johnson said of his first time hosting in the postseason.
Dylan Crews Has Dreamed Of Omaha
"It's been a dream of mine to play in the postseason here and play in front of a great crowd at LSU," Crews said.
Right field at LSU's Alex Box Stadium Thursday with the Intimidator sign at right that lists the 6 national championships from 1991-2009. LSU hosts an NCAA Regional this weekend for the first time since 2019. (Photo By Outkick's Glenn Guilbeau).
LSU was once the kingpin of postseason college baseball with five national titles from 1991-2000 under coach Skip Bertman. LSU reached Omaha 18 times from 1986 through 2017 behind Bertman (11), Smoke Laval (2) and Paul Mainieri (five). Mainieri won the last national title in 2009 and reached the championship series in 2017 before losing to Florida. He also signed Crews out of Lake Mary High School before the 2021 season and retired after taking the Tigers to a Super Regional that year.
Mainieri inherited much less talent when he took over at LSU than Johnson did. There was no Crews. Yet Maineiri put the Tigers in Omaha in just his second season in 2008 before winning it all the next year. That adds to the pressure on Johnson. But he knows Omaha, too. He took Arizona to the national championship series in 2016 and returned in 2021.
LSU Has Not Been To Omaha Since 2017
The Tigers have not returned to Omaha since 2017. That five-year absence is the longest gap since the pre-Bertman era. Bertman took LSU to the CWS in his third year in '86. His longest stretch between Omaha trips was two years. He never went more than two years without a national title after the first one.
And not even Bertman had what Johnson has in Crews and Skenes.
"We had some great ones, but never two like that on the same team," he said.
There was Joey Belle (Albert Belle with the Cleveland Indians), whose power helped LSU get to Omaha in 1986 and '87. And Todd Walker, who took LSU to the 1993 national title and to Omaha in 1994. And McDonald, who got LSU there in 1989. But McDonald played only briefly with Belle as a reserve freshman in 1987, and Belle was suspended for the CWS that year.
"The last LSU football championship (2019), they had a pretty good quarterback," Johnson said of '19 Heisman Trophy winner Joe Burrow - the first pick of the 2020 NFL Draft. "And pretty good receivers (1st round picks Ja'Marr Chase and Justin Jefferson in '20). In this day and age, you have to have MLB talent to get to Omaha and win a national championship. So, very pleased that those two guys are here, and we're enjoying every day with them."
There's No Crying In Baseball
Without Skenes, Crews got LSU as far as the NCAA Regional last year. But Southern Mississippi upset the Tigers with back-to-back wins, 8-4 and 8-7, as LSU's pitching faltered. Had the Tigers won either game, they would have hosted Ole Miss in the Super Regional in Alex Box. Instead, Ole Miss won at USM and went on to win the national championship.
"I remember that series a whole lot," LSU left fielder Tre Morgan said. "I remember the tears. I remember the feeling. I don't want to cry in my own dugout this year. I want to cry in Omaha because it's over, and we won."
LSU Under Pressure To Reach College World Series
Crews' three years at LSU would finish with a gaping hole should LSU not reach Omaha, particulary with someone like Skenes on the mound at least twice over the next two weekends.
"It's very important to get there," Crews said. "It was a dream of mine to go to Omaha. I'm excited for a chance to go. I just really want to experience it. It is a goal of mine."
LSU baseball coach Jay Johnson watches his team take batting practice Thursday at Alex Box Stadium in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. (Photo By Outkick's Glenn Guilbeau).
That way Johnson can coach him for a few more treasured weeks.
"He's one of the reasons I came here," Johnson said.
"I don't know if I would've come here if he wasn't here," Skenes said.
"Guys like him don't come around very often," Johnson said. "I wish I could coach him forever."
NCAA Regionals TV Schedule (Other Games Streaming)
No. 2 Connecticut (43-15) vs. No. 3 Texas Tech (39-21), Gainesville, Fla., Noon, ESPNU.
No. 4 Ball State (36-21) at No. 2 Kentucky (36-18), Lexington, Ky., Noon, SEC Network.
No. 3 North Carolina State (35-19) vs. No. 2 Campbell (44-13), Columbia, S.C., 1 p.m., ACC Network.
No. 4 Tulane (19-40) at No. 1 LSU* (43-15), Baton Rouge, La., 3 p.m., ESPNU.
No. 2 Tennessee (38-19) vs. No. 3 Charlotte (34-26), Clemson, S.C., 6 p.m., ESPNU.
No. 2 Iowa (38-14) vs. No. 3 North Carolina (35-22) at Terre Haute, Indiana, 7 p.m., ACC Network.
No. 2 East Carolina (45-17) vs. No. 4 Oklahoma (31-26), Charlottesville, Virginia, 7 p.m., ESPN2.
No. 4 seed Eastern Illinois (38-19) at No. 1 Vanderbilt* (41-18), Nashville, 8 p.m., SEC Network.
No. 2 Texas A&M (36-25) vs. No. 3 Cal State Fullerton (31-22), Stanford, California, 10 p.m., ESPN2.
No. 2 TCU (37-22) vs. No. 3 Arizona (33-24), Fayetteville, Arkansas, 10 p.m., ESPNU.
*National seed.