Tennessee Beats LSU At Its Own Home Game For SEC Tournament Title; Likely To Be Top NCAA Seed

HOOVER, Alabama - This large suburb next to Birmingham looked more like Tuscaloosa on an Alabama football Saturday than a host of a Sunday baseball tournament.

-Bumper-to-bumper traffic on all the major thoroughfares leading to Hoover Metropolitan Stadium, which has hosted the Southeastern Conference baseball tournament every May since 1998 and from 1990-96.

-Traffic backed up to the interstates two hours before opening pitch at 3 p.m. eastern time. 

-The stadium parking lot filled up shortly before the game, and overflow vehicles were redirected to a high school about a mile past the Met. A team of school buses were at the ready to take fans - and some media - back to the entry gate.

-There were traffic jams on foot as well for fans nearing the entry gates and those inside. Lines of fans waiting to get in stretched around the stadium and beyond as if Taylor Swift was scheduled to perform.

This was the first SEC Tournament title game ever between LSU, the defending national champion which has been the premier traveling fan base in college baseball for three decades, and No. 1-ranked Tennessee, which has become a contender in that category as quickly as it has become a national power on the field since 2021. Hoover is a five-hour drive northwest of Baton Rouge and about four hours southeast of Knoxville. On Sunday, the two fan bases met in the middle after passing one another in the aisles since Wednesday.

No. 1 seed and SEC regular season co-champion Tennessee edged No. 11 seed LSU, 4-3, on Sunday to capture its third 50-win season in four years and its second tournament crown in three years. LSU won six SEC Tournament titles from 2008-17, but has been shut out since.

Tennessee Should Be Named No. 1 Overall Seed Monday

The Vols (50-11) are already No. 1 in the Ratings Percentage Index (RPI) and a near-consensus No. 1 in all the various polls. So, look for Tennessee to get the No. 1 overall seed when the NCAA announces the field of 64 with the top eight national seeds and pairings for the postseason tournament on Monday (12 p.m., ESPN2). The other seven top seeds will likely be Kentucky, North Carolina, Texas A&M, Arkansas, Clemson, Florida State and Oklahoma.

The NCAA announced the 16 host sites on Sunday night. Those are Georgia, North Carolina, Virginia, Clemson, Texas A&M, Oregon State, Arkansas, East Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, Oklahoma, North Carolina State, UC-Santa Barbara, Oklahoma State, Florida State and Arizona.

"I think kind of what we were able to overcome in this tournament, which you have to do every year to win it, tells you a lot about yourself," said Tennessee coach Tony Vitello, who lost the tournament opener to Vanderbilt, 13-4 ,on Tuesday, then won four in four days for the crown.

"It should build some confidence," he said. "Vanderbilt (No. 20 in RPI) beat our brains in, but we beat (RPI No. 2) Texas A&M." 

As impressive as Tennessee's tournament title, however, and more surprising in some circles, was the fact that Tennessee filled up half or more of Sunday's 15,686 attendance, which was the most ever for an SEC Tournament game at the Met not involving a team from Alabama. The Crimson Tide is less than an hour away. Auburn is only a two-hour drive from Hoover. Only the Alabama-Arkansas tournament championship game in 1998 drew more in the history of this tournament here with 16,165.

LSU (40-21) is now in eight of the top 10 SEC Tournament attendances at the Met, and usually the Purple and Gold wins such attendance wars by a 70-30 count, and that's being conservative. Not on this day. Tennessee Orange made it 50-50.

"Yeah, probably 50-50," Tennessee center fielder Hunter Ensley said. "You always know when you play LSU, they are going to bring a lot of purple and gold. But the other half was orange and white, so it was a great show out. It was a lot of fun."

Fans nearly filled up the berms near the stands without seats.

Fans even filled the grassy areas that do not have seats at Hoover Metropolitan Stadium Sunday for the LSU-Tennessee Southeastern Conference Tournament title game. (Getty Images)

And through most of the game, the Vol fans were louder to the tune of "Rocky Top" over the sound system as they took a 3-1 lead in the third inning on a three-run home run by Billy Amick. Tennessee quieted LSU more when Ensley singled in another run for a 4-1 lead in the seventh.

LSU, which had won seven straight, nearly equaled its thrilling, come-from-behind 11-10 and 12-11 wins over South Carolina on Thursday and Saturday with another rally on Sunday. The Tigers cut Tennessee's lead to 4-2 with one out in the ninth on back-to-back doubles by Hayden Travinski and Steven Milam, whose two-run home run in the bottom of the 11th Saturday walked off the Gamecocks. An error by Amick at third allowed a run as LSU cut it to 4-3.

Was Tennessee unraveling? No. Reliever Aaron Combs struck out the next two for his fifth save, and it was over.

"Overall the tournament was outstanding in part because LSU is the hottest team in the country, and they didn't stop today in my opinion," Vitello said. "They played really good ball, and maybe just ran out of time, because that thing was obviously very hairy at the end."

You could feel it from both fan bases evenly. Vitello saw that building all week.

Tennessee players celebrate their 4-3 win over LSU for the SEC Tournament title Sunday at the Hoover Met in Hoover, Alabama. (Getty Images)

"It's a fun game to be a part of," he said on Saturday after his team's 6-4 win over Vanderbilt in front of 14,386 (and a new entry in the top 10) set up the first Tennessee-LSU SEC Tournament title bout. "The fan situation (with LSU and Tennessee) is insane. LSU, I think we know they'll be cooking out there in the parking lot. I wish I had time to have some of it. But you know what their fan base is like. I think our folks do a great job. The National Anthem always gives me chills at this thing."

SEC commissioner Greg Sankey would be wise to keep the SEC Tournament in the very SEC-centrally located Hoover for another few decades. Oklahoma and Texas begin play in the SEC this football season and next baseball season, making Hoover a little less central. But those two need to get used to Hoover anyway like everyone else. It's a mini-Omaha, and like Omaha with the College World Series, Hoover is synonymous with the event it hosts. 

The SEC Tournament moving to points more to the west for the two newbies, like New Orleans or Houston or Dallas or Oklahoma City, would not work as well as Hoover. Those cities are too big with too many other teams. The tournament would get lost, and crowds would be small.  

To turn the SEC's credo, It would just mean less.

SEC Tournament Contract With Hoover Is Nearing The End

The current SEC Tournament contract ended with this year's tournament with an option for 2025. And talks with the SEC have gone well, Hoover mayor Frank Brocato said recently.

"We want to keep it. We want an extension. We are having really good conversations with the SEC right now," he said. "You think about it, we had over 170,000 people come to this SEC tournament last year, and it has somewhere between a $13 and $15 million economic impact on the city of Hoover and the metro area."

The overall attendance at this year's tournament was 180,004 and also broke the record, which was 171,288 set last year. It keeps growing, which was obvious before Sunday's game. 

So, please don't try to appease Oklahoma and Texas, Greg. Hoover is home.

LSU baseball coach Jay Johnson sprints to be with his team on Saturday after a walk-off win over South Carolina in the 10th inning to reach the SEC Tournament championship game on Sunday. (Getty Images)

That's how LSU coach Jay Johnson feels about it, and he has only been to three SEC Tournaments since leaving Arizona to be the Tigers' coach after the 2021 season. On this Memorial Day, he and Vitello have shared the same pre-game feelings .

"I tell you, the National Anthem was finishing up with the fly over and the whole crowd chanting ‘LSU,’ and I had some chills," Johnson said. "And I only remember feeling that in Omaha last year. There's nothing like this. Like, there's college baseball, and then there's this thing that's happening here. And they are not the same right now."

Johnson remembers watching the SEC Tournament from afar as Arizona's coach, wishing he could be where it just means more.

"You know, watching it on TV all those years in the west, the 9:30 a.m. (central time) games," he said. "It's 7:30 a.m., and I'm eating my oatmeal in my office. I've got a game on. I always thought this was really cool, and it just continues to separate itself from the pack."