Tennessee's chances of earning one of the 16 NCAA baseball tournament regional host sites were likely extinguished with Tuesday's 3-0 loss to Texas A&M in a Southeastern Conference first-round pairing.
Yet a winless showing in Hoover, Alabama, is hardly cause for concern.
Ole Miss lost 3-1 to Vanderbilt in a first-round matchup at last spring's SEC tournament, while Mississippi State was humiliated in the double-elimination stage of the event two years ago, losing to Florida and Tennessee by a combined 25-3. The 2021 Bulldogs and last year's Rebels put those setbacks in the rearview mirror and went on to win national championships.
"Hats off to those guys that were national champions from those two teams, but there have been a lot of SEC teams, I think, that have benefited from going home from here," Tennessee coach Tony Vitello said Tuesday in a news conference. "I just think that this league prepares you for everything, and I think that's one of the reasons you often see a bunch of teams from our league in Omaha."
Ole Miss received the final at-large invitation to last year's 64-team field and went 10-1 in NCAA play. The Rebels traveled to Arizona for their regional and eliminated the Wildcats 22-6 before making the much shorter trip to Southern Miss for the super regional, where they swept both games from the Golden Eagles by a combined 15-0.
Once at the College World Series, the Rebels advanced to the best-of-three championship showdown against Oklahoma and swept the Sooners 10-3 and 4-2.
Mississippi State needed more drama two years ago, especially in its super regional at Notre Dame, and the Bulldogs regrouped from an 8-2 loss against Vanderbilt in their CWS title series opener to rout the Commodores 21-2 over the next two games.
The Volunteers have written plenty of entertaining scripts the past three seasons under Vitello, with this year's team struggling out of the gate with the burden of a No. 2 preseason ranking and living up to the expectations of last year's 57-9 squad that was the NCAA tournament's top overall seed. Tennessee was just 5-10 in SEC play at the midway mark of the conference schedule but used an impressive sweep of Vanderbilt at Lindsey Nelson Stadium to ignite a 11-4 second half.
"We just need to battle together," Vols pitcher Seth Halvorsen said. "We're all one team. We need to get ahead on the pitching side and then get your pitch on the hitting side. You just have to keep it simple and fight for all 27 outs."
Said Texas A&M coach Jim Schlossnagle of the Vols: "That's an Omaha team. It's an Omaha team. They just have to go play like it."
Although the Vols entered the SEC tournament ranked 13th in the Division I baseball poll, they dropped from 16th to 23rd in the RPI standings after their loss to the Aggies. Tennessee's rotation of Andrew Lindsey, Chase Dollander and Drew Beam, which had a sparkling 1.37 ERA during the final regular season series at South Carolina, should be rested wherever the Vols are sent.
The entire NCAA field will be revealed Monday at noon on ESPN2, and then Tennessee can begin its quest of trying to become this year's Mississippi State or Ole Miss.
"This league can prepare you but also beats you up a little bit," Vitello said, "so to recover and kind of get some rest time between the finish of SEC play, including here in Hoover, and then get back after it I think helps people a lot. To me, those two teams probably had a little bit of their own thing going, but I know it's worked for other teams as well.
"I think it's that combination of preparation and rest as well."
Contact David Paschall at dpaschall@timesfreepress.com.