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O’Gara: No SEC Tournament title? No worries. This LSU team showed why it can repeat
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Don’t let LSU get hot.
I’d love to know how many people in Tennessee Orange who endured suffocating heat to witness Sunday’s SEC Tournament Championship showdown had that exact thought as a ho-hum bottom of the 9th inning began without much hope for the defending national champs in gold.
My bad. “Championship gold.”
It was a “ho-hum” start to the bottom of the 9th because while an SEC Tournament Championship was on the line, LSU hadn’t scored in over 3 hours of real-time. Even on a day in which the wind was blowing out — something that only helped on a moonshot home run off the bat of Jared Jones that still hasn’t landed — LSU’s bats cooled off in a hurry after averaging 11 runs in its 4 victories to reach the championship matchup.
In a not-so-stunning turning of events, LSU got hot. As quick as you could say “ball don’t lie” (more on that later), 3 consecutive doubles turned that ho-hum 4-1 Tennessee lead into a 4-3 thriller in which LSU brought the tying runner into scoring position with 1 out.
But when it mattered, Tennessee hurler Aaron Combs found his breaking ball.
A pair of strikeouts ended LSU’s furious late rally and earned the Vols a sweep of the SEC regular season — the SEC called them “co-champs” even though they earned the No. 1 seed in Hoover — and the SEC Tournament. With that, it’s possible that the Vols locked up the No. 1 overall seed for the second time in 3 years. Time will tell if Tennessee can become the first No. 1 overall seed to win it all since Miami (FL) did so in 1999. Lord knows Tony Vitello’s squad has been knocking on the door, but he has just 1 win in Omaha to show for it and it doesn’t help that just 3 SEC Tournament champs won national titles.
It’s possible that 2024 is the year of the Vols. No. 1-seed curse or not, that’s very much on the table after Tennessee shook off an opening-round loss and was the last team standing in Hoover (Ala.).
The most important takeaway of the week might not have involved the SEC Champions, and rather, the team that nearly stole that crown late on Sunday.
Loss or not, LSU is indeed hot. Blame the SEC for letting the Tigers silence any notion that their spot in the NCAA Tournament could be in jeopardy and that they wouldn’t get to defend their title.
Who would want to face Jay Johnson’s squad right now? Even Tennessee, AKA the No. 1 team in America who swept LSU in the regular season and led comfortably going into the final frame, had to hold on for dear life and needed the filthiest of breaking balls from Combs to do so.
Saturday’s classic semifinal matchup against South Carolina was even more of an indicator that LSU found its mojo after a 3-9 start in SEC play paved the way for that 11-seed. It wasn’t just that the Tigers won their 14th game against SEC competition in its last 19 tries. It was how LSU fought back from an 8-0 hole. South Carolina opened the door for LSU with a couple of costly errors, including one on an Alex Milazzo bunt to tie the game in the bottom of the 9th.
It was easy to lose track of that after the way things played out in extra innings.
LSU appeared to have snuffed out South Carolina stealing home, but it was ruled a catcher’s interference because the catcher stepped in front of home plate to catch the ball. LSU manager Jay Johnson was tossed after he argued the ruling.
Strange rule came into play during the LSU vs. South Carolina SEC Tournament game
Umpires determined that the catcher stepped on or in front of home plate before receiving the ball. It was ruled a balk and a catcher’s interference. So the run scored and the batter was awarded… pic.twitter.com/Rbw5oFnLvX
— Jomboy Media (@JomboyMedia) May 26, 2024
By now, you know what happened after that — LSU got hot.
“Ball don’t lie” came in the form of a walk-off 2-run homer by LSU freshman Steven “Monster” Milam. Did Johnson’s ejection provide the fuel for Milam to swing at a heater up in the zone and launch it over the left field wall? Maybe it did, maybe it didn’t. Whatever the case, LSU got hot in the right way.
It’s tough to quantify pre-NCAA Tournament games, but that one felt significant. Johnson went so far as to say that LSU was “playing better than anybody in the country right now.”
I’ve had the opportunity to interview @LSUCoachJ quite a bit over the last few years…..that was fired up as I’ve seen him when he talked about how far his team has come this year. https://t.co/wqzDtlvigY
— Peter Burns (@PeterBurnsESPN) May 25, 2024
Who’s to argue with him? Going 14-5 into the SEC Tournament Championship is a pretty good indicator of a ball club that figured some things out after a rough start. Putting Michael Braswell into the leadoff spot paid off, as we saw with his go-ahead knock in the 9th inning against his former team, South Carolina, on Thursday night. LSU found a true 1-2 punch with Gage Jump and Luke Holman, who figure to have a major say in whether another run to Omaha is in store.
But above all else, LSU found its flair for the dramatics with timely hitting, and not just via All-American slugger Tommy White. Since the start of May, LSU went 7-3 in games decided by 3 runs or less. That included Sunday’s loss to Tennessee.
It’s true that if LSU became the first double-digit seed to win the SEC Tournament, there would’ve been even more buzz surrounding the defending champs heading into the NCAA Tournament. But don’t let 1 missed opportunity against the No. 1 team in America overshadow what the last month told us.
LSU picked an ideal time to get hot.
Connor O'Gara is the senior national columnist for Saturday Down South. He's a member of the Football Writers Association of America. After spending his entire life living in B1G country, he moved to the South in 2015.
