Tennessee Vols just became the ultimate villain after Monday's regional baseball upset
The Tennessee Volunteers now know who they will be facing in the Super Regionals in Knoxville starting on Friday, and it's a team that will likely have a lot of otherwise disinterested viewers in their corner. The Evansville Purple Aces upset #16 national seed East Carolina on Monday afternoon in Greenville 6-5 in a winner-take-all […]
The Tennessee Volunteers now know who they will be facing in the Super Regionals in Knoxville starting on Friday, and it's a team that will likely have a lot of otherwise disinterested viewers in their corner.
The Evansville Purple Aces upset #16 national seed East Carolina on Monday afternoon in Greenville 6-5 in a winner-take-all game to claim the Greenville regional and advance to the Super Regionals against Tennessee.
For those wondering about what it means for a 4 seed to advance out of the regional, it's happened 9 times, as D1 Baseball notes. By means of comparison, a 15 seed has beaten a 2 seed 11 times in the NCAA basketball tournament. So, Evansville advancing to the Super Regionals is something almost equally as rare (a slight bit rarer, in fact).
As such, there will be many fans that will be tuning in to see if the Purple Aces can pull off another rarity by knocking off the top overall seed and advancing to the College World Series. How uncommon is THAT occurrence? Only three #4 regional seeds have ever advanced to Omaha. 2008 Fresno State, 2012 Stony Brook, and 2023 Oral Roberts all reached the Mecca of college baseball with that seeding, with the '08 Bulldogs going on to win the whole thing.
Everyone loves an underdog, so the interest in the Knoxville regional will be even higher than it already was. With Arkansas, Vanderbilt, and Mississippi State all out, their fans likely already had reasons to cheer against the Vols. The underdog storyline will only add more fans to that group.
However, this Vols team doesn't seem like one that's built to let down against a team with, unquestionably, a significant gap in overall talent. The Vols are playing with a level of confidence and grit that's hard to match right now, and the bats are red hot.
We'll find out starting on Friday night if this year's Cinderella can keep their run going, or if the clock will strike midnight for Evansville in Knoxville.
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