The Tennessee Vols get their 2026 NCAA Tournament underway on Friday against East Carolina. It certainly won’t be an easy matchup, as the Pirates are coming in hot after claiming the American Conference tournament last weekend. And it’s likely that host North Carolina will be waiting on deck as well for the winner.

As such, head coach Josh Elander had a decision to make coming into this weekend about how he wanted to deploy his starting pitchers. Tegan Kuhns has been the hottest pitcher for Tennessee and has the highest upside as far as shutting an opposing team down. Kuhns had scoreless outings in the second half of the season with 9+ strikeouts against Ole Miss, Alabama, and Texas. But Evan Blanco has experience pitching on the sport’s biggest stage.

Elander announced that choice on Wednesday. Blanco will get the start for Tennessee against the Pirates. ECU will counter with Ryan Towers (7-3, 3.04 ERA).

Josh Elander gives Evan Blanco the nod to start Tennessee’s opening NCAA Tournament game against East Carolina

“We’re gonna go with Evan Blanco game one,” Elander said. “Everybody will be available for every game, but Blanco will lead us out of the gate.

As far as why he made the decision he did, Elander made reference to Blanco’s prior experience pitching in the College World Series.

“There’s a lot of things that went into it. It’s something that we deliberated, but I think you go back to when we recruited Evan Blanco and the recruiting process. The big thing was the maturity and the strike throwing, but also, too, he’s pitched in the College World Series. He’s pitched in the postseason. That’s not a discredit to anybody else on our staff, but again, everybody is going to be available. You’ve got to win the game that you’re at.

“But Blanco is in a good spot, and I know he wasn’t happy with how his last outing went, so he’s put in the work. He’s been a madman around the building getting ready for this next start.”

Tennessee can roll with experience and hold their highest upside for game two

This feels like the right move by Elander.

He can roll out someone with playoff experience like Blanco, who pitched in the 2024 College World Series for Virginia and who won’t be caught up in the situation.

Meanwhile, if Tennessee advances, they get to throw Kuhns against UNC or VCU in order to reach the all-important 2-0 winner’s bracket of the region.

We’ll find out soon enough if it was the right move, as the Vols and Pirates get underway on Friday at noon in Chapel Hill.