Auburn baseball patiently waits to find out if their NCAA tournament journey will begin at Plainsman Park when host sites are announced this evening.
Head coach Butch Thompson said his team would take advantage of the downtime caused by the early exit.
“We’re going to make something positive out of it. If you want to win a championship, the nine World Series that I’ve been a part of as an assistant, bag boy, whatever, grad assistant, everything, head coach, you have to work through these hurdles,” Thompson said. “You have to -- you can’t do tired. You can’t do cold, or you can’t win the first month of the season.”
When asked if his team did enough to host an NCAA Regional at Plainsman Park after finishing the regular season with a 12-3 mark in conference play, Thompson didn’t mince words. The Tigers entered the SEC regular season play with an eight-game winning streak and pushed it to nine with a win against Missouri in their first game at Hoover Met.
“I’m always confident, and yes, it would be great,” Thompson told reporters after Thursday’s loss. Period.”
D1 Baseball projects Auburn as a 12-seed after Friday’s games. It also projects Alabama as the 11th seed meaning the only way the teams would meet again would be in the College World Series.
Bryson Ware former Tiger (and current Alabama assistant coach) Hunter Morris’ home run record when his 24th homer sailed over the right field fence in the sixth inning of the Auburn loss against Alabama. Ware and Morris explored the possibility when Morris congratulated Ware for breaking the record.
“Yeah, he just said congratulations, and it’s cool to be able to do that in front of him, and he said we’ll see him in Omaha,” Ware said. “That would be cool to get the Auburn and Alabama fans in Omaha if we both get a chance to go play there.”
Auburn would host Alabama State, Southern Miss, and Arizona State at Plainsman Park. D1Baseball predicted Auburn as the 11th seed. The Tigers would host Texas, Troy, and Air Force in Baseball America’s projected bracket.
Thompson and the Tigers hope their 18 conference wins and 34 wins will be enough. They’ll watch Sunday’s (7:30 p.m. ESPN) regional host sites announcement and Monday’s 11 a.m. selection show together.
“Hopefully, we can get that opportunity again,” Ware said. “Hopefully, I haven’t played my last game at Plainsman Park. The ultimate goal is Omaha.”
Nubyjas Wilborn covers Auburn for Alabama Media Group.
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