SOUTHEASTERN CONFERENCE BASEBALL TOURNAMENT

May 28, 2021

Brad Bohannon

Hoover Metropolitan Stadium

Alabama Crimson Tide

Postgame Press Conference

Tennessee - 11, Alabama - 0

BRAD BOHANNON: Congratulations to Tennessee, great team. Really came out ready to play today and took it to us. Their starter, Tidwell, was outstanding. He's going to be a real problem around the league the next couple of years.

You play a legit top five team like Tennessee, and your margin for error is pretty slim. You've got to execute pitches consistently. You've got to defend the field at a high level, and you've got to string together some good tough at bats. I'm not sure we did well enough in those three areas today.

Disappointed for our kids. That was our seventh game in nine days against a legit top 15 opponent. With our situation and losing two weekend starters, we knew it was going to be a challenge going into the game today. Can't tell you how proud I am of this group. We've got the great kids in the world from great families. They love to play. Really strong intangibles.

Regardless of what happens going forward, this has been as enjoyable of a group I've ever been a part of. Really proud of the effort the kids gave throughout the year. They had every chance to point fingers and to flinch and to crack and never really did. Really hopeful, obviously, that we get to send at least another week together.

Q. If you had to make your case to the committee on why you guys deserve a spot in the regionals, what would that case be?

BRAD BOHANNON: The first thing I'll say is I think the people on the committee have an incredibly difficult job. You try to compare teams that haven't played. I try to put myself in their shoes, if I was on a gymnastics committee, I think it would be really hard to -- it's hard to compare teams that haven't competed against each other, and everything doesn't just fit in a box or on a spreadsheet. So they have an incredibly difficult thing to do.

I've been in this league 18 years as an assistant coach or head coach, and this is by far the best the league's ever been. I am exceptionally proud to have 14 league wins. That is so hard to do. I'm not going to apologize for our league record. I believe, if you put teams like Arkansas and Vanderbilt and Tennessee and Florida and Mississippi State in these other leagues, their league records would look a lot different.

I would love for some of these other bubble teams to go spend a lovely weekend in Fayette-nam. I would love for these bubble teams to go to Nashville and face Kumar Rocker and come out with a win. Those things are incredibly hard to do. I thought Scott Stricklin summed it up really well. We're clearly the best league in the country. We should have the most teams.

We've also had a couple of guys that have been injured that are coming back, like Drew Williamson played today and hit a ball 100 miles an hour off the bat. And Jacob McNairy and Brock Guffey are guys that missed -- Brock missed nine conference weekends, McNairy missed four. Those guys are healthy and pitched really well against Mississippi State and down here.

If we're trying to get the best teams in the postseason, if we're using the eye test, I think we're a 2 seed. I can tell you this, I think our league should have 12. There is no 2 seed that wants any part of Auburn's lineup. There's no 2 seed that wants to face Landon Marceaux in Game 1 of a regional, or Tyler Ras and Dylan Smith with Chase Lee and Landon Green behind them.

Unfortunately, it's out of our control. We'll get online and figure out what low D-I we need to be cheering for in their conference tournament. I really wish we would have won a game or two. I hate the argument that LSU beat us in a series. It was at their place at full capacity, and we lost a one-run game on Friday night. But the reason we're talking about being on the bubble is we have strong metrics like RPI and strength of schedule and some other metrics that aren't as strong.

Again, really difficult task that they have, and we'll hope for the best.

Q. I just want to ask you about your plans for Selection Monday. I know you'll take tomorrow off, don't know if you'll get a practice in or not. What are the plans over the next couple of days for you guys?

BRAD BOHANNON: I don't have a plan for that right now. I was planning on playing Saturday and Sunday and taking Monday off. We'll get together here in the next few hours and get that figured out.