BATON ROUGE — The No. 15-ranked LSU men’s tennis team earned a 15th seed and will play host for the first two rounds of the NCAA Tournament at W.T. Robinson Tennis Stadium, the NCAA announced Tuesday.
The Tigers (16-6, 7-4 SEC) will open the tournament Friday, May 11, at 10 a.m. against the Southwestern Athletic Conference Champion Alcorn State Braves (12-7, 6-2 SWAC.) Following LSU’s match, the Conference USA Champion No. 17-ranked Tulsa Golden Hurricane (19-6, 2-0 C-USA) will battle the No. 45-ranked Vanderbilt Commodores (10-12, 4-7 SEC) at 1 p.m.
The LSU-Alcorn State winner will take on the winner of the Tulsa-Vanderbilt match on Saturday, May 12, at noon. The winner of the regional will advance to the NCAA Championships at Dan Magill Tennis Complex in Athens, Ga., which begins Thursday, May 17.
“The selections seem to follow the rankings pretty closely,” LSU head coach Jeff Brown said. “We have two conference champions coming with Alcorn State and Tulsa, and Vanderbilt has been on the rise since coach Ian Duvenhage arrived. This is a very competitive group heading to Baton Rouge.”
The previous two times LSU and Alcorn State faced off were also in the first round of the NCAA Tournament and both times LSU hosted. LSU won both match by a 4-0 score.
The host bid marks the third time in four years the Tigers will host the first two rounds and the sixth time in Brown’s 10 years of leading the team. The Tigers have advanced to the NCAA tournament 13 straight years.
LSU is one of eight SEC teams invited to the tournament and one of three that received host bids. Along with LSU and Vanderbilt, the other conference schools selected were Alabama, Auburn, Florida, Georgia, Ole Miss and Tennessee. Georgia and Ole Miss will host their regional.
The Tigers have grown accustomed to hosting an event as they hosted the SEC Coaches Indoor Championships in January and the conference tournament in April.
“We are looking for the same crowds we had during the SEC Tournament,” Brown commented. “It seems only fitting that we host the first two rounds since we hosted the SEC Indoors and the conference tournament.”
Draws for the NCAA Singles and Doubles Championships will be released Wednesday at 4 p.m.