The Tennessee Volunteers take on the Southern Miss Golden Eagles in the NCAA Baseball Tournament. Our college baseball odds series has our Tennessee Southern Miss prediction and pick. Find out how to watch Tennessee Southern Miss.
This is a Super Regional game in the NCAA Tournament. The winner takes a 1-0 lead in a best-of-three series. There is margin for error, but not a lot of it. The loser will have to win on Sunday and Monday to take the series and advance to the College World Series in Omaha.
Tennessee and Southern Mississippi are both coming off road wins in regionals one week ago. Tennessee won the Clemson Regional, winning a 14-inning game against Clemson before Charlotte upset the Tigers to knock them out. Tennessee beat Charlotte to lock down the regional championship.
Southern Mississippi lost its first game in a road regional. The Golden Eagles fell to Samford and had to win every remaining game they played, beginning with an elimination game against Auburn, the host team in the regional and the highest seed in the regional. They shut down Auburn's offense and won comfortably. After Pennsylvania beat Samford in the winners' bracket game, Southern Miss handled Samford in a second elimination game, but that was just the beginning. USM then needed to beat Penn twice to win the regional. The Golden Eagles were able to do precisely that. Four straight elimination-game victories have brought them here to the supers.
Here are the Tennessee-Southern Miss NCAA Baseball odds, courtesy of FanDuel.
NCAA Baseball Odds: Tennessee-Southern Miss Odds
Tennessee: -1.5 (+106) ML (-145)
Southern Miss: +1.5 (-138) ML (+115)
Over: 9.5 (-128)
Under: 9.5 (-104)
How To Watch Tennessee vs. Southern Miss
TV: ESPNU
Stream: ESPN+, WatchESPN
Time: 2:45 p.m. ET/11:45 a.m. PT
*Watch Tennessee-Southern Miss LIVE on fuboTV (click for a free trial)*
Why Tennessee Could Cover The Spread
Five words: “Christian Moore and Zane Denton.” Tennessee has the two hottest hitters not named Dylan Crews (the LSU superstar batting near .420) in the Super Regionals. Moore batted .700 with four home runs in the Clemson Regional. He went nuts. Denton hit a three-run homer when Tennessee was down to its last out against Clemson in the game it ultimately won in 14 innings one week ago. These two guys are red-hot, they're riding the wave, and they are locked in. It will be very, very hard for the Southern Miss pitching staff to contain them, and if the bases are loaded, they won't be able to walk them. The Golden Eagles will have to pitch to them. If the table-setters in the Vol lineup get on base for Moore and Denton, Southern Miss will be in huge trouble in this game.
Why Southern Miss Could Cover The Spread
The Golden Eagles shut down one potent SEC offense when they handled Auburn and were then able to deal with lower-seeded Pennsylvania last week in the regionals. If Southern Miss could deal with Auburn, it can definitely deal with Tennessee as well. USM gets to play this Super Regional series on its home field in Hattiesburg, Miss. That's a real plus. Some will say that a ton of Tennessee fans will invade the University of Southern Mississippi, and that might be accurate, but the thing about home-field advantage in baseball is that it's not just the crowd that matters. Having familiarity with the hitting background helps hitters see the ball better out of the pitcher's hand. That sort of thing matters much more than the crowd itself. USM players get to sleep in their own beds, too. That also matters. This is a confident team which is feeling great about itself. It is in a good spot against an SEC team it will relish ambushing.
Final Tennessee-Southern Miss Prediction & Pick
This is not a lopsided matchup, but Tennessee does have the two best hitters in the series. That should probably matter. Take the Vols here.
Final Tennessee-Southern Miss Prediction & Pick: Tennessee ML (-145)
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