SEC Baseball Midweek Preview: Making Lemonisade
04/29/2025
By Chris Marler
SEC midweek baseball is back again! A total of 13 teams will be in action on Tuesday night. Here’s what to watch for.
LSU and Texas, doing typical LSU and Texas things
There’s a lot of potential meaning behind that. For instance it could be in reference to how incredibly storied each program has been throughout college baseball history. After all, these are the two bluest of blue blood programs in college baseball. However, that’s not what I mean.
I mean LSU and Texas are doing LSU and Texas things in the sense that LSU is playing yet another difficult team and Texas has somehow found yet another Mary Sisters of the Poor-type Tuesday night opponent. LSU will play 33-11 SLU. Texas will host 11-31 Prairie View A&M.
LSU will take on Southeastern Louisiana Tuesday night at The Box! pic.twitter.com/UuB5lxd3EW
— LSU Baseball (@LSUbaseball) April 28, 2025
Personally, I cannot wait until these two play again. Hopefully in Hoover or Omaha.
Player(s) to Watch
There are three non-SEC players that fans should be most excited to watch this week. The first may sound familiar because we highlighted him earlier this year: Ryan Wideman. Wideman, an outfielder for Western Kentucky, is fifth in the country in base hits with 76. He’s top 15 in the country in batting average at .418 and is fourth in the country in stolen bases with 35.
The other two players are both All-American candidates from Austin Peay and Northern Kentucky. Both are hitting at least .400 with 14+ home runs and over 50 RBIs.
Logen Davenport from Northern Kentucky will take his .424 batting average, 14 home runs, and 51 RBIs to Knoxville’s favorite band box to play the Volunteers. Cameron Nickens from Austin Peay will head to Oxford to play Ole Miss. Nickens is top ten in the country in batting average (.440), top 20 in RBIs (58), and also has 15 home runs as well.
Best matchups
If there was ever a game for Missouri to win, it’s this one against Kansas. Missouri hates Kansas almost as much as SEC fans hate Missouri’s geographical location. Missouri sucks this year. Kansas does not.
The Jayhawks are playing great baseball this season, winning 35 games and entering this game in the top 25. A win would be a big enough moral victory to get the Tigers through the end of the regular season.
Others to watch – Kennesaw State at Georgia. This is a much better matchup than people are willing to admit. Kennesaw is in Cobb County, Georgia. If you know anything about high school baseball, travel baseball, or anything in between, then you’ve definitely heard of Cobb County, Georgia.
Kennesaw State is a great program and has now been a D1 program for 20 years after making the jump from the Peach Belt Conference in Division II. This is a quintessential little brother, chip on the shoulder type game. Not for the program, per say, but for the Owl players. Kennesaw St. is a great program, but there’s not a player on that roster that wouldn’t have jumped at the chance to play in Athens instead.
Who’s on upset alert?
There are a few logical answers here. Western Kentucky and Austin Peay are both 30+ win ball clubs playing Kentucky and Ole Miss, respectively. WKU even gets the Wildcats at home. However, I don’t know how much of an upset that truly is if I’m being honest.
The answer? Two teams – South Carolina and Vanderibilt. South Carolina is reeling after yet another series loss at Kentucky. That’s an offense that has struggled in midweek games this season. They’ll host 24-16 Charleston Southern.
The other team is Vanderbilt. Vandy is also reeling a bit, going just 1-3 last weekend. They are coming off a run rule win over Ole Miss that salvaged them from a series sweep. However, they did lose to Middle Tennessee State in the midweek seven days ago. They host Indiana State. The Sycamores are a .500 team who have been on the cusp of getting to Omaha for years now.
Making Lemonisade
Mississippi State fired their head coach Chris Lemonis on Monday afternoon. Admittedly, I don’t know enough about Mississippi State baseball or its athletic program to know who they will target.
My editor Rivers Hughey has much better info than I will. So, I will not weigh in on who they will target or who they will land.
I love a good coaching search, especially for a program willing to invest. Cliff Godwin, Josh Elander, Chris Pollard, half of LSU’s staff. I have heard them all. But remember, sometimes it’s the guy no one is talking about. Can’t wait to speculate wildly for the next month!
— Rivers Hughey (@RivsHughey) April 28, 2025
However, I will say that the timing of this does seem significant. Surprising? I guess. Significant? Absolutely.
What the timing says to me is that the hire itself is being taken very seriously. Lemonis brought Mississippi State their first national title in a major sport in 100 years.There are some schools that would give that guy a lifetime contract. Not Mississippi State. They expect to win on the diamond. Year in and year out. They have the resources and continue to pour those resources into the baseball program.
However, you’ve also seen that same commitment across the athletic department, as well. Chris Jans was a phenomenal hire for Men’s Basketball. I have no doubt the powers that be will be vast in their search for the next baseball coach.
Will it be the next Chris Jans? I hope not. Because it needs to be the next guy to win a conference and/or national title, not just get you in the conversation.