Florida Gators NCAA Tournament Projection Revealed

Monday, the Florida Gators found themselves back in DI Baseball’s Field of 64 Projections. After taking two-out-of-three games against the No. 9 Georgia Bulldogs over the weekend. The Gators landed in familiar territory for a projected regional.

DI Baseball has the Gators in the Tallahassee Regional. Florida State is projected to be the No. 9 overall seed, and Southern Miss and Florida A&M round out the regional.

This would be a tough draw if the Gators ended up in Tallahassee. They are the third seed in the regional, and their first game would be against a solid Southern Miss team, who is the 25th-ranked team in the country in DI Baseball’s news rankings. They’re the reigning SunBelt Conference Champions and have made the NCAA Tournament the last three years, and they should be going for a fourth consecutive time.

This season, Florida struggled heavily against Florida State. They were swept by the Seminoles, and in the three games played against each other UF’s bullpen surrendered a combined 45 runs.

Their last matchup together featured a walloping 19-4 loss, the most runs the Gators gave up all season.

The Gators will find out their regional site Monday at noon on the 2024 college baseball tournament selection show.

In order to possibly get out of the Tallahassee Regional, Kevin O’Sullivan’s squad will have to do some work in the SEC Tournament. At least one win may improve Florida’s chances to get an easier regional, but a loss may keep them in Tallahassee.

Florida opens conference tournament play against Vanderbilt on Tuesday afternoon. Pierce Coppola will start on the mound for the Gators, and he’ll go up against Bryce Cunningham of Vanderbilt.

Coppola is coming off of an underwhelming start against Georgia. He last pitched Thursday but only threw 48 pitches, giving him a chance for another start against the Commodores. The lengthy southpaw gave up four runs on four hits in just two innings, Thursday.

Coppola faced the Commodores earlier in the season back on April 19. In his second outing of the season, he only went 1 ⅔ innings and gave up two earned runs.

Cunningham is Vanderbilt’s Friday night starter. Similar to Coppola, he had a shorter outing Thursday allowing him in the opening round against the Gators.

Florida faced Cunningham April 18, and the 6-foot-5 righty earned the win by pitching six innings, giving up three runs and five hits, while striking out seven.

Cunningham has struggled as of late, surrendering five runs in each of his last three outings.

First pitch is set for 5:30 p.m. EST in Hoover, Alabama.