Everything Vanderbilt Coach Tim Corbin Said on NCAA Tournament Selection Show

The coach for the No. 1 overall seed team in the NCAA Baseball Tournament made a short appearance on ESPN2 to talk about his team and its postseason status.

SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey presents the trophy to Vanderbilt Commodores head coach Tim Corbin as Ole Miss Rebels take on Vanderbilt Commodores during the SEC baseball tournament championship game at Hoover Met in Birmingham, Ala., on Sunday, May 25, 2025. Vanderbilt Commodores defeated Ole Miss Rebels 3-2. | Jake Crandall/ Montgomery Advertiser / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

For the second time in program history, Vanderbilt will hold the No. 1 overall seed in the NCAA Baseball Tournament after winning the SEC Baseball championship on Sunday.

The field of 64 was announced in the NCAA Selection Show on ESPN2 and Vanderbilt coach Tim Corbin made an appearance on the show after the bracket was revealed. Here's everything Corbin said during his appearance:

On his favorite thing at Buc' ees…

I don't really eat there, I love their bathrooms, so I just wait to go to the bathroom and use their bathrooms there. 

You guys gave up three runs in whoever you play here in defense. How would you best describe how this team is positioned and constructed to win big this year?

We've just been consistent in all areas, really. Pitching from the beginning of the year, defense certainly, throughout the year too, really well down this last stretch. And then offensively, we started to find our identity in the middle part of the year. So I think in all three facets, pretty consistent, pretty mature for the most part. We've limited mistakes and we've been able to grow as a group.

Just from your standpoint, you've been in the postseason plenty. How has your approach changed you then, once you turn the page and now we're in the postseason past the SEC drive pass?

Not too much. I think that's the thing about playing the postseason. We feel like we've played postseason baseball for a long period of time. You go back to the middle of April when we were 11-9 and we were down at Ole Miss and coming off a rough two games. We won the last one and then we really started to play postseason baseball at that point. Felt that way. The teams that we were playing were really good.

And we knew that we had to do some damage in that schedule in order to have an opportunity to get into the tournament. Not really thinking about seeds, but just get to the tournament where we could play well. 

We're in an era of college baseball where guys are throwing with unbelievable velocity. Connor Fennell's not one of those guys, yet he's had an incredible season. What has allowed him to be so successful for you guys on the mound?

His mentality. You can throw away the numbers, whether it's Connor or anyone else. If you feel it's really the human who's throwing the baseball more than anything. He's one of those kids that has great believability in himself. He's confident, he's certainly focused when he's pitching, and he's a baseball player. There are some pitchers that you feel like they pitch, but he's a guy that really understands the game. He understands himself, and he's pitching for one reason, and that's to win games with his team. 

This program had gone 22 consecutive seasons without making the NCAA tournament. You've now made it 19 straight years. That's the longest active streak in all of Division I. How did this happen?

Over time, there was a lot of pulling and pushing to get to where we are right now. I've talked about it with a team, and they're probably sick of hearing it. The only reason I do is just because there's a tremendous amount of gratitude for building a program and putting it in a position to where it can play for situations that we're playing. It takes a lot of people. It's great staff people over time. A lot of good players, and then you try to recreate situations where you can develop an environment where they take ownership of it, and it becomes theirs. I think that's the greatest compliment you can give a team is when they take ownership of it, and it's theirs.

I love watching them compete. It makes you very happy to be part of them, and we're proud of them.