LSU Tigers Officially Miss NCAA Tournament For First Time In 14 Years

The first few years of the Jay Johnson era for the LSU Tigers have seen pretty much everything. In the five seasons since being hired, they have won two national championships and now just finished the worst year the program has seen in over a decade.

On Monday morning, the field was announced for the 2026 NCAA tournament. The Tigers were left out, marking their first absence since 2011 and officially putting an end to this nightmare of a season, a 14-year streak broken.

LSU went 30-28 overall and 9-21 in SEC play. Them not being selected for the tournament comes as no surprise, given their poor play this year.

There were eleven SEC programs picked for the tournament: Florida Gators, Auburn Tigers, Texas Longhorns, Alabama Crimson Tide, Arkansas Razorbacks, Kentucky Wildcats, Oklahoma Sooners, Ole Miss Rebels, Georgia Bulldogs, Tennessee Volunteers and the Texas A&M Aggies.

The Tigers were the only typical SEC powerhouse that missed out on the tournament, as the Vanderbilt Commodores also missed out after 19 straight appearances.

Given Johnson's intense personality and work ethic, he'll be busy this offseason doing everything he can to make sure that it doesn't happen again. They're going to need some players to stand up with Jake Brown and Derek Curiel both leaving for the MLB, with the chance of Steven Milam also leaving.

They'll be returning their top two pitchers in William Schmidt and Casan Evans, but will mostly need to overhaul their bullpen that led to the SEC-worst pitching staff this season.