5 men’s NCAA baseball tournament players to watch
The Mongomery Advertiser’s Adam Cole and The Tennesseean’s Aria Gerson break down the top players to watch in the men’s NCAA baseball tournament.
Tony Vitello has Tennessee baseball two wins away from returning to the College World Series for the second consecutive season, as the Vols look to defend last year’s national championship.
To get back to Omaha, Vitello will need to lead his program to a super regional win against a program that he once served as an assistant coach for: Arkansas.
No. 14 Tennessee and No. 3 Arkansas are set to open up the Fayetteville Super Regional on June 7 at 5 p.m. ET at Baum–Walker Stadium in Fayetteville, Arkansas.
Vitello enters the Fayetteville Super Regional against Arkansas holding a 341-129 overall record during his tenure at Tennessee. Tennessee, the lower seed in the Fayetteville Super Regional, is 106-72 overall against ranked teams under Vitello.
Here’s what to know about Vitello ahead of the Fayetteville Super Regional:
Who is Tony Vitello?
Tony Vitello is the skipper of Tennessee baseball, a position that he has held since 2018. He’s also one of the top coaches in college baseball.
He is the lone coach to have led Tennessee to a College World Series national title, which the Vols earned last season with a 2-1 series win against Texas A&M. The Vols’ win over the Aggies ended a 25-year-long curse of the No. 1 overall seed not winning the NCAA baseball tournament.
“Kids are tough these days. They will do what you ask them to do,” Vitello said after the Vols’ CWS title win. “I know our fans got us through that tough inning. That was a group effort on the mound. If you’re in the SEC, you’re going to be a superstar player, but you need to be a good teammate, and that’s what these guys were.”
Since taking over on Rocky Top, Vitello has transformed the Tennessee baseball program into one of the top programs in the country, and a consistent one at that. Vitello made Tennessee history during the Vols’ 5-1 win over Samford back in February, as he became the fastest coach in program history to reach 300 wins.
The Fayetteville Super Regional marks the fifth consecutive super regional that the Vols have appeared in under Vitello, who has led Tennessee to six straight NCAA Tournaments. To put into perspective the impact Vitello has had on the program in the postseason, the Vols had a postseason drought that dated back to 2005 before he took over in 2017.
As noted by Tennessee’s game notes for the Fayetteville Super Regional, the 257 victories that Vitello has led the Vols to since 2021 are the most of any team in the country and 29 wins ahead of Arkansas. He’s led the Vols to the SEC regular season and SEC tournament championships twice in his tenure, first in 2022 and then in 2024.
Did Tony Vitello coach at Arkansas?
Yes, Vitello spent four years on the bench at Arkansas as one of Dave Van Horn’s assistant coaches. Vitello held his spot on Van Horn’s staff from 2014-17 and served as the Razorbacks’ hitting coach and recruiting coordinator.
Noted in Vitello’s Tennessee profile, Arkansas averaged nearly 38 wins in the four seasons he was with the Razorbacks. He helped Arkansas to three seasons of at least 40 wins and a 2015 College World Series appearance.
“(Vitello’s) a really a big-time competitor. He likes to compete at everything he does, whether it’s shooting baskets, free throws, it doesn’t matter,” Van Horn told reporters of Vitello on June 6.
“He grew up that way. His dad’s a high school coach. He was always, as a young kid, always with his dad’s teams and all the way to JUCO to Missouri, playing. In his coaching career, he’s very competitive on the recruiting trail and everything else. So that’s what it takes to have success at this level.”
Tony Vitello coaching history, record
Vitello got his start in coaching at the Power 4 conference level at his alma mater, Missouri from 2003 through 2010. He then joined now-Texas coach Jim Schlossnagle’s staff at TCU ahead of the 2011 college baseball season. He’d spend three seasons with the Horned Frogs as an assistant coach and recruiting coordinator before joining Van Horn’s staff at Arkansas.
He was hired as Tennessee’s coach, his first head coaching stint, on June 7, 2017.
Here’s a year-by-year breakdown of how Tennessee has fared under Vitello:
- 2018: 29-17 overall
- 2019: 40-21 overall
- 2020: 15-2
- 2021: 50-18
- 2022: 58-9
- 2023: 44-22
- 2024: 60-13
- 2025: 46-17
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