The No. 20 LSU men’s tennis team will begin its final week of regular season play with a Southeastern Conference match against No. 11 Mississippi State at 3 p.m. today.

The Tigers (13-9, 4-6 SEC) were originally slated to take on the Bulldogs (15-7, 5-5 SEC) on March 24, but Mississippi State postponed the match due to high winds. LSU assistant coach Danny Bryan said  while wind is occasionally an issue, the lack of indoor facilities at LSU ultimately lead to the cancellation.  

“We felt like it was not that windy [on the courts],” Bryan said. “Once the new [indoor] facility is done, we won’t have to worry about this ever again.”   

With that decision, Mississippi State set up the rarity of a midweek conference game for the Tigers, who claimed their fourth top-20 win over the weekend against then-No. 6 Tennessee. Bryan said he is not worried about the change in routine affecting the players. 

“I think the guys are excited [to play Mississippi State],” Bryan said. “We are obviously on a roll, and I think we all just want to keep playing and see how many wins we can get to try to stay hot for the SEC tournament.”   

With the conference tournament right around the corner, the Tigers find themselves in 11th place in the SEC, but could rise as high as sixth by the end of the weekend because of a logjam of teams sitting one or two games ahead of them. The only teams that have clinched their spots are No. 3 Georgia, the top seed, and last place Arkansas.

“[Before the Tennessee match] I think the team didn’t think they were really that good,” Bryan said. “We would win an emotional match and then think that was going to be our one great day for the year, which led to some of the letdowns on Sunday matches. This time it is different because now we have [a body of work] that has them thinking they can play at that level

more consistently.”