CHAPEL HILL, NC - LSU Baseball's journey to the 2024 NCAA Tournament was not easy and was rocky throughout conference play.

One thing Jay Johnson has emphasized all season is that this 2024 LSU Baseball team is not the same as it was in 2023 when the Tigers won the College World Series. This year's team has had to go through much tougher times in order to earn the success of making it to the NCAA Tournament.

"I don't know if I overlooked it. But the mistake that I made is, I mean last year that was one of the best games in college baseball history. Sure, we had some adversity, but we didn't have a lot of adversity, and I think these returning players, though they were a part of it, I don't know that they got a full context of what a real college baseball season is like," Johnson said Thursday.

Johnson also said that the type of players that come into the college level are much different than the past. He explains that in lower level amateur baseball, players more or less play for themselves, so he's had to coach this team to play as one.

"They play a lot of baseball, where it's it's almost like an individual sport, you know, almost feel like a tennis coach or a golf coach or a track coach. You know, sometimes with how they're brought up within the lower levels of amateur baseball, and how they're highlighted that way, then you have to become apart of something bigger than yourself. No different than we're teaching swings, approaches, pitching mechanics, setting up hitters, you have to work on being a good teammate, and it's very unnatural for the type of player that we get or North Carolina gets. It's why sometimes, you know, you play a team like Wofford, Louisiana Lafayette that have really good players, that have old players. Like, a lot of times this is their major league and they give you everything that you have and they're good too. And sometimes, you know, they get you because of that. I feel like we have an outstanding team culture at LSU and it took a little bit for it to to come together with this team but I really like where this team is at," Johnson added.

Johnson is hopeful that where the team is at now in the season that it will get them through the NCAA Tournament, but he is not underestimating Wofford and what they bring to the table.

The Terriers play a lot of small ball with bunting, and they're one of the best teams in the country at stealing bases. They are the top team in the tournament in on base percentage and stolen bases, and Wofford is second in the nation in batting average.

Wofford's head coach JJ Edwards creating his team as such to make it harder for opposing teams to get an easy win.

"If you shorten it up, it'd be that like, there is a there is an origin story to it. Because we were... When I got to Wofford, the former head coach whose one of my best friends, Todd Interdonato, who is now at Boston College. We were 21 team, and we said you're not going to show up and just out talent people at this school. It's an expensive school. It's high academic, there's a lot of things going on. You have to do something unique. And that was what we came up with was an idea of, let's value athleticism. Let's value speed and let's make people game plan for us differently than everybody else," Edwards said.

While their tactics may be effective, the only time they faced an SEC caliber opponent, they were run ruled by Georgia 18-6 back in March, so LSU could also make things tough.

The Tigers and Terriers will face off at 11 a.m. on Friday. The game will be broadcasted on ESPNU.