Here are this week's projections:
Thoughts? Questions?
https://d1baseball.com/postseason/2024-d1baseball-field-of-64-projections-april-17/
Question on how you pick where you project the 2-4 seeds and which site they go to. Do you project that based on proximity (i.e. the Columbia and Fayetteville regionals) or do you do a serpentine? I.e. the 2 (VT) seed in the WV #16 regional is your #17 team and the #2 seed in the #1 regional ULL would be your #32 team - if that makes sense?
Another observation from watching the nerdcast today about the big east. Didn't you guys project Georgetown to win and gave them a 4 seed and give Creighton an at large and give them a #3 seed? I don't see that as being realistic if that happened and GT won the tournament and Creighton was playing well enough to get an at large bid. But I think Creighton will win that conference. Just my thoughts
I've watched the first two "Nerdcast" episodes where they choose the 16 host teams and then pick the rest of the field. They don't even talk about possible regional pairings (which is fine, I get that at this stage of the season). Looking at their regional fields it appears it's almost entirely based on geography with maybe a touch of click bait thrown in for fun (do they ever NOT pair A&M and Texas?). It's true that the NCAA also throws any sort of "S-Curve" out the window (i.e., the #1 seed doesn't necessarily get the worst #2 seed, etc.) and places significant weight on geographic proximity and travel costs, but the D1 regional pairings seem to take that to the max.
With the current prediction of only 1 west coast host, 1 Texas host and no hosts in the Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama footprint it makes things a little wonky. Especially with 7 hosts in the Carolinas alone (all of which I agree with at this point).
I like it. Nebraska (my team) a 2 seed @ Indiana St paired with National Seed 5 FSU. Freeze this and, the gods willing, make it so on selection day.
Why is UNC who has lost 3 series ahead of OSU who has lost 1 series for the 7 vs 8 seed. It's like you say weekend series matter but then they don't if it's a PAC-12 team. OSU is ranked 6 spots higher in your poll (which obviously means nothing). I get the west is down this year, but it wasn't last year when the Beavers finished 2nd (41-20 overall, 18-12 league last year) and didn't get a top 16 seed but the 6th best team in SEC did.
How do you justify a UT squad with a 74 RPI as a 3 seed, much less in the tourney at all? They also just got curb stomped by UTRGV.
How do you justify a UT squad with a 74 RPI as a 3 seed, much less in the tourney at all? They also just got curb stomped by UTRGV.
That's a conference standing pick at the moment. A series loss to TCU this weekend would assuredly knock the Longhorns out of next week's projections, IMO.
I've watched the first two "Nerdcast" episodes where they choose the 16 host teams and then pick the rest of the field. They don't even talk about possible regional pairings (which is fine, I get that at this stage of the season). Looking at their regional fields it appears it's almost entirely based on geography with maybe a touch of click bait thrown in for fun (do they ever NOT pair A&M and Texas?). It's true that the NCAA also throws any sort of "S-Curve" out the window (i.e., the #1 seed doesn't necessarily get the worst #2 seed, etc.) and places significant weight on geographic proximity and travel costs, but the D1 regional pairings seem to take that to the max.
With the current prediction of only 1 west coast host, 1 Texas host and no hosts in the Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama footprint it makes things a little wonky. Especially with 7 hosts in the Carolinas alone (all of which I agree with at this point).
The committee guides regional pairings in most instances based on a 400-500 mile type of radius -- there are some deviations to that rule, more in recent seasons, but that's what they try to do. The only difference I see sometimes is with the four seeds. They have gotten way better as of late about giving high national seeds actual cruddy four seeds.