The 16 regional sites, with host institutions and records are as follows:
- Athens, Georgia – Georgia (39-15)
- Chapel Hill, North Carolina – North Carolina (42-13)
- Charlottesville, Virginia – Virginia (41-15)
- Clemson, South Carolina – Clemson (41-14)
- Bryan-College Station, Texas – Texas A&M (44-13)
- Corvallis, Oregon – Oregon State (42-14)
- Fayetteville, Arkansas – Arkansas (43-14)
- Greenville, North Carolina – East Carolina (43-15)
- Knoxville, Tennessee – Tennessee (50-11)
- Lexington, Kentucky – Kentucky (40-14)
- Norman, Oklahoma – Oklahoma (37-19)
- Raleigh, North Carolina – NC State (33-20)
- Santa Barbara, California – UC Santa Barbara (42-12)
- Stillwater, Oklahoma – Oklahoma State (40-17)
- Tallahassee, Florida – Florida State (42-15)
- Tucson, Arizona – Arizona (36-21)
My $0.02. if Oregon State was a host you almost had to put in Arizona given they won the PAC regular season and tournament. But at 31 RPI that's a real stretch.
Duke not being included feels borderline criminal. Wake and Miss State meeting left out is ok.
Wait, I missed that Indiana State was left out!! @kendall-rogers @aaron-fitt @mark-etheridge did they have Super host problems again because of Special Olympics like last time??
@sean-miller Indiana State was sure snubbed. I agree with KR and Fittsy that Arizona should've been a host.
Mississippi State not hosting is a crime. Arguably best stadium in the country outside of Alex Box in Baton Rouge. Hate that Duke got snubbed too especially after drubbing FSU today.
ECU being a host over the 3 I mentioned is insane.
With that being said, let's see if the committee is a little more lenient on the RPI when it comes to other teams in the bracket *cough* Tulane as a 3 seed *cough*
@brenton-dufrene-iii I think Tulane has to be a 3.
At first blush I have 9 AQS that are solidly 1 or 2 seeds, 4 that are likely 3 seeds and the rest I'd have at 4. That's 17 "4 seeds" which even Aggie math tells me is one too many. I have not done a deep resume dive yet to be fair
1/2s: Duke, OkState, Nebraska, UCSB, DBU, Arizona, Tennessee, S. Miss & San Diego.
3s: Fresno, UNCW, St John's and likely Tulane (my 4th).
Other possible 3 seeds include Wofford (50), VCU (75), Evansville (76) or Grand Canyon (96)
@sean-miller Who else would you have put in besides Duke as a host? Would they have replaced ECU on your list of 16 hosts? Indiana State on that list too?
Minor question also but where do you see Tulane going? D1 Baseball had them going to Starkville and that's obvious not happening now. I think either Fayetteville or Tallahassee.
@brenton-dufrene-iii I went through it all last night and sketched out my 16 regionals. I'll say, I think Tulane is right in the 3/4 ledge. They have the RPI of a 4, but feel to good to be "fair" to whatever host gets them as a 4. So maybe you make them the last 3. That's what I did, and I have them in Tennessee.
It's almost essential they do to an SEC/ACC regional because you have so many 2/3 seed teams from those conferences that can't be paired in conference.
I think Tallahassee is the only school within bus range for Tulane and it's just barely. But there's a lot of other schools that are also bus range to Tallahassee. Stetson, Florida, etc.
I'll be honest, what I really learned through my little exercise is that packaging the 16 regionals is kind of a crap shoot.
@brenton-dufrene-iii oh, and I would have had Indiana State and Duke in over ECU and Arizona. No metric in the world can convince me those are the right choices. At least Arizona has the double PAC championship but at 31!!?? That RPI is far too low. And the ONLY way you don't have Indiana State is if there was something flawed with their bid. There's a GIANT Special Olympics competition in Terre Haute the week of the Super Regionals. That was a real problem last year and the NCAA had to scramble to move those games because they couldn't provide hotel rooms for the visiting team. They ended up moving the Super Regional to TCU (I think?). There's a chance the NCAA rejected their Host bid if they couldn't guarantee hotel space for the Supers. But that is the ONLY reason they shouldn't host.
@sean-miller Indiana State was moved to TCU for Supers last season.
I think Duke should've hosted over ECU. I think MS State should have hosted also. I don't have a problem with Arizona hosting being PAC 12 champs. It sends a message that RPI isn't an absolute. Let's just hope the committee is consistent. I'll be holding my breath.
My only reason to keep harping on Tulane as a 3 seed is the way they've been playing. They haven't played like a 4 seed in the last month and especially in the AAC Tourney. I was annoyed watching the nerdcast just to see the guys casually put Tulane on the 4 line with no regard for how they've been playing. Tulane is a 3 seed. RPI be damned. I know they're trying to guess what the committee will do but man...
first of all, having the best stadium is not a criterion for hosting.
but anyway, both Duduy-Noble and Baum-Walker are WAY better than Alex Box. LSU messed that up when they felt they had to recreate the old Box
