Very latest NCAA Tournament Projections (5/8)

Very hard to grow the game of college baseball with 13 regional hosts in the Southeast. Let’s hope the committee does better. 

Vince, let me flip this around for you....if you want a better representation across the country, perhaps those schools outside of the southeast should invest in coaches, facilities, recruiting budgets, NIL, etc the way their southeastern counterparts do.  I realize there is a bit of a chicken/egg dilemma in that thought process, but those schools have to spend enough to keep their home grown talent in state/region.

Please explain how in your 5/1 projections the Beavers were the 9 overall seed and now in your 5/8 projections after winning the last two series at home against Oregon and on the road against Washington State then splitting their mid-week games losing at Oregon and winning at Gonzaga they go to no national seed.  They are #7 in your own poll, yet they don't get a regional host before the 7th best SEC team or the 5th best ACC team or even Oklahoma or UCSB.  So let me get this straight, you think they're the 7th best team in the national, but not worthy of a host spot.  They have lost two series all year and yet you have teams like UNC (who has lost four) as the #6 seed.  I mean Indiana State, the new #9 overall, is better than OSU? They haven't played anyone.  When they did actually play a decent team, they lost most of those games.  What a joke.

I still believe Texas A&M (for now) should be the #1 overall seed.  RPI, SOS, and non-conference metrics are similar enough, so it comes down to the quadrant records.  I see those 17 Q1 wins for Kentucky but when you dig into who those were against and compare them to A&M's, the body of work favors the Aggies.

Kentucky (17)

• Georgia (3)
• at Ole Miss (3)
• Alabama (3)
• at Auburn (3)
• at Louisville (1)
• Tennessee (1)
• South Carolina (1)
• Arkansas (2)

Texas A&M (14)

• at Texas (1)
• at Florida (1)
• Mississippi State (2)
• at South Carolina (2)
• Vanderbilt (3)
• at Alabama (2)
• Georgia (2)
• at LSU (1)

Wins matter, especially on the road.  I don't want to take anything away from Kentucky.  All Q1 wins aren't equal, and I think context matters; Auburn and Ole Miss aren't tournament teams, and you could make the argument Florida probably isn't either.  Kentucky is coming off two losing weekends while A&M had won five straight weekends.

Furthermore, Kentucky has three losing weekends to Tennessee, South Carolina, and Kennesaw State (shouts to the Owls) while Texas A&M has just two, both on the road, to Florida and LSU.  Texas A&M has no losses outside of Q1 while the Wildcats have 2 Q3 losses and 1 Q4 loss. 

If you ask me, the Aggies have the better resume.

Naturally, I'm going to post this and Texas A&M is going to drop a series to Arkansas, Kentucky goes 0-2 in the SEC Tournament, and Tennessee or Clemson will be the #1 overall seed and this entire thing is moot.

Kendall, have you heard any rumblings on Minnesota’s next coach. A Twin Cities writer said it is expected to be former Gopher Brian Raabe. The writer throws a lot of stuff at the wall and honestly I think there are a number of other ways I’d go.

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Very hard to grow the game of college baseball with 13 regional hosts in the Southeast. Let’s hope the committee does better. 

Then teams in the North need to step up. The West needs to produce more than 1 top 13 team 

Everyone knows for a fact the SEC and the ACC own college baseball

@batflipsandinfieldshifts I don't want your #1 seed.  Kentucky or Tennessee can have that cursed monster.  Just give me 2 or 3.

D1 has their penultimate projection out.  I think there's a couple of interesting ones and may already be a couple that have changed. 

https://d1baseball.com/stories/2024-d1baseball-field-of-64-projections/

They have: 

1. Reverse
2. Kentucky
3. UNC
4. Texas A&M
5. Arkansas
6. Clemson
7. Florida State
8. Oklahoma
9. Georgia
10. Virginia
11. OkState
12. NC State 
13. Santa Barbara 
14. Oregon State
15. Indiana State
16. Mississippi State 

A couple of teams I have some issue with...

• #3 UNC. The metrics don't really support them above #4. I assume they're being rewarded for the conference championship but their Q1 metrics show how they stacked up against the best teams. They lost series to East Carolina, Miami, NC State and Virginia.  Maybe it's about stacking the SEC into the same side of the bracket. 
• #8 OU. I've had OU at 7 or 8 for weeks now because no one else really seemed to deserve it. Now Ok State has won 4 of 5 from OU, has the tourney championship AND has a better RPI. Make the change. 
• #14 Oregon State. What metrics get them here? They didn't win the conference or the tourney, their RPI is #17 and they are 4-3 vs Q1. 
• #16 MissState vs Duke. State had a nice run but their RPI is #24. Why are we reaching that far for a sixth SEC host?  I know the boys didn't have the knowledge of Duke thumping FSU when they did this but to me Duke has clearly earned one of the final 2 spots as of this afternoon. 

How I'd lay them out: 

1. Tennessee
2. Kentucky
3. Texas A&M
4. UNC
5. Arkansas
6. Clemson
7. Florida St
8. Oklahoma St
9. Georgia
10. OU
11. Virginia
12. NC State
13. UC-Santa Barbara 
14. Indiana State
15. Duke
16. Oregon State