Watching the Tech - UGA game earlier on SEC Network and was reminded what has been discussed on here - the NCAA will likely make baseball regionals quite…regional. Given that, and given the current rankings (I admit I don’t keep up on that like I should), who do you think might land in the Fayetteville Regional?
If OSU and Texass are still winning, I’m guessing they’ll host a regional (that might be good for us), so who might be assigned to Fayetteville ?
ORU is #110 in RPI. They lead the Summit League on percentage points, but they’ve only played 11 conference games; some others have played 23. Just had an entire series with Omaha wiped out. They’d have to win the conference tournament; no way they get an at large.
I’ve seen Nebraska put in a Fayetteville regional by somebody, probably D1B. Or Iowa, another top-50 RPI team from the Big Ten. Baylor maybe; all the Texas regionals would be hosted by other Big 12 teams.
Lo and behold, the updated D1B projection is out and they give us: Baylor, Iowa and ORU, in order 2-4.
Then there’s one idiot who doesn’t even have us hosting a regional, much less a national seed. He puts us as the 2 seed in Stillwater.
What the hell? Does he think we’re going to lose 2 out 3 or 3 out of 4 of our remaining games? If we win even half of our remaining SEC games, we finish 19-11. That’s normally good for a regional host spot. We should win at least 4 of our 6 home games against UGA & UF. I suppose we could get swept at TN & LSU, but I doubt it. I’d think we’d win at least 2 of the 6.
As of this moment Warren Nolan has us finishing the SEC 20-10, getting swept at both TN & winning 1 at LSU, but sweeping our remaining home series. (However, I’ve watched the Nolan site enough to know that could change a dozen times before we play our first game Friday.)
I think our odds of being the overall #1 seed are better than our chances of falling all the way to a 2nd spot in a regional.
Unless they lose a game or two, I’d think Fairfield will be 2 seed somewhere.
I’m getting tired of that term. Hell, all these predictions are based on some sort of analysis or “analytics.” I’m thinking this guy’s “analytics” is that he wants to go against the grain. My analytics tell me we’re gonna win at least 19 SEC games, probably more, and will be a host at Fayetteville.
The No. 3 and 4 seeds are probably going to be dependent on conference tournament champions in mid- and low-major conferences. There is just no way to know what teams will represent those conferences right now. If ORU wins the Summit, I expect to see that team here or in Stillwater if OSU hosts.
The No. 2 seed is usually a little easier to try to peg, but it was tough the last two years with Southern Miss and Cal. It seems to be a Power 5 team more often than not. I think Nebraska and Baylor are a couple of strong candidates right now.
Some years it is easy to pick the regional field and some years you’ll go 0 for 3.
In 2017, the Fayetteville Regional had a true regional feel with Missouri State, Oklahoma State and Oral Roberts. The 2018 regional branched out a bit geographically, but it still had a somewhat regional feel with Southern Miss, Dallas Baptist and ORU.
In 2019, there were two teams (California and Central Connecticut State) that traveled more than 1,000 miles to Fayetteville.
I tend to think the higher-seeded teams get some favoritism in their fields. Arkansas was one of the last teams to get a regional host spot in 2017 and ended up with strong No. 2 and No. 3 seeds, Missouri State and Oklahoma State.
The regional field was not nearly as strong the last two times the Razorbacks hosted. TCU, the No. 3 seed in the 2019 regional, was the final at-large team to make the tournament.
If they did an S curve like the March Madness committee does, the #16 seed would get #17 as it’s 2 seed. Geography tends to play a part; there was nowhere really close to put Central Connecticut, so they sent them to Baum. And there have been plenty of regionals in Texas with four teams from inside the state because of the number of good D-1 programs there. In Cal’s case, the western regionals were probably hosted by other Pac-12 teams so they had to go somewhere else to avoid a conference rematch. And now that I look, UCLA, Stanford and Molester State all hosted.