By Micah Beutell
We are back and we are approaching the month of April and we enter the best time of the year. We have meaningful baseball games very weekend and so much still to sort out. We saw a ton of change since our last bracketology article at the end of February. So, let's see where we stand at the end of March.
POWER FIVE:
SEC (12): Florida, Arkansas, LSU, Texas A&M, Tennessee, South Carolina, Vanderbilt, Kentucky, Alabama, Georgia, Ole Miss, and Mississippi State
ACC (9): Wake Forest, Clemson, Duke, North Carolina, Virginia, NC State, Miami, Virginia Tech, and Florida State
Big 12 (7): TCU, Texas, Oklahoma State, Texas Tech, Kansas State, UCF, and Oklahoma
Pac 12 (4): Oregon State, Oregon, Cal, Utah
Big 10 (3): Maryland, Nebraska, and Rutgers
Let's start with the biggest challenge of all. What do you do with the SEC? There are 13 teams that all have legitimate cases to be a tournament team. While this is a projection, I went with the 12 teams who currently would be in Hoover. No team, since the SEC tournament expanded to 12 teams, has made the NCAA tournament, but missed Hoover. That means Auburn and Missouri are the two teams who will miss the NCAA tournament at this time.
The Big 12 & Pac 12 are quite confusing with a lot of early season craziness. I feel both conferences will have a regional hosts, so Oregon State will represent the Pac 12 & Oklahoma the Big 12. Utah makes the last four in as they are riding high with their RPI. I am not sure it holds, but in a Pac 12 that is wide open, I will let what I have seen so far put them in the field.
The ACC sees its stock rise and we wait to see if the ACC can get a 10th team in. Wake Forest is the biggest fall since the last time we did this going from the #1 overall seed to travelling to ECU. Things could easily flip for Wake, but this team needs a huge weekend series winover UNC to be reconsidered as a host.
The Big 10 has looked pretty bad over the course of the year. Preseason favorite Iowa has faltered and has gone from a potential host to missing the field. Nebraska has a great RPI that could put them as a host if they were to win the Big 10 tournament and Rutgers has done a great job out of conference to give them a great a chance if they were to perform well in conference play.
Mid-Majors:
CAA (1): Campbell
Sun Belt (3): Coastal Carolina, Southern Miss, and Louisiana
C-USA (2): Dallas Baptist & Sam Houston State
Big West (2): UC-Santa Barbara & UC Irvine
American: (1): East Carolina
A10 (1): VCU
Mountain West (1): Air Force
Mid-American (1): Bowling Green
The biggest piece of this bracket is the amount of Sun Belt teams on the bubble. This conference will beat itself, but is loaded with really good teams. I really like JMU & App State so I wouldn't be surprised if they make the field at some point soon. The CAA went from 3 bids to 1, as the RPI for the conference has really fallen since last month. It could easily be a three bid league, but currently has fallen behind some of the other mid-major conferences.
Small Conference:
Missouri Valley (1): Indiana State
Southern (1): UNC-Greensboro
West Coast (1): Portland
Southland (1): Lamar
Big South (1): USC-Upstate
WAC (1): Grand Canyon
ASUN (1): Austin Peay
America East (1): UMBC
Horizon (1): Northern Kentucky
Ohio Valley (1): Southeast Missouri State (SEMO)
Patriot (1): Army
Ivy (1): Penn
MAAC (1): Rider
Summit (1): South Dakota State
NEC (1): Wagner
SWAC (1): Jackson State
Let me know what you think in the comments. Did I wrongly seed your favorite team? Who am I sleeping on? What team am I way too high on? All feedback is good, and I look forward to talking baseball all season long with you.
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