NCAA Baseball Tournament Prediction 4.0: Another New No. 1 Overall Seed

A new week and another new No. 1 overall seed in the latest NCAA Baseball Tournament Predictions.

After Arkansas lost two of three games to Georgia over the weekend, the Razorbacks fell back to No. 2 in the nation, allowing Texas to take over the No. 1 spot while the Bulldogs moved up to No. 5. But they’re all still in line to host NCAA Regionals, something No. 19 Vanderbilt can’t say.

In fact, after losing two games to No. 17 Oklahoma over the weekend, the Commodores have taken a couple steps further away from the top 16 national teams. But the Commodores’ play in the SEC where things do mean more, especially wins. A couple more SEC wins, especially if some of those come this weekend against Georgia, would see the Commodores move up into the top 16.

Version 4.0 of my NCAA Tournament Baseball Bracket is below, but here are a few notes and thoughts about the selection process:

Reminder, this isn’t a projection. This is what I think the bracket would look like if the selection committee made its selections today. I use the D1Baseball Top 25 Rankings for the 16 national seeds and use current conference leaders to determine who receives the automatic tournament bids. Also, it seems fair to state that the top 25 ranked teams are in the tournament. So, once those spots were filled, I was left 15 at-large bids to hand out. You can see the full bracket below:

I got a little bit help this week with conference leaders, like UTSA and McNeese sitting at the top of their conferences. I didn’t have to give them an automatic bid, which opened the door wider for teams like NC State and Kansas State to get in.
When I started doing these brackets, I had written Texas A&M off completely. Well, the Aggies are back. They’re 20-15 overall and rank 27th in RPI. The Aggies are in, but they were one of my last four teams in.
East Tennessee State and Southeastern Louisiana were my last two teams in, but all of the other contenders have 10 or more losses. Sure, their low strength of schedule ranks (131 and 241, respectively) aren’t good, but I think 25 wins or more should get you in.