Final NCAA Tournament Projections Reveal Potential WVU Regional Field

Sunday night, the West Virginia Mountaineers learned that they will be one of the 16 teams hosting a regional in this year's NCAA Tournament. It's the third time they will have done so in program history (1955, 2019), but just the second time at Kendrick Family Ballpark, and with the way the last one ended, WVU fans are hopeful this time around goes much differently.

This afternoon, the NCAA selection committee will reveal the full field of 64 at noon on ESPN2. There, we will find out who the three teams are that will be coming to Morgantown and who the Mountaineers could potentially face in the super regional, if they were to make it out of this weekend.

The final tournament projections were published last night, so let's take a look at them and see which would be the most favorable grouping for the Mountaineers.

Baseball America

No. 1 West Virginia (14) vs. No. 4 South Dakota State
No. 2 Arkansas vs. No. 3 The Citadel

D1Baseball

No. 1 West Virginia (14) vs. No. 4 Rider
No. 2 Ole Miss vs. No. 3 VCU

Both projections have WVU as the 14th overall seed, meaning they would face whoever comes out of the regional that features the No. 3 national seed. Not ideal, but if the Mountaineers had swept Houston, not blown the series finale to Cincinnati, or dropped an early-season game to Columbia or Kennesaw State, they would be much higher and get a more favorable spot in the supers.

As far as the two projections go, it's a tough call. I feel like the two-seed in this region will be either Ole Miss or Arkansas, so it's not surprising to see each of them listed. Arkansas, in my opinion, is more talented and has a higher ceiling, but has been more vulnerable. Over the course of the season, they've lost games to TCU, Arkansas State, UT Arlington, Stetson (2x), and Missouri State. The bulk of Ole Miss's losses came to teams ranked inside the top 25.

In terms of the two four-seed projections, I'd have to say South Dakota State. They went 24-31 this season and were 1-6 against power conference teams. Rider's only game against a power conference foe, Rutgers, was canceled. Historically speaking, Riders has been the far better program and just won 40 games a year ago.

Stay tuned as we will have in-depth baseball coverage for you throughout the day.

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