NEWHD Sports

Vanderbilt surges in latest NCAA baseball tournament bracket predictions, by D1Baseball

Editor’s note: The following article was published first on d1baseball.com.

We’re a few weeks past the midseason mark, and that means it’s time for the latest D1Baseball Field of 64 Projections. Note that we will have weekly projections leading up to Selection Monday and daily projection updates during conference tournament week.

In terms of major changes to the top eight seeds in our projections, three teams are out this week: Georgia, Auburn and Georgia Tech. Georgia and Auburn remain overall hosts, while Georgia Tech has work to do with its RPI slipping all the way to 27. Florida State, LSU and Vanderbilt enter as top-eight seeds this week. Vandy surged in this week’s projections thanks to a home series sweep over SEC foe Georgia.

In terms of the Top 16 seeds, there wasn’t a ton of movement this week. Ole Miss’ RPI dropped into the 20s after losing a tough road series to South Carolina. As a result, West Virginia vaulted into the hosting mix, joining Big 12 foes TCU and Arizona in the Top 16.

Mark Etheridge, Kendall Rogers and Aaron Fitt meet in our weekly NerdCast to deliberate the latest Field of 64 projections.

Bids by conference: SEC (13), ACC (10), Big 12 (6), Big Ten (4), Sun Belt (3), Big West (2), Conference USA (2), Big East (2)

Last four in: Kansas State, USC, Connecticut, Florida
First five out: SE Louisiana, Mississippi State, UTRGV, Virginia, UC Santa Barbara

Here’s the projected field of 64 (parentheses indicate national seed, asterisks indicate automatic qualifiers):

D1Baseball Field of 64 Projections

Austin, Texas	Fort Worth
1. Texas* (1) 2. Dallas Baptist 3. Kansas State 4. Maine*	1. TCU (16) 2. Texas A&M 3. UTSA* 4. Wright State*
Clemson, S.C.	Los Angeles
1. Clemson* (2) 2. Alabama 3. Northeastern* 4. Bethune-Cookman*	1. UCLA* (15) 2. Cal Poly 3. Arizona State 4. Sacramento State*
Fayetteville, Ark.	Morgantown, W.Va.
1. Arkansas (3) 2. Kansas 3. Iowa 4. Oral Roberts*	1. West Virginia* (14) 2. Oklahoma 3. Miami 4. George Mason*
Baton Rouge, La.	Tucson, Ariz.
1. LSU (4) 2. Wake Forest 3. McNeese* 4. Central Conn. State	1. Arizona (13) 2. UC Irvine* 3. Southern California* 4. Fresno State*
Knoxville, Tenn.	Conway, S.C.
1. Tennessee (5) 2. Virginia Tech 3. Xavier* 4. SE Missouri State*	1. Coastal Carolina* (12) 2. Ole Miss 3. Duke 4. UNC Greensboro*
Tallahassee, Fla.	Auburn, Ala.
1. Florida State (6) 2. Troy 3. Florida 4. Holy Cross*	1. Auburn (11) 2. NC State 3. Southern Miss 4. Ball State*
Corvallis, Ore.	Athens, Ga.
1. Oregon State (7) 2. Oregon 3. Fairfield* 4. Gonzaga*	1. Georgia (10) 2. Georgia Tech 3. Stetson* 4. Yale*
Nashville, Tenn.	Chapel Hill, N.C.
1. Vanderbilt (8) 2. Louisville 3. Western Kentucky* 4. Missouri State*	1. North Carolina (9) 2. Kentucky 3. Connecticut 4. High Point*