NCAA Tournament Projections (May 26)
By: trey-mccurry May 26, 2019

As Clemson awaits a potential postseason bid, The Clemson Insider releases our projections for the 2019 NCAA Baseball Tournament.

 

For a quick review, the field is made up of 64 teams split into 16 regional sites. The 64 teams consist of 31 automatic bids and 33 at-large selections.

We will break the bracket down into hosts, one-bid leagues, potential one-bid leagues, in the field, and then the bubble. Check back each day as we update the bubble and projections as conference tournament progress before releasing our entire field (with locations) on Monday morning. 

Hosts (16 teams)
Arkansas East Carolina Georgia Georgia Tech
Louisville LSU Mississippi State North Carolina
Oklahoma State Oregon State Stanford Texas Tech
Texas Tech UCLA Vanderbilt West Virginia
Teams in BOLD have won the automatic bid.

 

Auto Bids (17 teams)
Stony Brook Fordham Creighton Campbell
UC Santa Barbara Illinois-Chicago Harvard Central Michigan
Florida A&M Indiana State Fresno State Jacksonville State
Army McNeese State Nebraska-Omaha Southern
Loyola Marymount

 

One-Bid Leagues (5 teams)
Colonial Elon/UNC Wilmington
(Winner wins championship)
MAAC Fairfield/Quinnipiac
(Fairfield must win twice)
Northeast Bryant/Central Connecticut State
(Winner wins championship)
SoCon Mercer/Wofford
(Mercer must win twice)
WAC Grand Canyon/Sacramento State
(Winner wins championship)

 

Potential One-Bid Leagues (2 teams)
Atlantic Sun Stetson (must win championship game)
Liberty (win championship or potential at-large team)
Sun Belt Georgia Southern/Coastal Carolina (must win championship game)
Texas State (eliminated/potential at-large team)

 

In The Field (16 teams)
Arizona State Auburn Baylor California
Connecticut Dallas Baptist Florida Atlantic Illinois
Illinois State Indiana Miami (FL) Michigan
NC State Nebraska Ole Miss Tennessee
Teams in BOLD have won the automatic bid.

 

Bubble IN (8 spots)
Team Record Conf RPI SOS Road Q1 Q2
57 Florida State 36-21 18-14 49 58 7-10 9-11 6-7
58 Duke 31-25 16-16 44 17 10-9 9-15 6-6
59 Clemson 34-24 16-16 38 28 10-11 8-13 12-5
60 Florida 33-24 13-18 29 3 6-12 14-19 7-2
61 BYU 36-17 19-10 45 132 15-9 0-2 12-10
62 Houston 32-24 12-14 41 33 12-8 8-11 10-6
63 Missouri 34-22-1 13-17-1 30 26 11-12-1 8-16-1 6-1
64 UCF 36-22 13-15 46 52 11-8 8-9 10-9

 

Bubble OUT (8 teams)
Team Record Conf RPI SOS Road Q1 Q2
65 Arizona 32-24 15-14 48 41 10-14 3-16 12-2
66 Southern Miss 37-19 23-10 50 96 11-10 3-5 6-2
67 Texas State 36-20 20-12 52 91 14-8 4-4 8-5
68 UC Irvine 37-17 17-7 54 166 16-12 0-5 6-4
69 Wake Forest 31-26 15-17 53 39 9-15 9-14 6-6
70 TCU 32-25 14-14 58 49 9-10 12-13 7-6
71 Oklahoma 33-23 11-15 43 53 15-11 4-12 14-6
72 Virginia 32-24 14-18 47 32 9-9 9-18 5-3

 

Bubble Notes
Compared to most years there is an extremely soft bubble which means one win or loss could shift a team multiple spots as the metrics change.
Key components that the selection committee will look at include: Conference Record, RPI, SOS (Strength of Schedule), Road Record, Quad 1 records (teams ranked 1-50), and Quad 2 records (teams ranked 51-100). All metrics are as of 9:00AM on Sunday, May 26.
The only bubble teams still active are Southern Miss (facing Florida Atlantic in C-USA Championship Game) and TCU (facing Oklahoma State in a must-win game to reach the Big 12 Championship Game vs. West Virginia). 
Potential Stolen Bids for Sunday (besides Southern Miss/TCU):
– Cincinnati defeating Connecticut in AAC Championship Game
– Stetson beating Liberty in Atlantic Sun Championship Game (drops Liberty to bubble team)
– Minnesota/Ohio State winner beating Nebraska in Big 10 Championship Game