Mountain West (and beyond) NCAA baseball tournament projections will be new every week leading up to the College World Series. This seems like the natural step to continue our baseball coverage, and mirrors the bowl projections and bracketology we do with our football and basketball coverage, respectively.
For those who aren’t familiar, 64 teams make the “Road to Omaha”, which is the nickname for the NCAA Baseball Tournament that starts around the end of May. It starts with the regional rounds, with four
teams in each of the sixteen regions. They play a double-elimination mini-tournament to advance to the next round. The next round is the super regionals, where the sixteen teams play a best-of-three series, with eight advancing to the College World Series in Omaha. Those teams are once again put into a double-elimination bracket to determine a champion.
The 64 teams are chosen similarly to the NCAA Basketball Tournament. Each conference tournament champion automatically qualifies, accounting for 29 bids, leaving room for 35 at-large bids. It appears there was a change in how the 64 teams are seeded, with a committee ranking the top 32 teams. Numbers 1-16 all get 1-seeds, 17-32 get 2-seeds, but two teams from the same conference can’t be in the same region.
This post will discuss current and future Mountain West and PAC-12 teams.
Baseball America
Here is Baseball America’s Road to Omada update from May 5th.
They discuss Oregon State and some bad losses over the past week, as well as how their independence makes them difficult to judge.
In addition to that, this projection features three teams that are under our blanket of coverage.
San Diego State is the four-seed in the Los Angeles Region, facing USC. Then, in Corvallis, Oregon State is the top seed (but 16th overall), with Gonzaga coming in as the third seed.
College Sports Madness
CSM’s latest projections are from April 2nd, so no new updates once again this week.
Air Force gets the nod as the Mountain West champion, staying in the four-seed spot in the Corvallis Regional, where they are joined by top-seeded Oregon State. The Beavers are the fifteenth-best team in this projection.
It’s also worth noting that Texas State is the first team in the Last Four Out.
Those look to be the only two teams under this umbrella featured in this bracket.
D1 Baseball
D1 Baseball has a projection from yesterday on the 5th.
It’s a familiar three teams in this one. Oregon State is the headliner in Corvallis as the 15th seed, with Gonzaga joining them in the third spot in the region. Then, San Diego State joins the fun as the #4 team in Hattiesburg as the Mountain West champ.
On3 Field of 64
This round of projections went live on Monday, with Jonathan Wagner updating his thoughts on a weekly basis.
Gonzaga is once again the third seed, finding themselves in the LA Region. San Diego State will travel to Oxford, coming in as the fourth seed in that region. In a bit of a shocker, Wagner is down on Oregon State, banishing them to a second seed listing (although the top second seed) in the Los Angeles Regional (still not sure if there are two LA regions or if it’s a typo).
Entering the home stretch, it seems like San Diego State, Gonzaga, and Oregon State are in the best shape among the teams we are covering.
If anyone knows any other projection sites, feel free to share.
