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 April 28th.
This projection features three teams that are under our blanket of coverage.
Gonzaga moves over to the Austin region, maintaining their third-seed spot. In Corvallis, Oregon State remains the top seed and 10th overall, and they are joined by San Diego State in the fourth spot.
Texas State falls back to the First Four Out, where they sit second.
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 28th.
There are four teams in our scope, with Texas State as the third-seed in the Austin Region. Then, there are three teams in Corvallis. Oregon State is the headliner, coming in as the #9 overall team. Gonzaga and Air Force, both conference champs, are the third and fourth teams in the region, respectively.
Texas State is considered in the Last Four In, for what it’s worth.
On3 Field of 64
This round of projections went live on Monday, with Jonathan Wagner updating his thoughts on a weekly basis.
Nevada is the fourth team in the LA Region and is the Mountain West champ. In Corvallis, Oregon State takes the top spot there. Elsewhere, Gonzaga is a third-seed (it says LA Region, but that’s probably a typo).
It’s another Corvallis grouping with Oregon State, Gonzaga, and Nevada making up three of the four teams in the region (Arkansas rounds things out). The Beavers lead the list and are #8 overall. Following them, the Bulldogs take the third spot, while the Wolf Pack are the fourth team.
If anyone knows any other projection sites, feel free to share.
