NCAA Baseball Tournament Bubble Watch (5/14/24) — College Baseball, MLB Draft, Prospects - Baseball America
With less than two weeks until Selection Monday, the race for the NCAA Tournament in college baseball is reaching a fever pitch.
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NCAA Tournament Bubble Watch - May 14
With less than two weeks until Selection Monday, the race for the NCAA Tournament is reaching a fever pitch.
As Selection Monday approaches, I’ll be tracking the development of the Field of 64 and, most importantly, what every team needs to do to secure an at-large bid.
For these purposes, I’ll sort teams that are in at-large contention into three camps:
1) Locks. Reserved for teams that could lose out and still make the NCAA Tournament. That’s a bit nit-picky, but when I say lock, I mean it.
2) Should be in. Generally, a team that would be solidly in if the field was selected today.
3) Work to do. Nothing is guaranteed for these teams.
In the conference records listed, I include any win against a conference team, whether it counts toward the conference standings or not because that is how the information is presented to the selection committee. So, for instance, Illinois gets credit for a conference win for its victory against Michigan State in an early season tournament. Overall records do not include any wins against teams outside of Division I, as those do not appear in the information presented to the selection committee and do not factor into RPI’s calculation.
RPI remains the selection committee’s primary metric, but this year it has also brought KPI into the mix. It’s unclear how much emphasis KPI will be given in the selections, so while I’m looking at it and referencing it, I haven’t presented those rankings here for the sake of keeping this a bit more easily digestible.
BIG TEN
The conference race remains quite messy and much of the league remains in RPI trouble. I locked up Nebraska, as it is now assured of a Top-45 RPI and a top-five conference finish. Everyone else needs to finish strong.
Lock: Nebraska
Should Be In: None
Work to Do: Indiana, Illinois, Maryland, Purdue
Indiana (28-21-1, 13-8 - RPI: 56 - SOS: 32)
The Hoosiers took a tough series loss at Nebraska, falling to third in the Big Ten standings. They’re still paying the price for a poor March (and the final couple days of February), when they went 9-13, including four quad 4 losses. That’s created a real RPI issue for IU, which needs to be near perfect to get into the top 50 by the end of the regular season. Unfortunately, it faces a difficult closing stretch (at Louisville, Michigan). At this point, I don’t think there’s anything the Hoosiers can do to feel safe going into the Big Ten Tournament. They simply need to win as many games as they can this week.
Illinois (30-17, 16-6 - RPI: 58 - SOS: 94)
Illinois has won five of its last seven games, pushing its RPI into the top 60 and itself into first place in the Big Ten. It’s not out of the woods, however. The RPI is never going to be good and poor records in road games (5-10) and against quality competition (4-10 quad 1, 6-12 vs. quads 1 and 2) are going to dog it. But winning the Big Ten title, which Illinois can do this weekend with a series win at Purdue, would be a nice feather in its cap (and provide more quad 2 wins). Would it put it over the top? I don’t know. But the Illini need all the help they can get.
Maryland (34-19, 10-11 - RPI: 35 - SOS: 74)
In a conference of teams with good league records and bad RPIs, the Terrapins stand out as the opposite. Maryland goes into the final weekend in a three-way tie for seventh place in the conference, one game ahead of Penn State (its opponent this weekend) and Minnesota. It must finish in the top eight of the standings to reach the Big Ten Tournament, which is likely a (unofficial) prerequisite to its at-large case. It also would be wise to at least get to .500 in conference play, making this weekend an absolute must-win and a sweep sure would be nice. The rest of the resume is good, not great (2-2 vs. quad 1, 13-10 vs. quads 1 and 2, just one quad 4 loss) and I’d be interested in knowing how the regional advisory committee would line up Indiana (which won its series at Maryland), Illinois (which lost its series at Maryland) and the Terrapins. Its selling point is its RPI, but Maryland can’t finish better than seventh place in the conference standings. All the Terrapins can do is make this tough for the committee.
Purdue (32-19, 13-8 - RPI: 68 - SOS: 92)
The Boilermakers have lost consecutive series to Big Ten contenders (Indiana, Michigan), likely ending their tournament hopes. But they still have a shot at the Big Ten title this weekend against Illinois and if they win that, maybe there’s still a path to regionals. We’re probably talking about a must-sweep series though.
