NCAA Tournament Bracket Prediction 8.0: Postseason Fates Can Change Quickly

There’s only one week left in the regular season and then we’ll advance to the conference tournaments. The contenders and pretenders have started to separate from one another (finally) and we have a good idea of who will be in the field of 64.

But a lot can happen in one week. Don’t believe me? Let’s examine the curious case of Texas A&M.

The Aggies began the season as the No. 1 team in the nation. But then quickly fell out of the top 25 rankings and most NCAA Tournament projections. A 1-9 start in SEC play didn’t help their cause, but then something odd happened. The Aggies started winning.

Texas A&M won a series against then-No. 1 Tennessee, then swept South Carolina, won 2-of-3 games against then-No. 2 Arkansas before getting swept by then-No. 1 Texas. But the Aggies bounced back, beating Lamar (a NCAA Tournament bubble team itself) and wining a series (2-1) against then-No. 2 LSU.

That left the Aggies with a firm standing in the NCAA Tournament in last week’s prediction column that featured 14 SEC teams. Considering Texas A&M was lined up to play Missouri (0-24 in SEC games), the Aggies figured to win enough games to reach the NCAA Tournament.

But when Missouri came to College Station, Texas, the Tigers won all three games against Texas A&M and the Aggies saw their RPI ranking drop 24 spots.

Now, the Aggies aren’t even in the first eight teams outside the NCAA Tournament. That’s how fast things can change for teams in this college baseball season. So, just because your team is included in this week’s bracket doesn’t mean they won’t even be mentioned in next week’s bracket prediction.

Here are some notes and thoughts about this week’s NCAA Baseball Tournament prediction:

• Unsurprisingly, the SEC leads with 13 teams, followed by the ACC with nine teams, the Big 12 with seven and the Big 10 and CUSA each having three teams in the tournament.
• The line between contenders and pretenders is starting to become clearer. It was fairly easy to decide the last teams in. Although, if any of the last four teams in (see below) stumble this week, they’ll be quickly replaced by one of the first four teams out.
• This week’s region of death, goes to the Tallahassee Regional (see below) if only because it includes Florida State, Florida and Kansas State. Although, I wouldn’t want to be a coach of one of the teams in the Eugene Regional either.

Before revealing the latest NCAA Baseball Tournament Prediction, here’s my normal reminder:

This isn’t a projection. This is what I think the bracket would look like if the selection committee made its selections today. I use the D1Baseball Top 25 Rankings for the 16 national seeds and use current conference leaders to determine who receives the automatic tournament bids. Also, it seems fair to state that the teams ranked No. 16-25 will earn invites to the tournament. With that disclaimer out of the way, here’s bracket 8.0:

NCAA Baseball Tournament Prediction 8.0