Jonathan Ducoff, Texas A&M (Kendall Rogers)
Selection Storylines: Analyzing The Host Candidates
Postseason Oh, what a glorious time for the college baseball junkie. Conference tournaments mean people wake up and see morning games with their coffee, sit through sun-baked afternoon sessions and then stay up until obscene hours to see who advances.
There’s so much action, it can be hard to keep up, especially with how the results affect the Sunday evenings host announcements and Monday’s unveiling of the NCAA field. Relax a bit, D1baseball.com is here for you. Below, we lay out several of the most interesting cases the committee will decide on.
The Hosting Picture
Entering the week, there were 12 teams that everyone agreed were going to host. The only question is what order they would be slotted. There is an advantage to being a top eight national seed because as long as you win, you choose where the games are played. UCLA, Vanderbilt, Mississippi State, Georgia, Arkansas, Georgia Tech, Louisville, Texas Tech, Oklahoma State, East Carolina, Stanford and Oregon State are that dandy dozen. However, the Beavers slipped out of that solid hosting group after dropping two of three to 25-29-1 Southern California over the weekend caused their RPI rank to fall to #20.
However, Oregon State is still valued and West Coast programs historically get much more RPI leeway than do their counterparts elsewhere. We think Oregon State will still host.
Entering the week, there were a collection of clubs with hosting aspirations looking to boost their case. Here are those teams:
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