Teammates greet Seth Lancaster a home run (Aaron Fitt)
Postseason Stock Report: Week 13
Stock Report SEE ALSO: Field of 64 projection: Week 13
SEE ALSO: ? Nerdcast: Discussing the top 16 seeds and at-large candidates
SEE ALSO: ? RPI Nitty Gritty
This time of year, a hefty majority of all questions submitted in our weekly college chat, as well as those sent via e-mail or Twitter, center around the battle for postseason positioning. Our readers want to know how the races for national seeds, host sites and at-large bids are shaping up—so it’s time to roll out our weekly Stock Report feature. Every week, we’ll examine how the postseason picture has shifted over the previous week. This analysis is intended to complement our weekly NCAA tournament field of 64 projection, which was put together in a conference call with Kendall Rogers, Mark Etheridge and me on Sunday night.
Below, we’ll look at who’s in, who’s out, who’s on the bubble for at-large spots, hosts and national seeds. This discussion is weighted more toward performance to date and remaining schedule than projection based on talent, but it’s also not intended to show exactly what the field would look like if the season ended today. We’re still looking ahead, and we’re still taking talent into consideration when putting together our forecasts.
During this discussion, we will reference the RPI Rankings through Tuesday’s games (even though our field was constructed Sunday and did not take Tuesday’s action into account). And we’ll make use of records against the top 25, 50 or 100 in the RPI using the D1Baseball Nitty Gritty Report (also through Tuesday’s action).
We’ll get to at-large chances in a bit, but let’s start with a look at which teams are on track to earn national seeds and which are on track to host regionals through the first 13 weeks of the season:
National Seeds (top 8)
SECURE TEAMS: Florida, Stanford, Arkansas, North Carolina, Oregon State
ON THE BUBBLE (IN): Ole Miss, Georgia, Clemson
ON THE BUBBLE (OUT): Stetson, Florida State, NC State, East Carolina, Texas Tech
No change from last week.
We shuffled the order of our top eight seeds a bit this week, but the eight teams remained the same. Sweeping Texas A&M this weekend helped Arkansas jump from the No. 6 seed a week ago to No. 3 this week, because only Florida can come anywhere close to matching Arkansas’ 14-4 record against the top 25 in the RPI, and the Hogs are now sitting pretty in the SEC at 17-10. But Stanford is still one spot ahead of Arkansas in the RPI, and still sitting atop the Pac-12 standings, so it remains the No. 2 seed despite many fewer games against top competition.
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