Its College Baseball post-season time, something we’ve followed in this space for years. Here’s a quick guide to the CWS 2026 post season. The field of 64 was announced on Memorial Day Weekend at Noon, so here’s a preview of this coming weekend’s 16 regional events.
First off, some resources for you.
- Your final top 25 heading into the post-season according to d1baseball, baseballamerica, and usatoday Coaches poll.
- WarrenNolan’s RPI rankings are a very important part of the seeding and selection process, as we’ll discuss in a bit.
- Here’s D1Baseball.com’s Tournament Central, my favorite place to track the tourney.
- Here’s the NCAA.com field of 64 Bracket with some great data points at NCAA.com
Your top 8 seeds and favorites to make Omaha, in order, along with their D1Baseball Rank, RPI and their Strength of Schedule (SoS) denoted:
- UCLA (51-6): D1Baseball #1, RPI #1, SoS #25
- Georgia Tech (48-9): D1Baseball #2, RPI #2, SoS #15
- Georgia (46-12): D1Baseball #3, RPI #7, SoS #24
- Auburn (38-19), D1Baseball #5, RPI #3, SoS #1
- North Carolina (45-11-1), D1Baseball #4, RPi #4, SoS #13
- Texas (40-13) D1Baseball #6, RPI #5, SoS #9
- Alabama (37-19). D1Baseball #16, RPI #6, SoS #3
- Florida (39-19), D1Baseball #10, RPI #11, SoS #2
UCLA has put in one of the most dominant seasons we’ve seen in some time, and has never NOT been ranked #1 on any poll at any point during the season. They’re 51-6. here’s their 6 losses:
- 2/15/26 vs UC San Diego on the first Sunday of the season
- 2/24/26 vs San Diego State, a mid-week Tuesday game
- 4/14/26 vs UC Santa Barbara, another mid-week Tuesday game
- 4/26/26 vs Sacramento State, a Sunday series finale
- 5/9/26 vs Oregon, the Saturday game of their marquee series of the season
- 5/14/26 At Washington, the “Friday” game of their last league series of the season.
As for the rest of the top 8 seeds, Georgia Tech won the ACC tournament and #3 Georgia won the SEC tournament, so no surprise there. You can quibble slightly with Georgia’s RPI versus its ranking, but winning the SEC gives them that spot. Auburn gets seeded ahead of several other higher ranked SEC schools mostly because of its RPI and SoS, but they’re just 17-18 against Q1 schools, meaning I suspect they’ll be favored to get to Omaha but will go 2-out once they’re there. Same with Alabama, who is also .500 in Q1 games and is the only top 8 seed that seems to be out of line with their ranking. UNC is basically the 2nd best ACC team. Texas probably would have been above Auburn had they done better in the SEC tourney. Lastly we have Florida, who sneaks into a top 8 seed ahead of its rival Florida State, who has a slightly worse Q1 record and who lost too early in the ACC tourney.
The National seeds 9-16 and the other regional hosts go as follows:
- #9: Southern Miss (44-15). D1baseball ranked #7, RPI #12, SoS #35.
- #10: Florida State (38-17): D1Baseball ranked #12, RPI #8, SoS #5
- #11: Oregon (40-16), D1Baseball ranked #15, RPI #15, SoS #29
- #12: Texas A&M (39-14), D1Baseball #11, RPI #14, SoS #17
- #13: Nebraska (42-15), D1Baseball #20, RPI #10, SoS #40
- #14: Mississippi State (40-17), D1Baseball #17, RPI #13, SoS #7
- #15 Kansas (42-16) D1baseball #13, RPI #19, SoS #60
- #16 West Virginia (39-14), D1Baseball #9, RPI #17, SoS #56
Are there any hosting snubs here? Yeah probably. I’d say Arkansas has the biggest beef here: they’re ranked 14th, just made the SEC tourney final, are a bit depressed in RPI but have a 18-13 Q1 record. But it’s splitting hairs; who would you take out? WVA is screwed as the #16 seed playing into UCLA when they’re ranked top 10 and just made their conference final. Maybe Nebraska is a little weak here, but they won the Big 10 and have to get some props. The highest ranked RPI team not hosting is USC out in California … but they went just 1-11 in Q1 games.
Conference Breakdown
As usual, the SEC and ACC dominate the field with 12 and 9 teams respectively. Every team in the ACC with a 14-16 conference record or better made the field, which included a couple of arguable bubble teams in UVA and NC State. Meanwhile, the SEC got 12 teams in, including Kentucky with its 13-17 conference record ahead of Vanderbilt. Big12 got 6 teams and the Big 10 got 4 teams to round out the rest of the power conferences. Big Baseball conference Sun Belt got a record 5 teams as well, led by Southern Miss and joined by Coastal Carolina, Troy, Louisiana, South Alabama, and Texas State.
Local DC/MD/VA local teams in the tourney:
Once again, it is kind of a down year for DC/MD/VA baseball in terms of top-ranked teams; not one local team finished the year anywhere close to the top 25. UVA has some down-ballot votes but that’s it; they were shredded when their coach took a huge contract and left the program. Several local teams are in the field of 64 from the state however: Virginia, Virginia Tech, VCU, Liberty plus neighbor schools that usually have VA kids like West Virginia, ECU, CCU).
Snubs and Surprises in the field
The biggest snub seems to be Mercer; they’re RPI #28 and there’s a slew of at-large teams with lower ranks that got picked over them. their SoS hurts them, and they left themselves in jeopardy after getting upset in their conference tourney.
Quick Regional Thoughts
Here’s one sentence or so on each regional
- UCLA should have no issues advancing; Virginia Tech gets a 3,000 mile flight to play in this regional.
- Georgia Tech has to fend off a top 25 edge case team in Oklahoma but shouldn’t have any issues.
- Georgia gets a weak ACC also ran in Boston College and Liberty; easy regional.
- Auburn has to fend off UCF and a team in NC State that probably shouldn’t have made the field.
- North Carolina gets a mid-pack SEC team in Tennessee and VCU. Tennessee has a late 1st round starter Tegan Kuhns who could cause issues if they save him, but UNC is favored here.
- Texas has a joke of a regional with UCSB, Holy Cross, and Tarleton State. UCSB likely holds their 1st round pick Jackson Flora for the Texas matchup, but they don’t have much after him.
- Alabama’s #2 seed is Oklahoma State, who can be plucky but not a challenge. They’re the most vulnerable of the top 8 seeds.
- Florida gets their buddies Miami for a fun regional, but should advance.
- Southern Miss has UVA in their regional, who would be a decent foe but who are a long ways from h ome.
- Florida State should have been a top 8 seed and will have to deal with Coastal Carolina’s ace Cameron Flukey to advance.
- Oregon has a cakewalk of a regional against two former Pac12 foes in Oregon State and Washington State.
- Texas A&M has to be happy with their #2 being Southern California, who is an RPI darling who can’t beat any big teams (1-11 in Q1 games). Their #3 team Texas State might be more formidable.
- Nebraska will struggle with SEC battle-tested Ole Miss in their bracket, along with the college baseball legends from Arizona State, who also has a 1st round projected starter who may get burned before they face Nebraska. Upset watch here, unless both Ole Miss and AZ State burn their aces in game one.
- Mississippi State has to love this regional; Cincinnati and Louisiana? Really?
- Kansas beat West Virginia for the Big 12 tourney title and for their trouble will get Arkansas, who likely blows them away.
- West Virginia gets both an ACC and SEC team in Wake Forest and Kentucky. This should be a dog-fight.
Prospect Watch. By region, here’s some guys to watch that are like top 50 college prospects in this year’s draft:
- UCLA regional: Roch Cholowsky is the leading 1-1 overall candidate for UCLA. UCLA also has a late 1st round arm in Logan Reddeman and 3B Roman Martin. 3 1st round talents will help you go 51-6.
- Georgia Tech regional: GaTech’s catcher Vahn Lackey is likely going top 5. Drew Burress has been top5 in this cycle and has been mocked to the Nats in some drafts.
- Georgia regional: (no 1st rounders in this regional)
- Auburn regional: Auburn is led by 2B Chris Rembert, a late 1st rounder.
- North Carolina regional: Tennessee’s ace is late 1st rounder Tegan Kuhns.
- Texas regional: UCSB’s Jackson Flora is an upper 1st rounder.
- Alabama regional: their SS and leading hitter is Justin Lebron, who might be in the mix for the Nats at #11.
- Florida regional: Fla’s ace is Liam Peterson, likely the 2nd or 3rd arm off the board.
- Southern Miss regional: UVA’s Eric Becker and AJ Gracia have 1st round buzz.
- Florida State regional: Coastal Carolina’s ace Cameron Flukey is a mid 1st rounder.
- Oregon regional: (no 1st rounders in this regional)
- Texas A&M regional: TAMU is led by SS Chris Hacopian, who has mid 1st round projections.
- Nebraska regional: Ole Miss’ ace is Cade Townsend and AZ State’s ace is Cole Carlon, who may meet in game one of the regional.
- Mississippi State regional: (no 1st rounders in this regional)
- Kansas regional: Arkansas’ ace is 1st rounder Hunter Dietz and they have 1st round Catcher prospect Ryder Helfrick
- West Virginia regional: Kentucky’s SS Tyler Bell is a 1st rounder.
Top 1st round prospects whose team outright missed the post season:
- LSU had a shockingly bad year. Derek Curiel is likely a mid-1st rounder.
- TCU just missed the bubble, so no post-season scouting of both their 1st round outfielders Sawyer Strosnider and Chase Brunson.
- Louisville had a down year; OF Zion Rose is a late 1st rounder.
We’ll circle back next week with Regional recaps and Super Regional projections. We probably will also return with a check-in on the 1-1 candidates in our regular series.