{"id":18480,"date":"2024-05-28T08:01:27","date_gmt":"2024-05-28T12:01:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=18480"},"modified":"2024-05-28T08:08:17","modified_gmt":"2024-05-28T12:08:17","slug":"2024-cws-coverage-field-of-64-and-regional-preview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=18480","title":{"rendered":"2024 CWS Coverage &#8211; Field of 64 and Regional Preview"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/2024-MCWS-Logo.avif\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1350\" height=\"1388\" src=\"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/2024-MCWS-Logo.avif\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-18483\"\/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Its College Baseball post-season time, something we&#8217;ve followed in this space for years. Here&#8217;s a quick guide to the CWS 2024 post season.  The field of 64 was announced on Memorial Day Weekend at Noon, so here&#8217;s a preview of this coming weekend&#8217;s 16 regional events.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>First off, some resources for you.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Your final top 25 heading into the post-season according to <a href=\"https:\/\/d1baseball.com\/category\/top-25\/\">d1baseball<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseballamerica.com\/rankings\/college-baseball-top-25\/\">baseballamerica<\/a>, and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.usatoday.com\/sports\/ncaa-baseball\/polls\/coaches-poll\/\">usatoday Coaches poll<\/a>. <\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Local teams in the rankings: <\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>WarrenNolan&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.warrennolan.com\/baseball\/2024\/rpi-live\">RPI rankings<\/a> are a very important part of the seeding and selection process, as we&#8217;ll discuss in a bit.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Ahead of the full field, they announced the <a href=\"https:\/\/d1baseball.com\/postseason\/2024-ncaa-tournament-host-sites\/?utm_source=feedly&amp;utm_medium=rss&amp;utm_campaign=2024-ncaa-tournament-host-sites?logged-in=8761&amp;v=1716815693\">16 host sites<\/a>, which left some very solid teams (Indiana State, Mississippi State, Duke, Dallas Baptist) as non-hosts and thus will be #2 seeds to watch out for.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>D1baseball&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/d1baseball.com\/postseason\/the-2024-ncaa-baseball-field-of-64\/?logged-in=8761&amp;v=1716834492\">Field of 64 post<\/a>.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Here&#8217;s D1Baseball.com&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/d1baseball.com\/college-baseball-tournament-central\/\">Tournament Central<\/a>, my favorite place to track the tourney.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>ESPN&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/college-sports\/story\/_\/id\/40137717\/college-baseball-2024-mcws-ncaa-tournament-watch-schedule-scores\">tournament coverage home page<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Here&#8217;s the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ncaa.com\/news\/baseball\/article\/2024-05-26\/2024-ncaa-baseball-bracket-mens-college-world-series-scores-schedule\">NCAA.com field of 64<\/a> with some great data points at NCAA.com<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong><em>Your top 8 seeds<\/em><\/strong> and favorites to make Omaha, in order, along with their RPI and their Strength of Schedule (SoS) denoted:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Tennessee:  #1 RPI, #23 SoS<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Kentucky:  #3 RPI, #6 SoS<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Texas A&amp;M: #2 RPI, #13 SoS<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>North Carolina: #4 RPI, #15 SoS<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Arkansas: #5 RPI, #11 SoS<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Clemson: #7 RPI, #18 SoS<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Georgia: #6 RPI, #9 SoS<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Florida State: #8 RPI, #26 SoS<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n<p>The top 8 seeds also are the top 8 RPI ranked teams, in nearly identical order to their RPI ranking, in case you were wondering how important RPI is to seeding in College Baseball.  The top 8 national seeds are entirely from two conferences: SEC and ACC, showing the dominance of those divisions (something we&#8217;ll see more of in the regions).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The rest of the Regional Hosts\/Top 16 teams are as follows:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>#9 Oklahoma: #14 RPI, #10 SoS<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>#10 NC State: #15 RPI, #3 SoS<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>#11 Oklahoma State: #11 RPI, #28 SoS<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>#12: Virginia: #12 RPI, #27 SoS<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>#13 Arizona: #31 RPI, #31 SoS<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>#14 UC Santa Barbara: #13 RPI, #100 SoS<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>#15 Oregon State: #18 RPI, #78 SoS<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>#16 East Carolina: #22 RPI, #71 SoS<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>There&#8217;s definitely a couple of outliers here, especially #31 RPI Arizona, who won the Pac12&#8217;s final title but doesn&#8217;t seem to deserve a top 16 spot at the expense of other teams.  The 9th ranked RPI team is Wake Forest; I don&#8217;t think anyone wants to see Wake Forest in this tournament and they&#8217;re not even a seed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong><em>Local DC\/MD\/VA local teams in the tourney:<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>UVA: #12 overall seed, has to deal with Mississippi State in their region but at least they host.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>VCU: a 3-seed in the ECU regional, which also includes Wake Forest.  Tough.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>ECU: #16 national seed but stuck with Wake and may be in trouble.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>West Virginia is the 3-seed in Arizona&#8217;s regional that includes Dallas Baptist.  Also tough.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>JMU, my alma mater, sneaks in as a 3-seed in the NC State regional. They were definitely a bubble team, and there&#8217;s probably 3-4 other teams that merited this spot (TCU, Cincinnati, etc).  But, we benefitted this year.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>It&#8217;s definitely kind of a down year for area teams.  Maryland is usually solid but was on the bubble after faltering in their conference tourney.  Liberty had a down year, going just 24-34 in CUSA.  Virginia Tech went around .500 in ACC play but went 2-and-out in ACC tourney play; one win there and maybe they&#8217;re in.  ODU was #71 in RPI but really needed to win the Sun Belt to get in.  Same with Coastal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-css-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Quick Regional Thoughts<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Here&#8217;s one sentence or so on each regional.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Tennessee: should cruise through, straight forward regional.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Kentucky: Gets #10 RPI Indiana State, who had a strong case for hosting.  No favors here for Kentucky.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Texas A&amp;M: Gets a grudge match against U-Texas as well as a very solid Louisiana team; tough regional, though LA-TX opener burns each team&#8217;s ace.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>North Carolina: they get last year&#8217;s champ LSU, which had an obviously down year but is still no slouch and UNC is close enough to have their fans drive.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Arkansas: Might have the easiest regional of all, at one of the hardest places to play.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Clemson: Of course they get Vanderbilt, plus Coastal.  Vandy down this year though so Clemson should move on.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Georgia: Fun possible rivalry game against Ga Tech brewing, but don&#8217;t sleep on UNC-Wilmington.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Florida State: A couple of tougher teams in this regional, including the SEC tourney host Alabama.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Oklahoma: Oof, I wouldn&#8217;t want to see Duke in my regional.  Upset watch here.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>NC State: will have to contend with battle-tested South Carolina.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Oklahoma State: They won&#8217;t be scared of #2 seed Nebraska, but will be scared of perhaps Florida, who sneaks into the tourney.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Virginia: it all comes down to the under rated Mississippi State in this bracket; upset watch here.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Arizona: If i&#8217;m Dallas Baptist, I&#8217;m happy as heck here, getting easily the weakest host.  DBU is ranked #17 in RPI, more than a dozen slots higher than AZ.  It&#8217;ll be an upset if DBU loses this one.  They also have to deal with WVU for a balanced regional.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>UC Santa Barbara: they get an all-west coast group in a down year for West Coast teams, but this division does have the champs of three West Coast conferences all together: The Big West, The WCC, and Mountain West.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Oregon State: As Pac12 runner up, gets Big West runner up UC Irvine.  Too close to call.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>East Carolina: for their troubles they get Wake Forest and likely 1st rounder Burns in the Saturday winner&#8217;s bracket final, but if they save fellow 1st rounder Yesavage we have an early contender for game of the weekend.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-css-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p><strong><em>Prospect Watch.<\/em><\/strong> Nearly every guy projected to go in the first round is playing post season, so this list kinda looks like the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mlb.com\/prospects\/draft\/\">projected top 10<\/a>.  We&#8217;ll go region by region:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>#1 Tennessee: mid 1st round projecting 3B <strong>Billy Amick<\/strong> plus a handful of solid 2nd\/3rd round hitters<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>#2 Kentucky has just one top 3-4 round prospect on its team: RHP <strong>Travis Smith<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>#3 TAMU is led by top-5 pick <strong>Braden Montgomery<\/strong>.  But they have a ton of named picks, as does UT Austin.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>#4 UNC is led by <strong>Vance Honeycutt<\/strong>, likely 1st rounder who was projected higher earlier in the cycle.  LSU is led by <strong>Tommy White<\/strong> (aka Tommy Tanks), but has a couple other boppers who should go 1st\/2nd rounds.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>#5 Arkansas&#8217; top starter is <strong>Hagen Smith<\/strong>, who should go top 8 picks.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>#6 Clemson&#8217;s only top prospect is LHP <strong>Tristan Smith<\/strong>.  Vandy has a couple of pitchers to watch for in <strong>Bryce Cunningham<\/strong> and <strong>Carter Holton<\/strong>.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>#7 Georgia is led by consensus 1-1 <strong>Charlie Condon<\/strong>.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>#8 Florida State has a couple of hitters who project end of 1st in <strong>Cam Smith<\/strong> &amp; <strong>James Tibbs<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>#9 Oklahoma doesn&#8217;t have much in prospect power, while Duke has a 2nd rounder LHP in <strong>Jonathan Santucci<\/strong>.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>#10 NC State and South Carolina don&#8217;t have much in the way of 1st round projections right now.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>#11 OK State has a potential late 1st rounder in <strong>Carson Benge<\/strong>.  Florida is led by top-5 pick <strong>Jac Caglianone.<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>#12 UVA&#8217;s top rated star is SS <strong>Griff O&#8217;Farrell<\/strong>.  MSU has a solid 1st round projected hitter in Dakota Jordan.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>#13 AZ and DBU don&#8217;t have much in the way of star power, but their region&#8217;s #3 seed West Virginia team is led by likely top 8 pick JJ Weatherholt.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>#14: UC Santa Barbara regional has some lesser known talents but no 1st rounders.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>#15 Oregon State is of course led by possible 1-1 pick <strong>Travis Bazzanna<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>#16 ECU, as noted above, is led by top 10 pick RHP <strong>Trey Yesavage<\/strong> on the hill, and their regional foe Wake Forest is led by likely top 6 RHP <strong>Chase Burns<\/strong>.  Wake also has likely top 5 pick <strong>Nick Kurtz<\/strong> and likely  mid-1st rounder <strong>Seaver King<\/strong> for a star-studded lineup.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Its College Baseball post-season time, something we&#8217;ve followed in this space for years. Here&#8217;s a quick guide to the CWS 2024 post season. The field of 64 was announced on Memorial Day Weekend at Noon, so here&#8217;s a preview of this coming weekend&#8217;s 16 regional events. First off, some resources for you. Your top 8 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,4324],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18480","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-college","category-prospects"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18480","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18480"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18480\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18491,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18480\/revisions\/18491"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18480"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18480"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18480"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}