TCU outfielder Dane Steinhagen (Kendall Rogers)

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D1Baseball’s Final Host Projections

The 16 regional hosts will be announced in less than an hour, at 8:30 p.m. ET on the NCAA’s official baseball Twitter account. But D1Baseball’s own thee-man committee — Kendall Rogers, Mark Etheridge and I — met this evening and decided upon our own final projected regional hosts. We had one dissent, which I’ll explain below. Our final projected national seeds and hosts:

National Seeds (alphabetical order): Clemson, Florida, Louisville, LSU, Miami, Mississippi State, Texas A&M, Texas Tech.

Eight other hosts (alphabetical order): Arizona, Florida State, Louisiana-Lafayette, Ole Miss, South Carolina, TCU, Vanderbilt, Virginia.

My Dissent:

• I believe Southern Miss will host and Vanderbilt will not. Vandy’s best asset is its No. 9 RPI, but there are plenty of other flaws in its resume — the Commodores won just one series all year against a regional team (South Carolina), went just 10-12 against the top 50, 19-16 vs. the top 100, and have a No. 154 nonconference strength of schedule. Southern Miss is 10 spots lower in the RPI (No. 19) but actually has more top 50 wins (12-11) and more top 100 wins (21-15) and a No. 7 nonconfererence strength of schedule. The biggest flaw for Southern Miss is that it finished third in Conference USA (the No. 5 RPI conference), but it was just 1.5 games out of first place, and it offset that by winning the conference tournament. So these two teams are very close based on merit — you could make an argument either way, but I like the case for Southern Miss better. And if you factor in conference diversity — Vandy would be the record-setting seventh host from the SEC (a likely seven-bid conference) while Southern Miss would be the lone host from the No. 5-ranked C-USA — it makes sense that the committee would lean toward the Eagles.

Quick thoughts

• Kendall argued that Cal State Fullerton had a shot to land the West’s lone host spot, but we eventually settled on Arizona, which is No. 22 in the RPI, 10-6 vs. the top 50 and 22-18 vs. the top 100. By comparison, Fullerton is No. 43 in the RPI, 4-5 vs. the top 50, and 11-14 vs. the top 100.

• We had Arizona State just a tick above Arizona this morning, but the Sun Devils simply needed to win their final game against USC to take that series, and instead they are getting bombed 25-2 in the fifth inning. Arizona is now 17 spots ahead of ASU (39) in the RPI, which outweighs ASU’s 3-2 edge over Arizona in the head-to-head series. Arizona is strong enough in the RPI that it even has a shot to host as a No. 1 seed, though we also wouldn’t be surprised to see NC State or even Vandy travel to Tucson as a No. 1.

• Read this morning’s Stock Report for a discussion of the Virginia/NC State debate, which could go either way — but momentum down the stretch is the main reason we sided with Virginia, along with its superior conference record.

• Louisiana-Lafayette deserves to host after its torrid finish to the season, which included a Sun Belt co-championship in the regular season and a tournament title. At No. 14 in the RPI, with an 11-9 record against the top 50 and a 20-14 mark against the top 100, and the No. 1 nonconference SOS, the Cajuns have done enough to earn a home regional despite the Sun Belt’s No. 10 conference RPI.

• TCU snags a host spot by winning the Big 12 tournament title, which offsets TCU’s one main deficiency — its third-place finish in the Big 12 (four games behind Texas Tech). But the Big 12 is the No. 3 RPI conference, and winning its conference tournament carries weight. TCU is up to No. 16 in the RPI and has a solid top 50 record (9-6) and a sterling top 100 mark (21-8).

• Coastal Carolina was the other team we considered. The Chants (No. 12 in the RPI) have a shot after winning the Big South by seven games and cruising to the conference tournament title, but ultimately they lack the top 50 (7-8) and top 100 (13-11) marks of the other host contenders, and they did not win a single weekend series against a regional team. That’s why that series against Georgia Tech (which the Jackets swept) was so important. Plus, Coastal doesn’t offer any additional geographic diversity (like TCU or Arizona would) because the Chants would be the third host in the state of South Carolina. So Coastal is out as a host, passed by other hot teams that won their conference tournies.