By Rocco Miller

Who sleeps in May? We certainly don’t. There are still too many games to schedule in basketball for 2025-26, and we’ve got to put a field together in baseball. How fun! Bracketeer has you covered this week. We plan to provide daily updates to the field beginning on Thursday morning. Be sure to check the Inside The Bracket tab for the latest forecasts from now until Selection Monday.

A drama-filled week is upon us in the College Baseball world. Unlike hoops, it is much more likely that we will witness surprises in Baseball’s ultimate decision week with automatic bids on the line, and the committee cares about these games tremendously - what a concept.

Behind the scenes (see BlueSky posts), a field has been built by yours truly every week down the stretch. My interest level has ballooned now into hourly RPI check-ups, several team comps, and a podcast appearance last week with the fine fellas over at 11.7 College Baseball - full episode here

SETTING THE STAGE

There are many elements on the line this week across nearly every conference tournament. We do know that the Columbia Lions will be in the Field following its Ivy Tournament Title clinching win on Sunday night over Harvard.

There are 28 more conference tournaments still ahead, including the Big West! Yes, the Big West came up with a postseason tournament which creatively only invited the top five to qualify, which could be key in helping Cal Poly’s RPI (a team stuck in the mud of the bubble currently). Also, the Patriot League Title Series is still ongoing, with Holy Cross one win away (vs. Army) from punching just its second baseball ticket to the NCAAs since 1978.

Let’s cut to the chase. These 28 conference tournaments, I believe, can be categorized into three columns:

One-Bid League Tourney’s
Serious Bid Thief Tourney’s
Heavy-Bid (3 or more) Tourney’s with major host/bubble implications

ONE-BID TOURNAMENTS

The America East, ASUN, Atlantic-10, Big South, Horizon, Ivy (Columbia), MAAC, MAC, Missouri Valley, Mountain West, NEC, OVC, Patriot, SoCon, SWAC, Summit, WCC, and WAC have all been deemed one-bid leagues. These leagues all have varying formats to pay attention to. But regardless, they are only sending one team into the field.

I like East Tennessee State from the SoCon, however do not see an at-large path. The Bucs have a 47 RPI which is within striking distance, but despite ETSU’s double-bye until Friday, they would still take two losses in the event that ETSU is within the at-large pool instead of SoCon Tourney Champs. Too many spots will likely be gobbled at that point of the week, and simply will make the Bucs an afterthought to the committee.

SOUTHLAND SOIREE

Before diving into the larger picture of upcoming tournaments, the Southland Conference may hold the most impossible-to-guess poker hand of any league. The league had an exceptional season compared to historical standards. In the end, UTRGV (Current RPI 45) and SE Louisiana (Current RPI 58) shared the regular-season title, yet have both been eliminated during the opening weekend of conference tournament action. Leaving the Cinderella story of New Orleans (8-seed and last team to qualify for the SLC Tourney) or surging Houston Christian (6-seed) to take the league’s automatic bid.

Here is where things get somewhat complicated and potentially wild. UTRGV would be my last team into the Field of 64 as we sit here today on Monday, May 19th, based on traditional merits and a solid Top 50 Non-Conference SOS. The Vaqueros’ biggest issue is likely the many bid thief scenarios that we will cover next, but they are also dealing with SE Louisiana, which has the ultimate at-large bid silver bullet - the Selection Committee Chairman, AD Jay Artigues. SELA also beat UTRGV in a series, 2-1. That could give the Lions a tad of proof that they were the best regular-season Southland team, despite no Quad 1 wins for the year. A 58th-ranked Southland team would be quickly dismissed most seasons, but this is no ordinary year. Buckle up!

SERIOUS BID THIEF ALERTS

These are the MOST important conference tournaments that will impact “bracket math”. I’ve got five identified as absolute must-watch for the highest likelihood of bid theft:

AAC
Big Ten
Big West
CAA
CUSA

The American Tournament boasts regional-style four-packs with the top eight teams in the conference qualifying. The two bracket winners will ultimately play a winner-take-all championship game on Sunday. Each team begins on Tuesday, so a ton of baseball and important bullpen management is at stake. More importantly, only UTSA is a lock to make the NCAA. The Roadrunners had a historic season and ran away with the regular-season crown. That means if any of the other seven competitors win this sucker, there goes an extra bid off the board. Charlotte ended the season with 10 straight wins, and has our attention as a true threat this week.

The Big Ten provides us with several intriguing scenarios. Oregon has locked up a hosting slot with its absolute domination to end the season. Ducks won 10 in a row to end the regular season, and 14 of their past 15. Oregon is in terrific shape to be a Top-8 selection regardless of what it does this week. UCLA is in a better-than-likely spot to host a regional, but still too close to the hosting bubble to have a rough showing and survive as a host. USC had a good enough season to be selected, but now finds its RPI ranking at 41. The Trojans may want to at least pick up a win this week to be extra sure.

After that? The league is stuck looking for another bid. Despite heavy commitments and increased focus on Baseball over the past few seasons, the league is falling short of its goal of five or more bids. Four bids is still very much alive. That’s because 12 teams are heading to Omaha this week to battle it out in four different pools. A lot of interesting scenarios as Nebraska will have the near-home edge, Michigan State could opt to save their ace, Joseph Dzierwa, for the matchup vs. Oregon (a team he already beat), and the resumes of Washington, Iowa, Indiana, and/or Michigan could look a lot more interesting if they can go on a run to reach the Championship Game. Another possible sleeper is Rutgers, which went 10-3 to close out the string.

Give it up for the Big West! Two major areas of kudos to the league.

Finally, adding a conference tournament, which could lead to an extra dance ticket. This league held on to tradition until the bitter end. With the changing economics over the past decade, the BW has sadly taken a talent hit. Several historic programs and national championships live in this league. The Big West continues to produce quality programs because the coaching is still great, and these places are absolutely beautiful places to attend school and play baseball.
The league made the wise choice to limit the field to five teams. This already provided Sunday night drama in Hawai’i. The Rainbow Warriors and UC San Diego were tied for 5th on the final night of league play, creating a win-and-in, lose-go-home scenario. Hawai’i met the moment and will get to play in Fullerton now. The pressure stays scorching hot as Hawai’i and UC Santa Barbara effectively play a 5-seed vs. 4-seed play-in game. The other genius of the format played out with Cal Poly (2-seed) needing more chances to build a resume. The Mustangs scheduled hard this season and have looked like a tournament-caliber team most of the season. However, Cal Poly finished just 2-10 in its Quad 1 chances. They are sitting at #42 in the RPI. They open with CSUF, in what is a road game. And the other possible opponents are UC Irvine (RPI 24), UCSB (RPI 65), and Hawai’i (RPI 64). There is a world where the Mustangs can lose the Championship Game and still improve their RPI rank. Getting even one win over UC Irvine would slightly help that Quad 1 record as well.
Big drama and up to four quality teams fighting for a bid steal in SoCal ahead. UC Irvine may have a shot to host a regional if they handle business this weekend, but the Anteaters likely need too many things to happen elsewhere for it to all come together.

The CAA once again will provide some theater for the national bid allocation outlook. This season was completely dominated by Northeastern, which went an astonishing 25-2 in a nine-weekend CAA. So dominant that the Huskies are a lock to make the field. The rest of the league, which includes traditional heavy hitters UNC Wilmington and Charleston, will have to swing for a stealing of the CAA Auto Bid. The Seahawks ran away with the all-important 2-seed by ending the regular season with six straight wins. UNCW has the coveted second bye. Charleston, who was the preseason pick to win the league, still has everyone’s attention despite finishing 10 games out of first (which is wild). That is because the Cougars have the privilege of hosting this tournament, and C of C went 9-1 in its last 10 games.

Speaking of runaway conference races, how about Conference USA? Dallas Baptist mounted an impressive season, winning weekend after weekend, and mixed in some big non-conference wins along the way. DBU is threatening to be a host team if they can win the CUSA Tournament. That certainly will add extra motivation for the Patriots this weekend in Lynchburg.

The rest of the league is in limbo. Western Kentucky has had a memorable year and a fantastic CUSA season, finishing three games behind DBU at a stellar 18-9 record. A season-ending series loss to Jacksonville State hurt the RPI, however, and WKU may have been doomed for a while with the 285th-ranked Non-Conference Strength of Schedule. History is not on the Tops’ side for an at-large bid.

Jacksonville State will not only have momentum heading into Lynchburg, but Jax State AD Greg Seitz is on the NCAA’s Selection Committee. He will have the brutal task of fighting for a second CUSA team should DBU win the double championship this weekend. Otherwise, I think Seitz would gladly take a CUSA bid steal (preferably by his Gamecocks) and coast during voting this weekend.

Liberty had an ultra-competitive season going for most of the campaign, only to hit an absolute wall. Held on to qualify as the 8th and final team in the CUSA Tournament. The Flames get to open with DBU now, but they are hosting! So the Flames are live. Also, Kennesaw State went 17-9 and will be the 3-seed here. They’ve been very consistent and could be another good story to watch.

Just like the AAC, you get two pods of regional-style double-elimination action all week. Building into a winner-take-all Title Game on Sunday.

Are the Big East and Sun Belt Spoken for?

As leagues, the projections for both the Big East (2 Bids) and Sun Belt (3 Bids) seem to be inevitable, barring some extreme scenarios. Allow me to explain:

Big East - The four-team field contains three at-large hopefuls. Co-Champs Creighton (RPI 50) and UConn (RPI 39), plus Xavier (RPI 38), who had the 5th-toughest schedule in America. St. John’s is the 4-seed and the last team in the field. I played out the combinations of results for the upcoming tournament, including St. John’s winning this, and in nearly all scenarios, I still land with the Big East getting two bids exactly. UConn, I believe, will be in the NCAA’s unless they lose two straight here or take two SJU losses as a whole. I think Xavier or certainly Creighton adding two losses to the mix is going to be pretty hard to overcome, especially when considering the likely national carnage headed our way. No need to post this bracket because it’s a simple four-team double-elim tournament with games in Ohio (not far from Xavier) once again.

Best case for the league, I think, is Creighton beating Xavier for the title, with UConn getting a win as well. Even in that case, there is not a Big East employee on the selection committee, so I’m all in on two bids here.

Sun Belt - The always strong Sun Belt produced three dominant teams this season. Two are striving to host regionals. Coastal Carolina is in a prime position to host again, and that should be locked up now. Southern Miss ended the season by sweeping Troy on the road, which is the third strongest team in the conference. The Golden Eagles are soaring into the Sun Belt Tournament, which will be played at Coastal, by the way. Amazing that Southern Miss has ripped off 15 wins in a row and Coastal has put together 14 in a row. These guys just don’t lose!

If I am a Troy fan, I am okay with the above. A Southern Miss or Coastal tournament title would likely help Troy get in as the league’s third bid. Despite being swept by Southern Miss to end the season, Troy had not lost any other series for the entire season. Trojans have earned a lot of respect in the region, and Southern Miss’s AD Jeremy McClain is on the committee to help ensure the league gets a minimum of three in. Troy as a bubble team, is sitting at 43rd in the RPI, but they do stack up well to a lot of the bubble with the series statistics and a Top 50 non-conference schedule.

It becomes a major fire alarm for Troy if any of the other seven teams in this field win the tournament to steal the bid. Going to be difficult to sell the other committee members that this league deserves a fourth bid, I think Troy can’t afford a bid steal due to these committee dynamics. Watch out for Marshall, which surged to the 4-seed by winning its final six games of the season.

POWER LEAGUE BIDS

This section is designated for the big three leagues. The SEC, ACC, and Big XII. They will have more influence (by a mile) than the other 26 leagues on bid allocation.

SEC - 12 teams are locked in (Alabama, Arkansas, Auburn, Florida, Georgia, LSU, Mississippi State, Oklahoma, Ole Miss, Tennessee, Texas, Vanderbilt). Those six squads you see in bold are locks to be a host. I believe we will see seven hosts on Selection Monday (maybe more). The battle between Tennessee, Alabama, and Ole Miss (who all went 16-14 in the league) should play itself out in Hoover. If two of these teams go deep into the single-elimination week, we could have up to eight SEC hosts in the regionals. Remember, Softball just got nine regional hosts. The SEC continues to push the previous committee limits, and baseball specifically is the bread and butter of the league’s history.

That should make Kentucky pretty safe regardless of the carnage this week. They’ve got the magic 13 league wins required, and the Wildcats did not get the luxury of playing Missouri, which was historically bad. UK opens the SEC Tournament against Oklahoma, so the RPI (currently 36) should hold near-40 in the event of a loss. If a surplus of bid-stealing occurs, perhaps Kentucky could get axed, but I’m not seeing it.

Texas A&M had a well-documented wild year. Opened the season ranked 1st in the nation, only to go on a rollercoaster that included huge wins and a ton of disappointment. Nothing crazier than being swept by Missouri in College Station. A Tigers team that was 0-24 in the SEC prior to the series commencing. Today, the Aggies are stuck on 11 SEC wins. If they can get past Mississippi State and Auburn to reach the Quarterfinals, things get really interesting. Anything short of those two wins and they are done. Should TAMU pull it off, I feel sorry for other bubble teams with good records because its hard to foresee the committee not taking the Aggies on the surface.

The only chance of a bid steal in Hoover would have to come from South Carolina or Mizzou. Feels like a near 0% chance of that happening based on how badly these two clubs were outclassed all year long and needing to win five in a row.

ACC - Nine of the league’s 16 baseball members are seemingly locks heading into the week, which is not a bad position to be in, considering Virginia is trending toward in, and Notre Dame very much has a pulse. The nine for now are Clemson, Duke, Florida State, Georgia Tech, Louisville, Miami, N.C. State, North Carolina, and Wake Forest. Three in bold will almost certainly be hosts with UNC locking up a Top-8 spot last weekend. This league had three Top-8 hosts last year, and probably will be capped at two this season. FSU will need a couple of wins this week to secure a Top-8. I project them to do it, as they have supreme talent, but anything can and will happen during Championship Week.

Georgia Tech, by virtue of a cancellation involving UNC, ends up winning the league title for the regular season. Which is a pretty big surprise despite the unbalanced league scheduling argument. The Yellow Jackets put a bow on the season with arguably their most impressive series win, at Duke, this past weekend. If G-Tech can do some more winning this week, I think they will be one of the last hosts and get the league to four hosts overall.

Virginia has played well down the stretch and had the unfortunate bad luck of having the series at Florida State cancelled. Now UVA has the clear 16-11 league record showing they belong, but the RPI is still stuck in the mud at #55. The Cavs have a super interesting draw against the winner of Notre Dame-Boston College. The Irish are fighting for a bid of their own. BC is there to play spoiler on both of them.

Notre Dame is up to the Top 40 of the RPI, which is a big feather in the cap for a team that started 4-14 in the ACC, only to finish 14-16. The surging Irish will have the committee’s attention, but with the sub-.500 league record, there is work to do in Durham. Must win against BC, and likely UVA might be enough. Big moments ahead for the Irish this week.

That gives the league an angle to get as many as 11, but with UVA and Notre Dame in the same path together, it looks difficult. The other path to 11 is to get one of UVA or Notre Dame and an unlikely bid thief. Stanford, who just won a series at N.C. State, lead a five-pack of spoilers. The list includes BC, Virginia Tech, California, and Pitt.

Big 12 - Here is a league in the midst of a tug-of-war. The fierce battle from the bottom of the league to either qualify for the Big 12 Tournament or re-emerge into the tournament picture (Oklahoma State and Cincinnati) down the stretch took a bite out of the established class of the league. It was a six-bid league pretty clearly for several weeks - Arizona, Arizona State, Kansas, Kansas State, TCU, and West Virginia. These six are still in good-to-great shape to make the field, however, there is no clear host. TCU has the best case today and will be projected to be one of the final hosts. The margins are so slim though.

The Kansas Jayhawks swept WVU in Morgantown to finish and now can make some serious history if they make a run this week to secure a hosting spot. They have a feel of last year’s Arizona team in the Pac-12, which went on a crazy tear and won the Pac-12 Tournament and ultimately was rewarded with the 13th overall seed, despite a dicey RPI.

If Kansas and TCU choke this week, then what? No hosts for this power league? West Virginia would be next at #28 in the RPI, and they won the regular-season title by a fraction. Perhaps if the Mountaineers go on a deep run combined with early Frogs and Jayhawks exits, they are back in the host mix I believe. All of this also spells a possibility of no Big XII hosts at all. I think its wise to budget one for the league, as Kansas State AD Casey Scott will need to throw some weight around in the committee room here.

Bubble belongs to Cincinnati and Oklahoma State. The Bearcats have held their own down the stretch and finished the league above .500. Oklahoma State’s sweep over Arizona State to finish finally got the Cowboys into this at-large mix, but OK State is still just a few games over .500 overall (27-22). Perhaps most impressive about this duo, is they played the two toughest schedules in conference and came out with good enough win percentages to be strongly considered for the NCAAs.

Four teams enter Arlington this week as party spoilers - Baylor, Texas Tech, Houston, and BYU. Three of these teams being Texas schools makes the potential for a bid steal more realistic you’d think. We know Texas Tech and Baylor has talent to make noise. So many scenarios in this event ahead, must-watch baseball here:

FORECAST - BASED ON WHAT IS KNOWN

Now that we have broken down and categorized all 29 Auto Bids and league tournaments, ideally you have a much more organized view of what is at stake this week, which tournaments are likely to create chaos, and a subtle idea of how the host picture is coming together.

Today’s Forecast is here.

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