It is never too early to talk about postseason baseball, even if it may seem premature just two weekends into SEC play. The Alabama Crimson Tide got off to a program record 16-0 start and are currently 23-3 after a walk-off win last night against the North Alabama Lions in Huntsville last night.
This historic start to the season has put the Crimson Tide in a position to be in prime contention for a host of a regional and even higher if the team continues on an upward trajectory. As of this past Monday, the polls have Alabama as a consensus top 15 team with them being ranked as high as tenth.
In reference to the D1Baseball poll, Alabama (12th) is currently one of ten SEC programs in the top 16. Meaning over 60 percent of regional sites would be on a field from within the conference the Crimson Tide will play over the next two months.
The Joe, for the second time in three years, would be included in that group if the season ended today, but there is obviously plenty of baseball left to be played. Nevertheless, it is interesting to see where things stand less than two months out from the SEC Tournament.
Vanderbilt on SI’s Taylor Hodges took the liberty of forecasting an entire field in a bracketology-esque style as would be seen during the college basketball season with the last four in and first four out included. This is especially relevant given that we are between the first and second weekend of March Madness, so 64-team brackets are certainly synonymous with this time of year.
Format-wise, baseball does differentiate from basketball, where it is not a single-elimination and instead is broken up into 16 regionals of four teams. Those four team brackets are composed of a double-elimination style where whichever team comes away winning three games without losing twice advances to a super-regional.
The super-regionals take place at the highest remaining seed of the champions of paired regionals predetermined based on the 1-16 rankings of the hosts going into the tournament (No. 16 with No. 1, No. 15 with No. 2, and so on). If two nonregional hosts or unseeded teams were to win at both paired regionals, the NCAA would choose a host site based on factors like ballpark quality, geography and attendance potential. The supers are a best-of-three series, with the winner being one of the eight that advance to Omaha, Neb. for the College World Series.
The eight teams are split into two brackets of four that play a regional tournament format, and the two winners play a best-of-three series for the National Championship.
In this projected field, the Crimson Tide is the 12th overall seed and paired with the No. 5 Oregon State Beavers. Geographically, a Tuscaloosa, Ala. and Corvallis, Ore. are fairly odd, but these sorts of things are possible in this tournament.
Here is the entirety of Taylor’s projected field, with regional sites, conference champions who automatically qualify and the rest being at-large bids:
*=Conference Champion auto-bids.
Knoxville Regional
(1) Tennessee
Richmond
Creighton*
St. Thomas*
Winston-Salem Region
(16) Wake Forest
Dallas Baptist*
West Virginia
Central Connecticut*
Fayettville Regional
(2) Arkansas
Kansas State
High Point*
Missouri State*
Oxford Regional
(15) Ole Miss
Louisville
Duke
Austin Peay*
Athens Regional
(3) Georgia
Coastal Carolina
Utah Valley*
College of Charleston*
Nashville Regional
(14) Vanderbilt
UC Irvine
East Tennessee State*
Tennessee Tech*
Tallahassee Regional
(4) Florida State
Florida
Florida Atlantic
Bethune-Cookman*
Hattiesburg Regional
(13) Southern Miss
Stanford
Arizona State
Holy Cross*
Corvallis Regional
(5) Oregon State
UC Santa Barbara
Southern California
Portland*
Tuscaloosa Regional
(12) Alabama
North Carolina
NC State
Wright State*
Clemson Regional
(6) Clemson
South Carolina
East Carolina*
Davidson*
Auburn Regional
(11) Auburn
Troy
Hawaii
Ball State*
Austin Regional
(7) Texas
Mississippi State
Fairfield*
UT Rio Grande*
Eugene Regional
(10) Oregon
Arizona*
San Jose State*
Cal Poly*
Baton Rogue Regional
(8) LSU
Georgia Tech
McNeese
New Jersey Tech*
Norman Regional
(9) Oklahoma
UCLA
TCU
Pennsylvania*
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