D1Baseball Projects 64-Team NCAA Field, Elevates Oregon to Top-16 Host

7 articles · Updated · NCAA.com · May 24

Oregon emerged as D1Baseball’s only new projected regional host in its final bracket forecast, replacing Mississippi State ahead of Monday’s NCAA baseball selections.
No. 13 Oregon climbed on a strong Big Ten tournament day and metrics that include a No. 15 RPI, a 12-9 Q1 record and an 18th-place DSR.
Mississippi State fell out of the projected top-16 hosts as Arkansas stayed ahead on a head-to-head series win, 18 Q1 victories and a 20-13 aggregate SEC record.
The projected top eight national seeds were unchanged, with Florida holding the final top-eight spot while Southern Miss, Texas A&M and Florida State remained the main challengers.
A stolen bid in the Big West also tightened the bubble: Cal Poly’s automatic berth left the league with two bids and pushed Pittsburgh out, while TCU, East Carolina, Kentucky and NC State were the last four in.

With conflicting metrics like RPI and SOS, what is the NCAA’s hidden tiebreaker for the final bubble teams?

Why did the NCAA defy projections, awarding Mississippi State a host site over a surging Arkansas team?