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d1baseball.com staff | May 12, 2023

2023 Men's College World Series: Field of 64 predictions, made about 3 weeks out

College baseball roundtable: LSU has competition at the top

With 12 weeks in the books, the postseason picture remains fluid from week to week, but a few things remain constant: Wake Forest and LSU headline the top eight seeds. With that said, Wake took over the top spot this week after having yet another strong week while LSU dropped a road series at Auburn. Wake is No. 2 in the RPI ahead of LSU and is now 13-3 vs. RPI Top 25 and 17-5 vs. RPI Top 50. Meanwhile, the Tigers are 10-4 vs. RPI Top 25 and 14-8 vs. RPI Top 50.

Vanderbilt, Arkansas, Stanford and Duke are other top eight seed holdovers from last week, while West Virginia and Kentucky moved in as the final two top eights. West Virginia has an RPI within range of top-eight territory and is the clear-cut leader in the Big 12 regular season title race. As for UK, it made a drastic move from last week after sweeping South Carolina at home. Both the Gamecocks and Florida — which dropped a series at Texas A&M — are out as top eights but are still hosts this week.

In terms of new hosts in the 9-16 range, Dallas Baptist, Indiana State and Oregon are out this week, while Clemson, Kentucky and Connecticut are in as hosts. Clemson is one of the hottest teams in college baseball and the RPI is well within range, Kentucky is sitting at one in the RPI and UConn is back up to 17 in the RPI.

Here are our postseason overall field changes from last week:

  • IN: Texas State and UNC Wilmington (UNCW was moved to the automatic bid for the Colonial)
  • OUT: Louisville and UCLA

The SEC has the most projected bids with 11, and all three bubble teams — Auburn, Texas A&M and Georgia — strengthened their positions over the past week. The ACC is next with 9, followed by the Pac-12 (five), Big 12 (five), Sun Belt (four) and Big Ten (three).

Mark Etheridge, Kendall Rogers and Aaron Fitt assembled the postseason projections. You can listen to their deliberations on this week’s NerdCast.

CWS 2022: Relive Ole Miss' win at the 2022 College World Series | View the bracket

AT-LARGE LADDER:

Last five in to last five out, from strongest to weakest:

60. NC State
61. Texas Tech
62. UTSA
63. Texas State
64. Troy
— CUTOFF —
65. UC Irvine
66. Virginia Tech
67. Oklahoma
68. USC
69. Rutgers

2023 Field of 64 Projections: Week 13
WINSTON-SALEM
1 Wake Forest* (1)
4 Rider*
2 Indiana
3 Texas Tech
 
BATON ROUGE
1 LSU* (2)
4 Nicholls*
2 Cal State Fullerton*
3 UTSA
 
NASHVILLE
1 Vanderbilt (3)
4 Alabama State*
2 Southern Miss
3 Kansas State
 
FAYETTEVILLE
1 Arkansas (4)
4 SE Missouri State*
2 Texas
3 Washington
 
STANFORD
1 Stanford* (5)
4 San Diego State*
2 Alabama
3 UC Santa Barbara
 
DURHAM
1 Duke (6)
4 Loyola Marymount*
2 East Carolina*
3 UNC Wilmington*
 
MORGANTOWN
1 West Virginia* (7)
4 Wright State*
2 Maryland*
3 Texas State
 
LEXINGTON
1 Kentucky (8)
4 Kent State*
2 Indiana State*
3 Notre Dame
 
STORRS
1 Connecticut* (16)
4 Central Conn. State*
2 Virginia
3 Auburn
 
STILLWATER
1 Oklahoma State (15)
4 Oral Roberts*
2 Dallas Baptist*
3 Texas A&M
 
BRIGHTON
1 Boston College (14)
4 Harvard*
2 Oregon State
3 Northeastern
 
CORAL GABLES
1 Miami (13)
4 Sam Houston*
2 Oregon
3 Florida Gulf Coast*
 
CONWAY
1 Coastal Carolina* (12)
4 Wofford*
2 Tennessee
3 NC State
 
CLEMSON
1 Clemson (11)
4 Davidson*
2 Campbell*
3 Georgia
 
COLUMBIA
1 South Carolina (10)
4 Maine*
2 North Carolina
3 Iowa
 
GAINESVILLE
1 Florida (9)
4 Army*
2 Arizona State
3 Troy

*Automatic qualifying bid

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