National projections in agreement on South Carolina baseball’s NCAA Tournament outlook
— UPDATE: The national projections were wrong. South Carolina will indeed be a regional host, the NCAA announced Sunday night. —
South Carolina’s baseball team won’t be hosting an NCAA Tournament regional, at least not according to the two major national publications that offer postseason projections.
D1Baseball and Baseball America are in agreement that the Gamecocks (39-19) will travel and be a No. 2 seed when the regionals begin next weekend.
That’s somewhat significant because Baseball America had continued to project USC as a regional host, while D1Baseball was more consistent over the past week in saying the Gamecocks wouldn’t be at home for the NCAAs.
In the latest projections released Sunday:
▪ D1Baseball has South Carolina as the No. 2 seed in Fayetteville, North Carolina — a regional hosted by top-seed Campbell. Other teams there would be No. 3 UNC Wilmington and No. 4 Pennsylvania. (D1Baseball had placed the Gamecocks at Boston College and at Coastal Carolina in other projections released prior to Sunday.)
▪ Baseball America says USC will be in Conway as the No. 2 seed in top seed Coastal Carolina’s regional. Texas Tech and Air Force would round out the teams there, according to BA.
The 16 hosting sites are expected to be officially announced around 8:30 p.m. Sunday, with the full tournament selection show happening at noon Monday. The show will be broadcast by ESPN2.
South Carolina’s official baseball Twitter account took to social media Saturday to promote the Gamecocks’ season resume — one that historically means a team is in a good position to host: No. 8 in the RPI; the No. 3 strength of schedule; No. 8 in non-conference RPI; 18 Wins vs. RPI Top 50 teams; and 18 games and eight wins vs. teams with an RPI in the Top 10.
South Carolina will also hold a selection show watch party for fans at the Cookaboose Club in Williams-Brice Stadium on Monday. Doors open at 11:30 a.m. Admission is free.
While the Gamecocks’ season-long body of work is strong, the team finished in somewhat of a tailspin. They were 4-11 over their last 15 games and lost their final four SEC series.
USC head coach Mark Kingston made one last pitch for the Gamecocks on Thursday after the team was eliminated from the SEC Tournament in Hoover, Alabama, going 1-2 for the week there.
“If I had watched us over the last few weeks, I would say, ‘Yeah, I understand why there are concerns,’ ” Kingston said. “So I’m not going to stand up here and bang the table for why I think we should be a host. I think the numbers speak for themselves very loudly.
“If all the games matter, if a game in March is as important as a game in April, as important in May, then yes, it’s pretty clear the metrics scream that we should be a host. If we’re not, I think that’s a penalty to the SEC, and it’s a penalty to us for saying that there’s too many teams that are good enough to host in the league, and we’re not going to reward all the teams that have earned it.”
This story was originally published May 28, 2023 at 1:08 PM.
