Aaron Fitt takes a deep dive into the races for top-eight seeds, host spots and at-large bids with two weeks left before Selection Monday.
d1baseball.com
-> There are 31 automatic bids awarded to conference champions.
These 12 are safe bets to be one-bid leagues, regardless of how their conference tournaments shake out. The MAC moves into this category this week, as Ball State’s 11-spot drop in the RPI effectively dashed its already slim hopes for an at-large spot. We’re also moving the Big West into this category, since UC Santa Barbara has the regular-season title all-but sewn up and there is no conference tournament, and no other Big West team is inside the top 100 of the RPI.
Sure-fire one-bid leagues: America East, Big West, Horizon, MAAC, MEAC, Mid-American, Mountain West, Northeast, Patriot, Southland, Summit, SWAC
The following nine conferences are likely to be one-bid leagues, but each has at least one team with at least a shot at an at-large bid, though the poor RPIs of the rest of their conferencemates figure to drag some of them down below at-large range as the season continues. In some of these leagues, there is one sure-fire at-large team that would take an at-large bid if it fails to win its conference tournament, making its conference a two-bid league.
Likely one-bid leagues (potential at-large teams in parentheses):
American Athletic (East Carolina)
Atlantic 10 (Davidson)
Big East (Connecticut)
Big South (Campbell)
Colonial (College of Charleston)
Ivy (Pennsylvania)
Missouri Valley (Dallas Baptist)
Ohio Valley (Belmont, Southeast Missouri)
WAC (Grand Canyon)
Out of this group of teams, Dallas Baptist (No. 8 RPI), East Carolina (No. 29), Connecticut (No. 43) and Grand Canyon (No. 42) look like strong bets for at-large bids. DBU’s RPI makes it a lock, as does ECU’s combination of RPI and regular-season conference title (already clinched). UConn and Grand Canyon have dominated their leagues and also performed well out of conference, earning them some leeway despite bubblish RPIs. <-