With Indiana on the “bubble” here’s a guide on clues through the selection if the Hoosiers aren’t announced early
By Carl James @jovian34 May 27th, 2024
The Indiana Hoosiers are ranked 55th in RPI. Normally this is not an RPI for an at-large, but it’s typical one or two teams from this range get selected. Baseball America, College Baseball Nation, and D1Baseball.com are all projecting that the Hoosiers will be in the field. The sixteen host sites have already been announced, but not their national seeding order.
Each region will have 4 teams in it. If Indiana gets in, they will be a 3-seed. All 16 4-seeds will be automatic qualifiers. The three major national sites (D1Baseball, Baseball America, and College Baseball Central) all have Indiana in the last four in. Normally, this kind of consensus would be a good thing, but where the sites differ is interesting. Until either Indiana is announced or the field is complete, here is how to tell if things are going well for the Hoosiers.
Green Flag 3-seeds: Florida, Coastal Carolina
As I discussed before bed early this morning, another thing that complicates things is the politics. The nine-member committee of athletic directors bizarrely has three ADs whose teams are fully on the bubble, including Indiana’s Scott Dolson. A 4th was the most controversial host selection last night. So even though Indiana is competing with these teams, given the likely “back scratching” happening, it is probably good if they are in the field. Both have good RPIs, but Florida was 13-18 in SEC play and is only 1 game over .500 overall. Coastal was only 16-14 in the Sun Belt and Indiana beat them at their place in one game in the opening weekend tournament.
Yellow Flag 3-seeds: Northeastern, Kansas State, College of Charleston, Georgia Tech
Kansas State is safely in the field via D1, the very last team in by CBN, and the third team out by BA. D1 has Northeastern out and not on the bubble, but the others have them safely in. D1 has more of trend analysis and the eye-test which comes into play via the regional advisor reports that the committee does have access to. One or two of these are okay, but they are a problem if they stack up.
Red Flag 3-seeds: Xavier, James Madison, East Tennessee State, Georgia Southern, Troy, California
The host announcements showed a willingness to not rely exclusively on RPI. It is possible, however, that they will be more RPI dependent for the bubble selection. If Xavier, James Madison, ETSU, or Georgia Southern pop on, it means RPI is king and that is bad for IU. Troy and California, on the other hand, are worse than IU in RPI but might have a case to bump the Hoosiers. Troy took 2 out of 3 from Indiana at the Bart in March. None of these teams being selected would be good for the Hoosiers.
Host Sites
- Athens, Georgia – Georgia (39-15)
- Chapel Hill, North Carolina – North Carolina (42-13)
- Charlottesville, Virginia – Virginia (41-15)
- Clemson, South Carolina – Clemson (41-14)
- Bryan-College Station, Texas – Texas A&M (44-13)
- Corvallis, Oregon – Oregon State (42-14)
- Fayetteville, Arkansas – Arkansas (43-14)
- Greenville, North Carolina – East Carolina (43-15)
- Knoxville, Tennessee – Tennessee (50-11)
- Lexington, Kentucky – Kentucky (40-14)
- Norman, Oklahoma – Oklahoma (37-19)
- Raleigh, North Carolina – NC State (33-20)
- Santa Barbara, California – UC Santa Barbara (42-12)
- Stillwater, Oklahoma – Oklahoma State (40-17)
- Tallahassee, Florida – Florida State (42-15)
- Tucson, Arizona – Arizona (36-21)
If the Hoosiers get in, Indiana will not go to Lexington two years in a row. There is a guideline to not do that to any team. It has been violated in the past, but that was just an oversight. With Scott Dolson in the room, who attend that disaster of event management last year, there will be no repeat trip.
The only driveable option on this list is Knoxville, and at least two sites have that as the projection. The Tennessee Vols are likely going to be the overall number-one seed, so this one may be a tough draw. At this point, I’m confident the Hoosiers will take any draw they can get.