NC State baseball will learn NCAA fate Monday

Memorial Day is the traditional selection reveal for the NCAA Tournament, and NC State baseball will know shortly if the Pack has been invited. The bracket will be publicly unveiled at noon on ESPN2.

Sunday saw results that will make bubble teams like NC State sweat more.

In the American Athletic Conference (AAC), conference regular season champ and certain at-large entrant East Carolina was upset in the championship game by a Tulane squad with a 19-40 overall record. That gave Tulane the automatic berth in what was otherwise going to be a one-bid league had ECU claimed the tourney title.

In Conference USA (CUSA), Dallas Baptist was upset by Charlotte in the league title contest. That handed Charlotte the automatic qualifier, and Dallas Baptist is a lock to receive an at-large bid. Like the ACC, CUSA would have only had one team in the field had Dallas Baptist prevailed in the conference tournament.

In a result that may have been mixed for NC State, UNC Wilmington won the Colonial Athletic Association (CAA), beating Northeastern, who is a safe bet to be in the field. UNCW may have had a strong enough case to sneak into the bracket on its own merits absent an auto bid, but the Seahawks would have been a bubble team.

However, NC State baseball went 2-0 against UNCW during the regular season, which may enhance the Pack’s profile.

In the Sun Belt Conference, Southern Miss, a tournament lock, knocked off Louisiana, a bubble team, in a result that may benefit NC State.

Both D1Baseball and Baseball America released their final projected brackets have NC State as the next-to-last team in the field.

For D1Baseball, the last four in are Southern Cal, UC Irvine, NC State and Oklahoma, while Louisiana, Arizona, Kansas State and Notre Dame are the first four out.

“NC State gets in as well thanks to a No. [24] RPI,” D1Baseball wrote.

That RPI may loom large. The NCAA Selection Committee revealed Sunday evening the top 16 seeds that will host regionals, and 15 of the top 16 RPI teams were included.

Baseball America also cited NC State’s RPI in including the Wolfpack. Its last four were USC, Louisiana, the Pack and UC Irvine. First four out were Kansas State, Arizona State, Notre Dame and Oklahoma.

Mark Etheridge of D1Baseball though noted two stats that may be cautionary tales for NC State.

First was the bubble teams non-conference strength of schedule:

Oklahoma – 22

Arizona – 69

UC Irvine – 84

Arizona State – 95

NC State – 121

Louisiana – 125

Kansas State – 149

Notre Dame – 272

Then was the teams’ record vs. D1Baseball’s projected field:.

UC Irvine: 10-4

Kansas State: 15-16

Oklahoma: 14-15

Louisiana: 8-10

Arizona: 13-17

Notre Dame: 9-13

NC State: 9-17

Arizona State: 6-16

NC State baseball will be banking on a strong RPI, lack of bad losses (NC State went 25-2 against teams below 50 in the RPI and worst loss was to No. 59 Elon) and overall strength of schedule (No. 19) to offset those metrics.

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