SEC dominates NCAA baseball tournament bracket projection

With just a couple of weeks remaining in the college baseball regular season, fans are no doubt beginning to ponder how their favorite team’s path to Omaha might be shaping up. The easiest route, of course, involves being one of the top eight seeds that guarantees regional and super regional hosting rights. It is therefore advantageous if your team happens to be in the upper tier of the SEC standings or very high in the ACC hierarchy.

As of now, we project six of the top eight seeds to go to SEC members, with a couple more also slated to host regionals. Texas holds the top seed, but projected No. 2 Arkansas, seeking the program’s first national title, closed the gap with a sweep of the Longhorns last weekend.

The ACC should be well represented as well with three likely hosts among the top 16 teams. National contenders from the west coast are harder to find, but there should be at least three regionals in the Pacific time zone.

So who will occupy those spots and the rest of the field of 64 when it is revealed? Here’s our NCAA baseball tournament bracket projection with less than three weeks to go before Memorial Day:

(* denotes teams that are automatic qualifiers based on current conference standings.)

Austin region

1. Texas* (1)
2. Texas-San Antonio*
3. Xavier
4. SIU-Edwardsville*

Fayetteville region

1. Arkansas (2)
2. Duke
3. Northeastern*
4. Central Connecticut State*

Tallahassee region

1. Florida State* (3)
2. Florida
3. Kansas
4. Bethune-Cookman*

Athens region

1. Georgia (4)
2. Miami (Fla.)
3. Troy
4. Sacramento State*

Baton Rouge region

1. LSU (5)
2. Southern Mississippi
3. Texas Rio Grande Valley
4. Missouri State*

Clemson region

1. Clemson (6)
2. Dallas Baptist*
3. Texas A&M
4. Holy Cross*

Auburn region

1. Auburn (7)
2. Georgia Tech
3. Connecticut
4. Kent State*

Knoxville region

1. Tennessee (8)
2. Louisville
3. Cal Poly
4. Bryant*

Chapel Hill region

1. North Carolina (9)
2. Mississippi
3. East Tennessee State*
4. George Mason*

Nashville region

1. Vanderbilt (10)
2. Wake Forest
3. Southeastern Louisiana*
4. Oral Roberts*

Morgantown region

1. West Virginia* (11)
2. North Carolina State
3. Mississippi State
4. Austin Peay*

Corvallis region

1. Oregon State (12)
2. Southern California
3. Arizona State
4. San Diego*

Myrtle Beach region

1. Coastal Carolina* (13)
2. Alabama
3. Kansas State
4. High Point*

Los Angeles region

1. UCLA (14)
2. Arizona           
3. Creighton*
4. Wright State*

Fort Worth region

1. TCU (15)
2. Oklahoma
3. Iowa*
4. Columbia*

Irvine region

1. UC Irvine* (16)
2. Oregon
3. Fairfield*
4. Nevada*

Last four in: Troy, Kansas State, Xavier, Texas Rio Grand Valley.

Last four out: Kentucky, Western Kentucky, Michigan, Virginia.

Team breakdown by conference: SEC (13), ACC (9), Big 12 (6), Big Ten (4), Big East (3), Sun Belt (3), Big West (2), Southland (2).