UConn baseball on the bubble, sweating out NCAA Tournament selection

The UConn baseball players and coaches figured to do some tossing and turning Sunday night, and wake for an anxious breakfast on Memorial Day.

The NCAA Tournament Field of 64 will be announced at noon on Monday (ESPN 2) and, though the Huskies have been a tournament fixture over the last decade and a half, they will have to sweat out the process this year.

After an out-of-character early exit from the Big East tournament last week, with excruciating losses to Xavier and Georgetown on Thursday, the Huskies lost the conference’s automatic bid. As regular season champs, they could get an at-large bid, and the landscape may have broken in their favor in conference tournaments across the country over the weekend, but this time it is no sure thing.

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UConn (32-23) was ranked 41 in RPI, a key metric used by the selection committee, on Sunday evening and most years that is good enough to get in. There are other considerations though, and the Huskies sit squarely on the at-large bubble.

Here are some of the factors:

History

Teams from this part of the country tend to be at a disadvantage on Selection Monday, but the Huskies’ competitiveness in the tournament over the last 14 years has changed perceptions, at least in their case. UConn has been in the NCAA Tournament nine times since 2010, and proved a formidable competitor in nearly all of them, winning regionals at Clemson in 2011 and Maryland in 2022. They were within one game of reaching the College World Series two years ago before losing the Super Regional at Stanford, so the program has proven its mettle as a national player. If things are on the razor’s edge, that could tilt in their direction in a subjective choice.

Nonconference play

UConn does not have the out-of-conference resume it has often had in recent years, going 15-17, and 5-8 against Quad 1 opponents (top 30 RPI at home, top 50 at neutral site and top 75 on the road). The Huskies got quality, neutral site wins over Louisville and South Florida at the beginning of the season, but lost to Indiana State, and then eight of nine in series at Auburn, California and Cal-Santa Barbara. Indiana State and UCSB are tournament shoo-ins, Cal on the bubble. UConn got mid-week wins on the road at UCLA and Cal-Irvine, and at home over Kansas State, but lost twice to Boston College and Northeastern, once to Rhode Island and two of three at Rutgers — neighborhood losses that could hurt.

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Conference play

Once Big East play began, UConn began to look more like its old self, winning every weekend series and finishing 17-4, a record win total for modern conference configuration. Weekend/conference series, when the best pitchers are used, figure to carry more weight than midweek games. If there is consideration given to recent results, the Huskies, after a 9-15 start, were 23-8. The Big East is ranked seventh in conference RPI, accoring to analyst Warren Nolan, behind the power conferences and the Sun Belt, high enough to warrant an at-large bid, depending on …

Bid-stealers

After losing in the Big East tournament and falling out of the top 40 in RPI, the Huskies were vulnerable to “bid-stealers,” or conference tournament winners with little or no chance to get an at-large bid. Things broke well here. With St. John’s beating Georgetown in the final, the Big East’s automatic bid goes to a second-place team that many had in at-large contention. Wins such as Nebraska’s in the Big 12 and Duke’s in the ACC on Sunday preserved at-large bids, increasing the chances the Big East can get two teams in.

What the bracket analysts are saying

As of Sunday, two of the major bracket analysts, Baseball America and D1Baseball.com, had UConn in as an at-large team, a No.3 seed. D1Baseball projected UConn going to Oregon State, with Duke and Evansville, Baseball America was sending UConn back to Cal-Santa Barbara, along with Arizona and San Jose State. Another bracketologist, On3.com, projects UConn as a No.3 going to Duke, along with East Carolina and Evansville. Though these analysts tend to be fairly accurate, there is no guarantee the tournament committee will see it this way.

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Northeastern, despite two wins over UConn and a better RPI (34). lost in its conference tournament and is also considered a bubble team. How many at-large bids would the committee give to New England schools?

Elsewhere

UConn would have to carry the banner for the state in the Division I field this year; Sacred Heart, regular season champ in the NEC, lost to LIU on Saturday and Sunday and the automatic bid with it. Fairfield was eliminated in the MAAC Tournament over the weekend. The NCAA revealed its 16 top seeds, the schools designated to host the regionals, on Sunday night.