National Notes | Perfect Game Top 25 | Video Vault

Time flies when you're having fun and this past Monday was exactly six weeks from Selection Monday. As unbelievable as that may be, we need to get busy picking our Field of 64. Here we go…

There are four subsets of teams that must be addressed and only one of these groups gets decided solely based on what happens on the field. The four sets of teams, with some overlap, are as follows:

• 31 automatic bids
• 33 at-large bids
• 8 Top 8 National Seeds
• 8 additional host sites for the Regional round

For the decisions we need to make in this exercise, we will combine current standings and team resumes with some projection and forecasting.  Let's start with the 31 automatic bids.


Automatic Bids

America East: Hartford
American: East Carolina
Atlantic 10: VCU
ACC: Miami
Atlantic Sun: Jacksonville

Big 12: Texas Tech
Big East: Creighton
Big South: Coastal Carolina
Big Ten: Michigan State
Big West: UC Santa Barbara

Colonial: UNC Wilimington
Conference USA: Rice
Horizon: Wright State
Ivy: Princeton
MAAC: Monmouth

MAC: Ball State
MEAC: Florida A&M
Missouri Valley: Dallas Baptist
Mountain West: New Mexico
NEC: Bryant

Ohio Valley: Southeast Missouri
Pac-12: California
Patriot: Navy
SEC: Florida
Southern: UNC Greensboro

Southland: Lamar
SWAC: Alabama State
Summit: Oral Roberts
Sun Belt: South Alabama
West Coast: St. Mary's

WAC: Seattle

Here are your Top 8 National Seeds and eight additional Regional Hosts.  That makes 16 teams in total and those teams who are currently listed as automatic qualifiers will be in BOLD.  This is critical because those BOLD teams will not count against the 33 available at-large bids.


Top 8 National Seeds
 Remember: the order here is irrelevant long-term. There is no reward for being a higher seeded National Seed. The sole prize is hosting both a Regional and Super Regional. So in essence, you are either a Top 8 National Seed or you are not, period.

1. Florida
2. Miami
3. Texas A&M
4. Florida State
5. South Carolina
6. Louisville
7. UC Santa Barbara
8. Texas Tech


Additional Eight Hosts
There are 16 hosts in the Regional round.

• Ole Miss
• NC State
• Vanderbilt
• Mississippi State
• South Alabama
• Coastal Carolina
• Louisiana State
• Texas Christian


Let's take inventory: Six of the 16 host schools are automatic qualifiers. So, that means that 10 at-large bids have been awarded to host teams.  Since we started with 33 at-large bids, that means we have 23 left to award. Here are those 23 teams with their current RPI listed in parentheses.

Clemson (10)
North Carolina (14)
Louisiana-Lafayette (15)
Southern Miss (19)
Florida Atlantic (22)

Kentucky (23)
Georgia Tech (24)
Oklahoma State (27)
Minnesota (21)
Michigan (28)

College of Charleston (29)
Virginia (36)
BYU (38)
Maryland (37)
Oregon State (40)

Notre Dame (42)
Gonzaga (44)
Alabama (45)
Cal State Fullerton (46)
Long Beach State (53)

Arizona (54)
Fresno State (60)
Tulane (63)


On the bubble

Old Dominion
Wake Forest
Duke
Washington
McNeese State

Southeastern Louisiana
Stanford


Postseason teams by Conference

SEC: 9
ACC: 9
Big Ten: 4
Big 12: 3
Big West: 3
Conference USA: 3
Pac-12: 3
West Coast: 3
American Athletic: 2
Mountain West: 2
Sun Belt: 2
All others (21): 1