A little pre-selection prognostication....

May 25, 2008, 7:15 AM

...Some of the folks on this boardthat I trust implicitly havetold me in confidence there's no way Clemson makes the NCAA this year. Of course, some of the biggest chuckleheads that troll here have said the same thing.. So, it will disappoint, but not surprise, me to find our guys on the outside looking in after the selection committee has done its work.

That said, I wanted to take one last look to see if my flickering hopes for the 2008 baseball season (and the third-longest active NCAA streak in college baseball!) were prohpetic or just pathetic. So, as best I can determine, here's what we're looking at:

Spots available: 64 (duh!)
Teams aleady in for sure: 20.
Potential automatic berths remaining: 10 ( I think...but close enough for seer saying)

So, with 34 spots remaining, it's time to separate the goats from the sheep. This also is counting on teams like Texas winning the Big 12, so a Kansas State (29-28) doesn't grab a spot, or Marshall or Gardner-Webb or somesuch forcing their conference champ into an at-large spot.

Teams that have every right to be there before us and there will be weeping and wailing and dead babies in the streets if they aren't:

ACC (6 at-large spots): UNC, NC State, GTech, Miami, FSU and Virginia. Either Virginia or Miami will be the champ, so the other 5 take at-large. We're down to 29 spots, and we haven't even left the conference yet!

PAC 10 (3 spots) Arizona State has their automatic. Arizona and Stanford should be gimmes. 27 spots to go.

Conference USA (3 spots): Southern Miss or Houston is in the title game and deserve the at-lareges. Rice is an at-large as well. Keep Marshall from the championship and that leaves us 24 spots.

Big 12 (3 spots): Nebraska, Texas A%M, Texas and Okla. State all have cause to be there. One will take the automatic, unless Kansas State steps in. A bunch of teams with similar records and blemishes to Clemson's in this conference. We're got 21 spots to go.

SEC (4 spots): LSU, Florida, Georgia, (sigh) South Carolina and Vandy are all worthy. One will take the title berth, leaving us with 17 spots.

Big West (1 spot): Either Cal Fullerton or Long Beach State has the title. The other is an at large, leaving us with 15 spots.

West Coast (1 spots): Cal Fullerton and Pepperdine. One's the champ the other's the at-large, leaving 14 spots.

Southern (1 spot) College of Charleston and Elon play for the title today. Look for both in the tourney. Lucky 13 spots remain.

Colonial (1 spot): Usually there's no an at-large from here. But James Madison took the title game, putting UNC-Wilmington in the at-large pool, and Ithink they'll get picked up. Down to a dozen spots.

Big East (1 spot): Lord knows who, beacuse after Louisville its pretty much a grab bag of medicority. But someone else will go because the NCAA needs teams in the East. 11 spots to go, and I'm out of multi-team confrences.

So....an 11-team bubble. Who's our competition for one of those last spots?

ACC: none. Everyone else worth a hoot is going aleready.

Pac-10: UCLA and Cal. The Bruins (31-24) have fewer blemishs, but a lower RPI. That means they're just an average team. Cal's RPI rivals ours, but they have as many blemishes (losing confrence record and bad road roecord especially).

Big 12: Missouri, K State and Baylor. Those Tigers probably have a better argument than our Tigers. But Caylor's season was just as tepid as Clemson's against worst competition. I can't see K State getting past either of them.

SEC: Kentucky, Ole Miss, Bama, Arkansas. All have similar seasons and similar blemishes. Kentucky seems the most likely of the bunch to me, and then it's just up to the vagaries of the committee.

Elsewhere: Dallas Baptist (34-17) is a sexy pick this year. UC Irvine (37-16) is promising, as is traditional power Tulane (37-20). New Orleans (42-18) and Missouri State (40-17) are promising, though they played much weaker schedules.

In the end, the folks who say no way may be right...and if so we'll sink quietly into DT.

But I did wish to note that Clemson, even in its worst season this generation has ever seen, is still a contender for the NCAA tournament....and that's pretty dang good.

God bless ya, come what may, Tigers!

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We have a losing road record. Granted we played Miami, FSU and GTech on the road, but we didn't get it done elsewhere on the road.

We had a losing record in confrence. When five team in the conference are also in the nation;s top 10 RPI, that might not hurt as badly as it could, but since we were only won 10 percent of our games against those teams there's a glaring weakness.

In our favor, none or the other bubble teams is especially stellar, either. For the weaknesses this year's team has, they are still as promising a team as most of the mid-tier teams in other conferences.

I guess it'll boil down to whether the NCAA wants to see some fresh faces or reward tradition. I'm hoping for tradition, which would get folks like us, Tulane and Ole Miss in.