Clemson on outside of national seed projection |
Upon further review, Clemson may have a little more work to do this week to ensure a national seed in the NCAA Tournament's selections.
Despite a 4-0 week, D1Baseball.com dropped the Tigers one spot to No. 9, which is just outside of the national-seed picture. National seeds can host both the Regional and Super Regional rounds of the NCAA Tournament. Clemson is seeking its first Super Regional appearance since 2010, when the Tigers also went on to the College World Series. Why was Clemson jumped? While the Tigers have mounted an impressive run down the stretch (16 wins in the last 18 games), NCAA resume-boosters such as RPI (11) aren't quite stacking up to top-10 peers, per D1Baseball. All of D1Baseball's projected national seeds are within the top-9 of the RPI, with No. 8 Texas Tech rated six spots higher than Clemson (5) with the No. 14-ranked strength of schedule. Only Stanford, which is tied with Clemson for the most wins for a Power 5 program, has a lower SOS (39) than the Tigers (30) and is still a projected national seed. The ACC ranks third (0.5519) in conference RPI behind the SEC (0.5766) and the Big 12 (0.5561). The Tigers will have plenty of chances to prove themselves this week at the ACC Baseball Championship, where they are a No. 2 seed after tying for the league's best conference record (22-8). Clemson opens action on Wednesday versus Notre Dame (94 RPI) at 3 p.m. (RSN/ACC Network Extra) and then takes on Miami (63 RPI) at 7 p.m. Thursday (RSN/ACC Network Extra).
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