Mississippi State baseball was not chosen as an NCAA Tournament regional host. Potential locations for the Bulldogs’ regional games.
Mississippi State baseball was not chosen to host an NCAA Tournament regional this year.
This marks the first time since 2018 – the last season before coach Chris Lemonis was hired – that the Bulldogs will participate in the postseason without hosting. MSU (38-21) has been considered a potential host since their late-April series win at Vanderbilt, according to various projections. However, despite being ranked No. 24 in the RPI, a key metric for the selection committee, they were not selected as one of the 16 host teams.
Mississippi State will find out their postseason destination on Monday at 11 a.m. (ESPN2) when the rest of the field is revealed.
Here are potential regional locations for the Bulldogs in the NCAA Tournament:
Five SEC schools were chosen to host: Tennessee, Texas A&M, Kentucky, Arkansas, and Georgia. MSU will not play in these regionals.
The possible hosts for MSU include North Carolina, Virginia, Clemson, Oregon State, East Carolina, Oklahoma, NC State, UC Santa Barbara, Oklahoma State, Florida State, and Arizona.
If Mississippi State is a top No. 2 seed, East Carolina and Arizona are likely destinations. Arizona has the lowest RPI (31) among the host schools, while East Carolina is at No. 22.
Reasons why Mississippi State isn’t hosting:
Despite having a top-15 strength of schedule, MSU’s nonconference schedule was ranked outside the top 130 nationally. Teams like Indiana State and East Carolina had a top-20 nonconference strength of schedule.
MSU suffered five Quadrant 4 losses. Even their wins against low-ranked opponents hurt their case. An April 9 game against Birmingham was canceled due to weather. Notably, MSU didn’t cancel nonconference games to boost their RPI, as warned by the committee.
East Carolina canceled two midweek games, including one against Campbell (No. 83 in RPI) in the final week of the regular season. MSU’s last midweek game on May 14 was against North Alabama, a team outside the top 275 in the RPI.
