[SPEAKER_01]: Everybody, J.J. Kubrick, a runner Jeff Ponds, another baseball America college podcast, and guys, we're here.

[SPEAKER_01]: The regular season has flown by conference tournament week.

[SPEAKER_01]: This time next week, we will not be recording at this exact time next week.

[SPEAKER_01]: It will be a little busy at this time next week because this will be a 64 time and we will be chewing over everything and looking ahead and all that.

[SPEAKER_01]: But.

[SPEAKER_01]: it's it's it's hard to believe it's already here.

[SPEAKER_01]: We're just gonna dive straight in, but Jacob is kind of the floor is yours.

[SPEAKER_01]: Anything in the final week of the regular season that shocked you or that people should look at and say, yeah, I didn't really think about that, but that's a very big deal.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I mean, I think that if you look at the totality of the season, this was a weird year in some respects.

[SPEAKER_02]: It was a historic year in some respects.

[SPEAKER_02]: We saw UCLA go wire to wire as the number one team and the BA top 25 of the first team to ever accomplish that former BA or John manual pointed out that Stanford in 1998 got close, but there was a weird change

[SPEAKER_02]: does have its own place in history.

[SPEAKER_02]: Now, we've got LSU, which was our preseason number two team.

[SPEAKER_02]: We're going to talk about that in a bit.

[SPEAKER_02]: They are on the outside looking in by a significant margin of the NCAA tournament, or what we're turning on.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, you got to win the SEC tournament in Hoover.

[SPEAKER_02]: It's been a really fun year and I feel like you can say that every year, but this year in particular, it's been very interesting to see the different types of performance.

[SPEAKER_02]: You've got teams like Georgia Tech that are winning with, you know, resounding, unrelenting offense.

[SPEAKER_02]: You've got teams like, you know,

[SPEAKER_02]: UC Santa Barbara, which have potential to make noise because they're so excellent on the mound.

[SPEAKER_02]: You've got teams like Florida that are a mystery to some degree because the level of talent is so high, but the consistency of the execution hasn't necessarily been there every single week.

[SPEAKER_02]: And you can kind of run through the important teams that I think are going to be relevant.

[SPEAKER_02]: towards the end of the season as we get to this part of the calendar, and just the different paths to which they've gotten there.

[SPEAKER_02]: And so, yeah, fun season, we're going to learn a lot about what exactly these teams are right now.

[SPEAKER_02]: And I think that there's a lot to look forward to as we get in the conference with a tournament plan.

[SPEAKER_01]: But we're going to start by kind of I think this is kind of an emphasis and a thing that we are really we were pouring over our projected field of 64 yesterday and I'll kind of kick this to Jacob first, but to both you guys the thing that really did stand out is there are years where I feel like you agonize over who you leave out.

[SPEAKER_01]: This year feels like a year where, yes, there will always be the last for, you know, that that didn't make it, that's going to be always crushing.

[SPEAKER_01]: But it does feel like that the bubbles a little, at least at this moment.

[SPEAKER_01]: We could have a lot of bid steelers coming up.

[SPEAKER_01]: But right now, it feels a little lighter.

[SPEAKER_01]: It feels a little less ample of teams with solid resumes, who are right on that edge of making the tournament.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I mean, you can even look back at your last year and we were having a hard time trying to figure out who to put in at the back of the tournament.

[SPEAKER_02]: You know, we were debating whether or not Kentucky last year was supposed to be a last 14 into the field.

[SPEAKER_02]: You can kind of have that same debate this year.

[SPEAKER_02]: They're a 13 win SEC team.

[SPEAKER_02]: with a losing record over the weekends, but still, that team feels really secure this year.

[SPEAKER_02]: We're at didn't last year, last year we believe that teams like Xavier and Yukon had a real debate to be in the tournament because of their RPI, they don't end up getting in and that was kind of the big selection Monday conversation.

[SPEAKER_02]: was the big east kind of squeezed by the NCAA selection committee at the end of the day.

[SPEAKER_02]: This year, it doesn't feel like we're doing that.

[SPEAKER_02]: It actually feels like quite the opposite.

[SPEAKER_02]: If I could summarize the conversation that the three of us had during our field of 64 meeting, it was more like,

[SPEAKER_02]: Who do we need to get in?

[SPEAKER_02]: Who can we argue to get into the field?

[SPEAKER_02]: Like how do we get to 64 rather than trying to shave down a larger group of teams from 66?

[SPEAKER_02]: Like it was last year or 67 the year before that to get down to 64.

[SPEAKER_02]: You know, the sun belt to me right now is the very interesting case because I think that the committee will have to handle that conference differently this year than it did last year.

[SPEAKER_02]: Troy finished the 2025 season with 18 sun belt wins and a low 40s RPI by selection Monday.

[SPEAKER_02]: They didn't get into the field as matter of fact.

[SPEAKER_02]: And we're even one of the first teams out of the field in 2025 this year, Troy, the exact same team has a worse RPI, a worse conference record and we have them in the

[SPEAKER_02]: We have Louisiana, which has a worse conference record than Troy, but a better RPI also in the field and Texas State is our second team out.

[SPEAKER_02]: So it's just a little bit different in terms of how everything is going to flow with the committee this year.

[SPEAKER_02]: I think that we could see a couple more mid majors towards the back of the poll have a better chance than we saw last year, which was the least we've seen for mid major representation on the at large line.

[SPEAKER_02]: since the NCAA expanded the tournament to the Super Regional Format 1999.

[SPEAKER_02]: You've got teams like UTSA, I mentioned the two sunbelts that are in there at the moment.

[SPEAKER_02]: Kent State is a mid-50s RPI team with a sterling RPI, with a sterling record in Mac play that may have a chance.

[SPEAKER_02]: And then you mentioned at JJ, there are a couple of teams in these mid-major conferences that have positioned themselves to potentially be at large bands.

[SPEAKER_02]: We're talking

[SPEAKER_02]: even if it doesn't win the South, the Southern Conference Tournament, because teams like Western Carolina are also really good.

[SPEAKER_02]: Maybe not as prominent RPI-wise, but certainly capable of winning that tournament and then you've got a team like Mercer that will bump out a team like UTSA or Louisiana or maybe NC State for the back of the tournament picture.

[SPEAKER_02]: This year a little bit more open to that bid stealing, I think, in terms of just pushing teams out, I think that bid majors have some strong resumes, RPI-wise, that will protect them on selection Monday, and that's a little bit unique.

[SPEAKER_02]: Well, I'll accept that for the last couple of years, just where we've seen the tournament trend.

[SPEAKER_01]: Jeff, does anyone that when we were doing that yesterday has stood out to you is like, okay, if they, you feel like that even if they're cases that they're full, definitely in or definitely out right now or indefinitely, I should say in and out because obviously there's a lot still to be done, but were there any of them that stood out to you is like, man, but I feel like that that team probably, you know, should be on the other end of this as far as the caliber of the team, if not the caliber of the resume.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I mean, that's a tough question.

[SPEAKER_00]: I do a lot of our auto bid work on the field of 64 and looking at more of the mid-major conferences, et cetera.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I think it's always interesting when we see a situation like with East Carolina.

[SPEAKER_00]: where a week ago, they're on the bubble, you know, they're outside of the field of 64.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then this week, you know, coming off of a better series and some things kind of shaking up within conference.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then, you know, all of a sudden they're the auto bid for the American conference.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I think that's kind of indicative of the types of conversations that we've been having around the field of 64.

[SPEAKER_00]: It hasn't been like there's six or seven bubble teams here that we feel pretty good about that all have a very realistic chance to, you know, get at large bids or whatever.

[SPEAKER_00]: who are the who do we feel the auto bids are and from week to week how how is that all shaking out because we had to hold our nose in a couple of teams in the back end of that that list frankly as they as they snuck in were like I don't know if he would have been having this conversation a year ago was was an interesting year just you know throughout the top 25 and doing this field of 64.

[SPEAKER_01]: Take the the other thing I want to ask what that is is that it also seems like that this year

[SPEAKER_01]: If you look at the ACC in the SEC, there are fewer teams who are in that what I would call very muddy middle where it's like, is this team a really a tournament team or, you know, like, I feel like you wrote about NC State today in NC State, I feel like in some years would be in the muddy middle, but when you look at the caliber of the bubble this year, it just feels like barring something catastrophic in the ACC tournament that they probably got a pretty good case.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then you have Vanderbilt, which is I feel like,

[SPEAKER_01]: You wrote about also as they need to make a run, but that feels less up in the air than you laid out, like Kentucky last year, who I feel like was very much kind of more firmly in that.

[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, this is a too tough to call, almost kind of call.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I mean, I think that this year we have a lot more examples of teams that have a clear amount of work to do, versus teams that are really in a murky position, like last year with Kentucky as you kind of just alluded to, Kentucky was in a position RPI wise and record wise at 13 SEC wins, which has become a real benchmark for that conference.

[SPEAKER_02]: Kentucky was in a position last year where it was already a debate about whether or not it was going to get into the field before the SEC tournament started.

[SPEAKER_02]: There was no real conversation about this is what Kentucky needs to do in Hoover in order to be able to get in.

[SPEAKER_02]: It was already reasonably clear that there was an at large case.

[SPEAKER_02]: This year, it feels like the teams that are on the outside looking in

[SPEAKER_02]: really have something to do this week.

[SPEAKER_02]: And I'm talking about teams like Michigan, for example, you can't go and get swept by Ohio State in the last weekend of the regular season and fall out of the top 50 in RPI and be four games above 500 in the Big 10, which you know, for all the hooting and the hollering that I've seen on social media about the renewed strength of the Big 10 in baseball.

[SPEAKER_02]: It's a little bit fool's gold, if I'm going to be completely honest, there are four teams ranked inside the top 16 in RPI from the big 10 right now, and then none of its other members come inside the top 50.

[SPEAKER_02]: So there's a massive gap between this really elite tier of teams that exist in that conference and then everybody else.

[SPEAKER_02]: And I think that that hurts a team like Michigan.

[SPEAKER_02]: The record and conference play is not terribly good.

[SPEAKER_02]: The quad one record at four and 10 is really unimpressive.

[SPEAKER_02]: You've got Purdue, which is a game better in the conference

[SPEAKER_02]: In quad one games and they're oh and six and the quad one games that they've played since the end of April So it's just a I don't know that there's a team right now that

[SPEAKER_02]: It has a really murky case where it's like I could go back and forth and try and figure it out.

[SPEAKER_02]: I think that Michigan and Purdue need to go win games.

[SPEAKER_02]: I know that Vanderbilt with an RPI of 73, even at 14 SEC wins.

[SPEAKER_02]: And remember, four of those came against Missouri and South Carolina.

[SPEAKER_01]: And remember, only four of those, because with the, with the, with the, with the, with the, He's at almost nine to Missouri.

[SPEAKER_02]: And at the same time, Vanderbilt is five and 16 in quad one games that there are a large number of teams that have fair better even in smaller samples than Vanderbilt has against top to your competition.

[SPEAKER_02]: So, you know, I think Vanderbilt probably needs to get to the SEC championship game just to even have a real shot even with that conference win total.

[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know that the committee is going to be in a position to be able to respect that because of the RPI at the same time though, and I was going to say this off of what Jeff was saying.

[SPEAKER_02]: I do think that this year will be unique in that it will really aggressively challenge the terrible system.

[SPEAKER_02]: And I want to be on the record and saying that the terrible system that is RPI.

[SPEAKER_02]: There are a number of examples this year.

[SPEAKER_02]: of teams that are not ranked well RPI-wise that are, in my opinion, locks to make the NCAA tournament.

[SPEAKER_02]: Virginia Tech right now is 15 and 15 in the ACC.

[SPEAKER_02]: They want a series at Clemson to end the regular season.

[SPEAKER_02]: It dropped them down in RPI to the back end of the 40s range.

[SPEAKER_02]: That team is not missing the NCAA tournament.

[SPEAKER_02]: I don't even think it will be on the bubble.

[SPEAKER_02]: Arizona State is third right now.

[SPEAKER_02]: In the big 12 at 19 11 and conference games, they're 36 and 18 overall.

[SPEAKER_02]: They have not lost a road series all year and they're six and eight in quad one game, seven and five in quad two.

[SPEAKER_02]: That team might be a two seed at the back of the two seed line despite an RPI of 48 going into the big 12 tournament.

[SPEAKER_02]: So I do think that because of the weakness of the bubble this year, there will be some room to kind of challenge the RPI metric and kind of push things towards where did you land in the conference standings?

[SPEAKER_02]: How many teams did you beat that were towards the top half of your conference?

[SPEAKER_02]: There's just something that we're going to get into in a second here when it comes to wake forest.

[SPEAKER_02]: There is a lot of uncertainty to me.

[SPEAKER_02]: about how the committee will approach our PI this year and how much conference standings will matter because that has been a shifting goal post over the last several years in particular since the pandemic really, you know, for the NCAA selection committee.

[SPEAKER_01]: Speaking a little bit, let's just dive into it, because it's a good question that we got, which was, okay, wake-force, speaking of our PI, wake-force, fairs very well in our PI.

[SPEAKER_01]: And the question was, why did we not have wake-force in our top 25, if you're on the YouTube, I will add what our current top 25 is, so you can see it.

[SPEAKER_01]: So, you know, Jacob will, you're, you're the star here, so we'll start with you.

[SPEAKER_01]: Nothing gets Jeff and I, but, you know, so why is Wake?

[SPEAKER_01]: Why did we not put Wake in our company,

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I think that Wake is kind of the prime example of the difference between doing a field of 64 projection and where certain things like RPI matter a lot versus what a team is actually doing and where it should be ranked in our top 25.

[SPEAKER_02]: We have Wake as the number 22 seats.

[SPEAKER_02]: That's a very prominent.

[SPEAKER_02]: I would have go as far as to say, near host to seed right now.

[SPEAKER_02]: The seed line starts at 16.

[SPEAKER_02]: So if you're 20, you're very much in the conversation.

[SPEAKER_02]: And that's a bi-product of having an RPI.

[SPEAKER_02]: That is really great.

[SPEAKER_02]: They're 18 right now going into conference tournament play.

[SPEAKER_02]: They're 38 and 18 overall.

[SPEAKER_02]: They've played the 16th strength of schedule.

[SPEAKER_02]: That's fantastic.

[SPEAKER_02]: However, RPI benefits significantly from playing simply good RPI teams.

[SPEAKER_02]: Who does that include this year?

[SPEAKER_02]: Well, they've played pit.

[SPEAKER_02]: They've played Clemson.

[SPEAKER_02]: They've played Western Carolina.

[SPEAKER_02]: All of those are series that will grade out in the quad two or better realm by the time the season is done.

[SPEAKER_02]: And that's what's boosting a team like Wakes RPI into the top 20.

[SPEAKER_02]: Why does that matter for the hosting picture or for the tournament picture and the seating picture?

[SPEAKER_02]: Because that's the thing that the committee has shown historically that it's going to look at.

[SPEAKER_02]: From a top 25 standpoint though, we are looking

[SPEAKER_02]: How do you measure that?

[SPEAKER_02]: Well, are you beating good teams is typically the easiest way in my opinion to decide whether or not somebody belongs in the 25 best teams in the country?

[SPEAKER_02]: And, quite frankly, Wake hasn't done that.

[SPEAKER_02]: They're 4 and 11 against teams ranked to 8th or better in the ACC right now.

[SPEAKER_01]: They have productive, they say right eighth or better.

[SPEAKER_01]: You mean, okay, let's just clarify.

[SPEAKER_01]: In the clarify, not ranked eighth in the country.

[SPEAKER_02]: You mean the top eight teams in the ACC stands of the ACC teams, those that have finished with a ranking of eight or better of which there are actually nine teams.

[SPEAKER_02]: wait for us has a current record of so not ranking sorry I'm just probably clear standings standings yeah standings they are four and eleven against top eight standings teams in the ACC that makes them 12 of their 16 conference wins have come against the bottom half of the conference

[SPEAKER_02]: when you are not capable of beating top rank teams, they're also 6 and 14 and quad 1, it makes it very difficult to rank a team like this.

[SPEAKER_02]: And by the way, when I say that they've struggled against the top half of the conference, they have a losing weekend at Virginia, which is cooled considerably towards the end of the year.

[SPEAKER_02]: They're below 500.

[SPEAKER_02]: They have a losing weekend, you know,

[SPEAKER_02]: Georgia Tech swept them handily in Atlanta.

[SPEAKER_02]: FSU swept them handily in Winston Stailum.

[SPEAKER_02]: So they've had opportunities to beat really good teams and show us that they belong in the top 25.

[SPEAKER_02]: They've been in the top 25 at certain points this season.

[SPEAKER_02]: But when it comes to who you've beaten,

[SPEAKER_02]: they don't really have a robust resume at this point and finishing your season with series wins against Louisville, Western Carolina and Duke is not going to be enough to get you above the host line or the excuse of the host line.

[SPEAKER_02]: Into the top 25, when you were just recently swept by a team like Georgia Tech and have not really had a track record of beating top n teams like that.

[SPEAKER_01]: Jeff, kind of along this line, we've looked, watch this team kind of all year, like I like how Jacob kind of spelled this out.

[SPEAKER_01]: This isn't us saying that oh, they have no hope

[SPEAKER_01]: But when you watch this team as far as their week to week resume,

[SPEAKER_01]: did it feel like to you like it was on the edge of a top three five.

[SPEAKER_00]: I feel like that's where we'd say it's like it's an edge of a top twenty five team or did you have a case to be even higher than that so we rank out the top 30 more or less so kind of the five teams that are just off the list because obviously we don't always have the same top twenty five the three or four of us that are working on the list on a Sunday evening or this week Saturday and

[SPEAKER_00]: They were always sort of within that 24 to like 28, 30 kind of range.

[SPEAKER_00]: Some of that would depend from week to week.

[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I sort of felt like generally throughout the season that the pitching and the pitching talent, that they have is as carried them quite a bit.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now the numbers don't necessarily bear that out.

[SPEAKER_00]: You know, they were top 19 in Wobba.

[SPEAKER_00]: They do produce a lot of runs, frankly.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think some of that is obviously the run environment that they play in as well.

[SPEAKER_00]: But, you know, I think when you look at WakeFars, they are a fairly balanced team.

[SPEAKER_00]: The offense is produced more than we expected.

[SPEAKER_00]: And the pitching staff from a talent perspective,

[SPEAKER_00]: you could probably argue is one of the best in the country.

[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, they have more underclass talent coming out of that bullpen, some of the guys that have started in the weekend rotation over the last couple of weeks as anybody in the country.

[SPEAKER_00]: But the performances haven't always been there and it's been as will happen with younger teams.

[SPEAKER_00]: I feel like we talk about this every year, the beginning of the season, and then as we get late,

[SPEAKER_00]: You get a lot of inconsistency with the younger teams.

[SPEAKER_00]: They haven't been through as many battles, all that et cetera.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's why the transfer portal and some of the most valuable players from a wins and losses perspective aren't the biggest prospects, but guys that can come in that have four years of college experience or three years of college experience and can immediately.

[SPEAKER_00]: in the middle of that lineup or give you really competitive starts in the rotation.

[SPEAKER_00]: So I feel like that's some of the stuff from a player perspective and the things that are going on in the background.

[SPEAKER_00]: They've always been there.

[SPEAKER_00]: They're clearly a top 30ish team in the country.

[SPEAKER_00]: But they've been a fringe top 25 team.

[SPEAKER_00]: And some of that is, you got to have consistent performances.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think we talked a lot about this at the first half of the season with Florida, across the second half of the season, Florida has found that consistency.

[SPEAKER_00]: Some of it has been, you know, they haven't played the absolute best teams in the SEC for a week to a week, which is felt like they were doing for a while.

[SPEAKER_00]: But they came out, they beat the teams that were supposed to, they put the performances together, they were supposed to.

[SPEAKER_00]: And also a team that's very talented, very similar to Wake Forest.

[SPEAKER_00]: But I think when you look down the stretch, when you compare the two, one keeps on moving up the top 25 and is an easy top 25 team because they found that consistency, which is something we did not see with way far.

[SPEAKER_01]: So, along those lines,

[SPEAKER_01]: I think this is fun to kind of show.

[SPEAKER_01]: So we have our current top 25, but the regular season, we've put it, we've just put a bow on the regular season.

[SPEAKER_01]: So it's probably useful to look back as well at what our preseason top 25 was.

[SPEAKER_01]: And we're really gonna focus on the top 10 here because we're not just gonna read out a full top 25, but if you're on the podcast, I wanna make sure that you can hear it as well.

[SPEAKER_01]: So coming into the season, we had UCLA1,

[SPEAKER_01]: We had LSU2, we had Mississippi State 3, we had Georgia Tech 4, we had Auburn 5, Georgia 6, North Carolina 7, Texas 8, TCU 9 and Alabama 10.

[SPEAKER_01]: Now, other than UCLA staying locked in at number one, all year, coast to coast as Jacob said, first team we've ever seen do that.

[SPEAKER_01]: The thing that does stand out about that is this the order may be slightly changed here, but overall,

[SPEAKER_01]: a lot of the teams in the top 10 have kind of remained in the top 10 for much or at least have come back into the top 10 at the end of the season.

[SPEAKER_01]: Although I would say in the case of Georgia Tech Auburn, Georgia, North Carolina and Texas, I would say that they've generally been in a round that area all year.

[SPEAKER_01]: Is that kind of Jacob kind of go back to the point

[SPEAKER_01]: that we were talking about earlier about how, is this a season that maybe a little bit more stratified between the, the halves and the have not's a little bit more than, and maybe a little bit less of a middle?

[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, I think that that's the perfect way to put it.

[SPEAKER_02]: I do think that this year's defining characteristic is going to end up being that the teams that will prove to be good were the ones that you didn't really have to overthink before this season.

[SPEAKER_02]: You could look at UCLA and it was pretty clear instantly that was going to be a really good team.

[SPEAKER_02]: Obviously, you know, you're going to have teams like

[SPEAKER_02]: and LSU is an interesting example because I don't think the LSU is like the common version of one I'm about to say here, but there will always be teams when it comes to the preseason top 25 that don't pan out to expectation, but largely speaking.

[SPEAKER_02]: If you look at the top,

[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, really, if you look at the top 10, and even a little bit beyond that in our poll right now, or our poll from the beginning of the season, I do think that it reflects the teams that we believe were good then, that ended up being good now.

[SPEAKER_02]: And I think that we'll see that in the postseason too.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, I do think that there's a gap between, you know, the most talented teams and the ones that are a little bit more in the middle of the pack.

[SPEAKER_02]: I think that that'll be reflected in the tournament as well.

[SPEAKER_02]: Like, I don't know that UCLA is really on an upset watch.

[SPEAKER_02]: Like, before the tournament begins every year, I do a story that's like, you know, team hosts center on upset watch, eight hosts to keep an eye on.

[SPEAKER_02]: That's going to be a lot harder of an exercise this year for me, because I do think that this year, unlike years past,

[SPEAKER_02]: The top 16 feels really solid to me and I do think that this could end up being a tournament where we see a little bit less of that classic college baseball pandemonium that happens once the postseason begins and I say that now and obviously there's going to be some three seed that goes on out

[SPEAKER_02]: Crazy ride and we're gonna be talking about them here in three weeks, but going into it just looking at the picture It does feel like this preseason group has held really strong And there's a reason for that and just like we didn't know if we're thinking before the season There's no reason to overthink it now like it's a really good group and it does stand out quite clearly from the teams that are behind it So Jeff when you look at it like

[SPEAKER_01]: Obviously, LSU will take the crown as the team that kind of ended up being way less than we thought they were coming into the season.

[SPEAKER_01]: But when you look at the preseason rankings and kind of all that work, it feels so long ago now, but also not that long ago at all, that we were trying to shape up, you know, figure out kind of how everyone lined up.

[SPEAKER_01]: anyone else stand out for a positive or negative like a team that we thought was good but in a being a lot better than we thought or a team that we thought was going to be good and has ended up not being what we thought.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I think certainly Virginia sticks out to me that we had 14, they started the season fairly hot, you know, one of the more

[SPEAKER_00]: name value loaded sort of lineups in college baseball, multiple draft prospects across a bunch of years.

[SPEAKER_00]: They were active in the transfer portal.

[SPEAKER_00]: It looked like a really good team.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think that, you know, of all the teams on this list, obviously, LSU, not with standing, they're obviously the biggest disappointment, even though they're going to get into the tournament, I think that when you look at the talent that was on this team and now granted it was a first year there for Pollard and Company making the switch to Duke and following a legendary coach, you know, they're in Charlottesville.

[SPEAKER_00]: But,

[SPEAKER_00]: You look at that team, you look at the talent that's on that team, and just some of the series that they drop, particularly throughout the middle of the season when things started to go south.

[SPEAKER_00]: They were a top 10 team for us and really plummeted pretty quickly.

[SPEAKER_00]: And since then, have been in the field of 64, but have never really been sort of in the picture of being considered for a top 15 to 10 team since that point in time.

[SPEAKER_00]: So I think that's one call out.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think the other one that I'll mention, but I'm sure Jacob maybe wants to talk about this one with the Louisville that we had at 18, who line up once again, look, load it.

[SPEAKER_00]: You know, certainly Zion Rose missed some time and that hurt them.

[SPEAKER_00]: But in the big scheme of things, that was a really disappointing season from Louisville.

[SPEAKER_00]: And, you know, was never really in the mix even after the first month or so in the ACC picture for me.

[SPEAKER_01]: So Jacob, like you, with that, like I'll kind of kick that question to you, like this Louisville and other one that really stands out.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I think that the clear mix of teams that under-deliver relative to our expectations, you got LSU, and that's a major shortcoming in terms of just what we was expected to do.

[SPEAKER_02]: And by the way, like, this is not to absolve us from having them as high as they are, and then the performance that they have.

[SPEAKER_02]: But LSU was, was

[SPEAKER_02]: unanimously projected as a top three team in preseason top 25 polls like this was a team that was it wasn't an obscure pick to be a good team.

[SPEAKER_02]: At LSU way fell short of the talent that it had.

[SPEAKER_02]: I think that Louisville we were appropriately skeptical of.

[SPEAKER_02]: We were the low guys in the industry on Louisville.

[SPEAKER_02]: That was a top 25 roster purely by talent.

[SPEAKER_02]: Jeff mentioned the injuries.

[SPEAKER_02]: I actually still think that they underperformed for what it's worth just because you've got like

[SPEAKER_02]: We have a player of the year candidate like Take Davis doing what he's doing.

[SPEAKER_02]: You've got Zion Rose, who's been largely very good when he's been healthy.

[SPEAKER_02]: You've got Ben Slanker, who was a transfer that, you know, a shoutout Peter Flaherty, Peter and I love Ben Slanker coming out of Ohio last year when he transferred Louisville as a corner outfield type.

[SPEAKER_02]: So this is a team that was never lacking for talent.

[SPEAKER_02]: And it just never quite put it together.

[SPEAKER_02]: There are a number of arms on that roster as well, but I think I'm really intriguing from a draft standpoint.

[SPEAKER_02]: And it just never really clicked.

[SPEAKER_02]: Vanderbilt.

[SPEAKER_02]: kind of the same thing.

[SPEAKER_02]: There were a couple of us that that voice some skepticism about Vanderbilt after seeing them for the first time on opening weekend in Arlington.

[SPEAKER_02]: I think that that has very much come true.

[SPEAKER_02]: We actually wrote about it that week and then the other one to me is Clemson.

[SPEAKER_02]: Clemson's had a terrible year relative to expectations and it is very Louisville-esque in that I do think that that was a group that had some talent.

[SPEAKER_02]: Maybe there were some more shortcomings and that's reflected by the fact that we had Clemson ranked lower than Louisville but this is a much worse season.

[SPEAKER_02]: for the Clemson Tigers and I think could have been reasonably anticipated.

[SPEAKER_02]: So those are the teams that really stand out.

[SPEAKER_02]: I think he's Carolina was a very reasonable projection bias at the time.

[SPEAKER_02]: We felt as though they were going to win that league.

[SPEAKER_02]: They're still on a position to be able to do that.

[SPEAKER_02]: Are they a top 25 team right now?

[SPEAKER_02]: No, you know, not even close really, but I do think that.

[SPEAKER_02]: East Carolina was more projection based on how it would play in its conference than a look at necessarily its talent, even though it did have a number of guys who are very intriguing from a draft standpoint.

[SPEAKER_02]: So yeah, I mean, I just kind of ran through every team that was disappointing on there for you, but there's a group for everything that we did good, you know, we are here to eat our crow as well.

[SPEAKER_02]: There were a couple of misses on there as well.

[SPEAKER_00]: I have a question for you.

[SPEAKER_00]: I want to throw the group on on Vanderbilt in particular, because it's from week to week there.

[SPEAKER_00]: They look like one of the best teams that you'll watch in a given weekend, and the next weekend, they'll look like one of the worst teams that you'll watch on a given weekend.

[SPEAKER_00]: They've kind of changed the style of play.

[SPEAKER_00]: I felt like it was more power, hitter, heavy within those lineups that they really could slug, work deep in accounts, more three true outcome kind of hitters, and I was really excited

[SPEAKER_00]: Interesting release traits, good stuff.

[SPEAKER_00]: Some of those guys are certainly younger.

[SPEAKER_00]: But it feels like a very different approach to team building and just actual gameplay and strategy than we've seen from Tim Corbin teams in the past.

[SPEAKER_00]: That was kind of interested with you guys.

[SPEAKER_00]: What your thoughts were on that?

[SPEAKER_00]: Because that was something that throughout the season with Vanderbilt really, really stood saw stuck with me.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I think that Tim Corbin was realizing that the Vanderbilt roster model, which is very heavily reliant on the high school product and development and retention, was not going to be sustainable.

[SPEAKER_02]: And I think that we saw somewhat of a transition year for what has otherwise been one of the steadiest programs in the country.

[SPEAKER_02]: This will snap and all likelihood a 19-year streak of tournament appearances for Tim Corbin.

[SPEAKER_02]: And I think that it's kind of the beginning of a rebuild.

[SPEAKER_02]: From everything that I've heard in conversations with sources for all the rumors that are out there about is Tim Corbin going to retire.

[SPEAKER_02]: It really, really does not sound like that's the case.

[SPEAKER_02]: And I don't blame him.

[SPEAKER_02]: Like I don't know just knowing Tim Corbin and having had conversations with him and learning from somebody who's such a sagely mind in the college baseball world.

[SPEAKER_02]: Like that's not somebody who's going to want to go out on this kind of a year.

[SPEAKER_02]: That would be a bummer of a way to end the career of somebody who really is a legend.

[SPEAKER_02]: And part of him being able to sustain himself and stay there and be able to compete at the level that I know he wants to compete at was a stylistic change from on on how they recruited that roster they didn't need to be more power heavy on offense and needed to be a little bit more game ready in terms of the guys that they were bringing in could they go in and contribute like there are the Brody Johnson's of the world we're going to come in and contribute as freshman no matter where they are whether that's it.

[SPEAKER_02]: Florida or Vanderbilt or Auburn, there's always star freshmen in the SEC who are capable right away, but the majority of SEC roster production nowadays is coming from older players.

[SPEAKER_02]: It's guys who were not under roster's in their first one or even two years of their college careers.

[SPEAKER_02]: And for Vanderbilt, they were behind on that trend to a degree.

[SPEAKER_02]: I think that they kind of resisted for as long as they possibly could.

[SPEAKER_02]: And we saw that kind of materialize a little bit in the lack of power that they've had offensively in the last couple years.

[SPEAKER_02]: very vocal about how they needed to hit for more power.

[SPEAKER_02]: He actually there's a story at baseball America from the fall about how Vanderbilt this off season made a massive push in trying to get some of its stronger hitters to put the ball in the air more consistently.

[SPEAKER_02]: Johnson was one of those guys and I think that they actually accomplished that to some degree but there were also growing pains and there were some issues with the roster composition that kind of had cracks that materialized

[SPEAKER_02]: I think that this is a team that will be better next year because there are lessons that were learned this year in terms of what needs to go into roster building to build a success velocity team in 2026 and now 2027 and again like I'll never bet against a guy like Tim Corb and just with the success that he's had.

[SPEAKER_01]: So the thing that did struggle me though like we talk about like when I think about what Vanderbilt is year in your out.

[SPEAKER_01]: is that Vanderbilt for all the read online up.

[SPEAKER_01]: This was a Vanderbilt team that didn't, you know, there are a lot of SEC teams where you say you can rattle off their weekend starters off the top of your head, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: And you're like, yeah, that's really like, that's a really loaded weekend rotation.

[SPEAKER_01]: We talk about Mississippi State and there there are they're 2027, you know, draft first rounders, you know, one after another.

[SPEAKER_02]: I know scouts I want to buy season tickets to Mississippi State to watch the rotation next player.

[SPEAKER_01]: The flip side of that is this Vanderbilt team didn't have that.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I say that because that is something that like I can rattle off all Vanderbilt rotations you know where you're like whoa okay like that's a Saturday starter yeah that's a Saturday starter for them.

[SPEAKER_01]: This is a team that really I feel like all year was kind of mixing and matching on the pitching staff and trying to figure out what they had.

[SPEAKER_01]: Is that a fair assessment of kind of where they were?

[SPEAKER_02]: Yes it is.

[SPEAKER_02]: And I also think that in fairness to Vanderbilt there is an element of injury that needs to be baited into this.

[SPEAKER_02]: They have had a couple of guys that I think that they were ready to rely on.

[SPEAKER_02]: Even if that was in a bullpen rule, a prominent bullpen rule.

[SPEAKER_02]: that never got healthy or got hurt at some point in the year and were able to get healthy.

[SPEAKER_02]: And that obviously has an impact especially at the college level because I do think that even for, you know, some of these elite development teams and guys that recruit really well, there is an element of once you get past a certain number on your dev chart.

[SPEAKER_02]: It's going to get really hard to do business.

[SPEAKER_02]: And I think that that was in part the case at times for Vanderbilt, just kind of the thinness of the pitching staff once you get past that, you know, dev chart number like I said,

[SPEAKER_02]: But yeah, no.

[SPEAKER_02]: I do think that there was a lack of start pitching, even relevant for like what they had last year when they were the number one national seed, then multiple guys that you could try out there both in terms of starters and relievers where it was like, if you're the opposing team, you gotta be on your game to go beat Vanderbilt that night because those guys were gonna go be really good.

[SPEAKER_02]: This year, I don't know that they had a single picture that it was like, you really gotta be worried.

[SPEAKER_02]: When you go out there, I think that there were a couple of guys where it was like, if they're on their best tonight, it could be a problem for you, but you could also get them at their worst and you're gonna be able to kind of kick their butt a little bit.

[SPEAKER_02]: And that's not very typical of Vanderbilt.

[SPEAKER_02]: So, you know, I think that that goes back to what I said a second ago.

[SPEAKER_02]: There is a change in recruiting strategy that's happening in Nashville right now.

[SPEAKER_02]: And, you know, they even Vanderbilt on, I believe, was on LinkedIn, posted a position of, it was like director of Ops and recruiting to have somebody be a full-time kind of trans-reportal scour and director of talent and roster management, because there is a realization there that's happening or has happened that they are behind.

[SPEAKER_02]: Correct itself, both in terms of the amount of chances that they bring an offensively, who can contribute, particularly in the power department.

[SPEAKER_02]: But then to your point, a number of guys I think will come in via the portal.

[SPEAKER_02]: We're going to be able to go in right away and compete for a spot in the rotation and kind of be established that, you know, we know who's going to start for Vanderbilt on a Friday Saturday and Sunday every week, barring injuries throughout the entire season.

[SPEAKER_01]: I did it before we moved on, I did want to crawl about one, you said we're not trying we're looking at the pluses and the minuses, but it does, you know, I will point out that Georgia on the preseason coaches rankings of the SEC coaches, they had Georgia 9th among SEC teams, that's your SEC champion Georgia.

[SPEAKER_01]: We had them sixth in the nation in our preseason rankings.

[SPEAKER_01]: So now we did still have them fourth in the SEC.

[SPEAKER_01]: I don't want to make it sound like we had it all right because we had three other SEC teams ahead of that.

[SPEAKER_01]: But we did have them sixth and I feel like that that's a much more accurate reflection of where they turned up.

[SPEAKER_01]: So there is some good that we had at the top of that list in addition to UCLA too.

[SPEAKER_02]: pop that top 25 back on the screen one second.

[SPEAKER_02]: I just want to point out, you know, one thing that we talk about and Peter and I used to talk about this all the time on the podcast.

[SPEAKER_02]: The preseason poll, it's really hard to look at that in individual terms.

[SPEAKER_02]: And what I mean when I say that is, the number one team is the number one team.

[SPEAKER_02]: Like UCLA we've viewed as the best team in the country and we don't take the number one spot lightly.

[SPEAKER_02]: And I think that you can say that about

[SPEAKER_02]: Team number four is heading shoulders better than Team number five.

[SPEAKER_02]: And Team number six is clearly behind Team number five.

[SPEAKER_02]: Like to me the preseason poll is more about getting teams into the right buckets.

[SPEAKER_02]: So did we have Georgia as the third SEC team.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, we did, but to me.

[SPEAKER_02]: that's more reflection of the fact that we thought that they were in the conversation to win the conference and it was like this is clearly the third best team in the league.

[SPEAKER_02]: To me that was in range.

[SPEAKER_02]: And by the way, I will say, because we're kind of patting our own backs a little bit here on the preseason top 25, we caught a lot of flack.

[SPEAKER_02]: more flag than any other thing about our top 25 at the preseason than anything else about the two teams from Georgia people said that we had Georgia tech to high and that we had Georgia to high and that they didn't understand our confidence and we said repeatedly we stuck with it all year

[SPEAKER_02]: The Georgia Tech was going to have the best offense in the country, and that finally, Georgia, which has always been a juggernaut offensively under West Johnson, was going to be able to turn raw pitching talent into true pitching production, which has been a problem for it in years past and why they haven't necessarily realized their full potential.

[SPEAKER_02]: Both of those things have come to

[SPEAKER_02]: To fruition to a T. I would go as far as to say that Georgia Tech is by far the best offense in the country and one of the reasons that Georgia has gotten as far as it did is not necessarily because of its offense because again, that's been the offense that it's had for the last couple years.

[SPEAKER_02]: I was like, that was cheating.

[SPEAKER_02]: That's done.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's arguably the second best offense in the country, though.

[SPEAKER_02]: Sure, but I guess my point is we've known that Georgia can do that, especially because in the confines of fully field where it is objectively easier to hit.

[SPEAKER_02]: And West Johnson, who I've always joked, I call him the mad scientist of college baseball coaches, because he is a genius when it comes to recruiting the ballpark factors.

[SPEAKER_02]: Last year, their second basement, Robbie Burnett, was a transfer from UNC Asheville, who had zero high major offers, until West Johnson called him and said,

[SPEAKER_02]: Robbie, we want you to come to fully field and try to put the ball in the air to the pole side as much as you possibly can.

[SPEAKER_02]: And if you do, you will hit 20 home runs.

[SPEAKER_02]: And what did you do?

[SPEAKER_02]: He hit 20 home runs last year.

[SPEAKER_02]: And I don't think that anybody would have predicted that other than West Johnson.

[SPEAKER_02]: So this is somebody who's very capable of guiding teams to being very successful offensively.

[SPEAKER_02]: And the problem for them has really been,

[SPEAKER_02]: They identify the right talents pitching-wise, but they haven't always been consistently successful stuff has not always equal results in Athens.

[SPEAKER_02]: This year that has not been the case, stuff has equal results, and I think that that's probably why Georgia has had the year that it's had, and why, you know, until I can't do it anymore, I will probably pick them to go to Omaha.

[SPEAKER_01]: I will say that I completely agree with everything you said there and at the same time, if they don't make it to Omaha,

[SPEAKER_01]: I think it'll very much be that their pitching would be the question at that point, like that it remains.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's been much better, but it still remains the question.

[SPEAKER_02]: I'll also pose this though.

[SPEAKER_02]: I do think that one of Georgia's pitfalls has been its offense and how it travels.

[SPEAKER_02]: Now, it helps a ton that Georgia will be a no doubt host throughout the entirety of the postseason until, or if it gets to Omaha, it will be a top eight national seed.

[SPEAKER_02]: So it's not going to really have to worry about the away ballpark factors that have sometimes plagued it.

[SPEAKER_02]: So to your point, probably, because we know that that offense is going to perform really well in Athens, but I do think that, you know, once it, if it gets to the college won't series, one of the things that I will

[SPEAKER_02]: wonder aloud right now is whether or not George is going to be capable of hanging because the the home runs fly a lot less once you get into that ballpark in Omaha, Nebraska.

[SPEAKER_01]: And this is a team with five different players who've hit 16 or more.

[SPEAKER_01]: So like yes, it is a it's been a lineup that has been a murderous row week after week, but before we wrap this up,

[SPEAKER_01]: We need to look ahead.

[SPEAKER_01]: So we have conference tournament play this week.

[SPEAKER_01]: And Jeff, I'll come to you first.

[SPEAKER_01]: What are you most looking forward to our most wanting to see this week when it comes to tournament play?

[SPEAKER_01]: What are you keeping in eye on?

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I think for me, it's just from even a fan perspective, it's some upsets, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: We want to see somebody at the back end of one of these conferences that maybe had a good season, but you know, isn't within the top 15 or even top 25 at this point.

[SPEAKER_00]: make a nice little run and make it maybe difficult for us in terms of projecting some of these teams at the back of the last field of 64.

[SPEAKER_00]: So I think for me it's just it's sort of looking at.

[SPEAKER_00]: The SEC, the ACC, we talked about how talented both of those conferences have been.

[SPEAKER_00]: There's maybe some teams at the top that have separated themselves.

[SPEAKER_00]: But there is a very strong sort of top middle with an each of those conferences.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I think it will make for some really great series this week.

[SPEAKER_00]: Jacob?

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I'm in fun, mid-sealing mode at this point.

[SPEAKER_02]: I think that because of the lack of bubble strength this year, there is an odd amount of certainty about the teams that are in the tournament picture.

[SPEAKER_02]: Like, I don't foresee, I'll actually approve of this for the great people who are listening to this podcast.

[SPEAKER_02]: If you're into field projections, we will have one every day at Baseball America.

[SPEAKER_02]: We're updating our field of 64 every day until the tournament is actually released and announced.

[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know this year that you'll see a whole lot of changes day to day.

[SPEAKER_02]: Like last year, Peter and I used to toil into the wee hours of the morning trying to figure out which teams to get in the back of the picture and where teams factor in the bubble.

[SPEAKER_02]: This year, I don't know that we're going to have those same kinds of really challenging phone calls.

[SPEAKER_02]: I think it will be a little bit more chalk.

[SPEAKER_02]: And thus, I think the biggest influence to the back of the tournament will not be

[SPEAKER_02]: conference tournament wins and losses.

[SPEAKER_02]: So much as it is, what the mid and low major conferences that have some teams that are really well positioned to get into the tournament, if they don't win their leagues, I think it's going to come down to what they do.

[SPEAKER_02]: Like, is Western Carolina, which by the way, has a series win over Mercer, which has been fantastic.

[SPEAKER_02]: You know, another pat on the back moment here.

[SPEAKER_02]: If you go back to my preseason Omaha sleepers piece, both Lamar, which is competing for the Southland Conference tournament championship and Mercer, which is a top 30 RPI team are now in positions to continue to look like sleepers for Omaha, but if Mercer wins that tournament or institution, if Mercer doesn't win that tournament, I think Mercer is in the field.

[SPEAKER_02]: And so does a team like.

[SPEAKER_02]: whether it's, you know, NC State or Louisiana or Troy, you know, who get shoved out because a conference bid was stolen.

[SPEAKER_02]: So yeah, to me, the focus this week, first fun is the SEC and ACC tournaments and the big 12 tournaments are and they will matter because they will influence the hosting picture for sure.

[SPEAKER_02]: I really do believe that this year's, you know, big draw in conference tournament week will be these lower major conferences that have opportunities to make things fun.

[SPEAKER_01]: As the resident old guy on the pod the other thing I will just point out is how that to me the term it format changes have really kind of

[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, they've done exactly what I would say the coaches want them to do, which is, so you have now the double buys, you don't have the pool play and get people.

[SPEAKER_01]: So what you have is, I feel like you used to have in the olden days, in the 2010s and all.

[SPEAKER_01]: You used to have teams who were there, and it was like, we're already pretty, we just want to get through this week healthy.

[SPEAKER_01]: You know, we just don't, we don't need really this much.

[SPEAKER_01]: And but at the same time, and there were other teams who needed a deep run, but then they would get a loss at some point along the way in double elimination or whatever.

[SPEAKER_01]: And it would kind of really derail them.

[SPEAKER_01]: Now it's set up for in the SEC, SEC determines in particular.

[SPEAKER_01]: Like it's set up that if you're a Georgia tack,

[SPEAKER_01]: The worst that's going to happen to you is you go oh and one, and that's not going to really affect much of anything.

[SPEAKER_01]: But you're also not going to even play until the very end of the week almost.

[SPEAKER_01]: And if you do win, it's going to be something where, okay, you never even have to go beyond your weekend rotation, basically, to get out of this.

[SPEAKER_01]: Whereas the flip side of that is, if you are a team who needs a deeper run,

[SPEAKER_01]: You do have more games to do it and you will have a chances to get quality wins.

[SPEAKER_01]: I do think that the format that we have gotten to here in the 2020s and the world of the 16 team conference tournament does actually I think kind of

[SPEAKER_01]: serve both needs more or better than it used to be where you used to see kind of a few like teams not just run out of pitching but run out of pitching and kind of run out of desire at some point because I think at some point for a team who already knew they were comfortable in and it's like okay we've done enough here yeah you want to win the tournament but you also don't want to kind of leave yourself easing into the next week to do it and

[SPEAKER_01]: 16-team tournament where you get four teams that get buys and then another teams that get double buys and and all that It's a different world of ease to live in and I'm in a bad way necessarily always so Any closing thoughts for me that are you guys before we wrap this up?

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I'll give you one, it's time to keep an eye on the coaching care cell and the transfer portal, both of which were covering in depth at baseballamerica.com, baseballamerica.com, slash college if you want to college specific content.

[SPEAKER_02]: The transfer portal is not officially open to players whose teams are either firing, unless your team is fired at its coach or you are a graduate transfer.

[SPEAKER_02]: The tournament will be announced the portal will open the next day.

[SPEAKER_02]: Once that happens, pandemonium begins, and we will have that covered for you, but coaching changes have already begun.

[SPEAKER_02]: Towson's coaches stepped down, we've seen an opening already occur at Omaha, Grand Canyon is open, South Carolina has been opened now for months, that's no secret, Houston opened yesterday.

[SPEAKER_02]: We had that news at Baseball America, plus already a hotboard with six prominent names.

[SPEAKER_02]: I would actually go as far as to say, I'll

[SPEAKER_02]: I'll tell our podcast audience I will bet on May 18th that one of the six names on our hot sheet for Houston right now at Baseball America will be the next coach at the University of Houston which is trying to kind of step into a new era of baseball they're investing a little bit more in their program.

[SPEAKER_02]: So separate from all the tournament hoopla that will occur over the next couple weeks and as fun as that is there is some stuff that's happening from a roster building standpoint and from a coaching carousel standpoint that will really start to pick up here over the next couple

[SPEAKER_02]: And we will have you covered at Baseball, America.

[SPEAKER_01]: Jeff, Nathan, you're in?

[SPEAKER_00]: Now, I'd like to thank you guys something up perfectly.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm just excited for a big week of some pivotal important games against good teams, and that's only going to keep rolling through over the next month.

[SPEAKER_00]: So, best time the year to watch College Baseball.

[SPEAKER_01]: best time of the year.

[SPEAKER_01]: For Jacob, I'm Jeff, I'm J.J. We would thank you for joining us on the Facebook, I'm our college podcast and obviously check out baseballamerica.com all week because we'll be updating it more often than we can even imagine to keep you on top of everything is going on in college baseball as well as prospects, minor leagues, major leagues, draft, international, high school, all the other things as well.

[SPEAKER_01]: For Jacob and Jeff, I'm J.J.