How college baseball media outlets are projecting the postseason for the Texas Longhorns

AUSTIN (KXAN) — With two weeks left of the regular season before conference tournaments get underway, college baseball's postseason picture is starting to come into focus. While there's still plenty of ball left, it's projection season, and two national publications are weighing in.

At this moment, D1Baseball.com and Baseball America generally agree on who should get national seeds with a couple of exceptions. They also agree that Arkansas' sweep of Texas in Fayetteville wasn't enough, at least on its own, to knock the Longhorns off the top of the seed list.

• Full D1Baseball.com field of 64 projection, May 6
• Full Baseball America field of 64 projection, May 7

No one really knows what the baseball tournament selection will do, but it's fun to guess what they'll do. The selection committee will have a variety of ranking systems and complicated mathematical formulas to help them decide who makes the tournament, but also where the teams will be seeded. The selections will be revealed at 11 a.m. CDT, May 26.

Until then, let the pontificating begin.

Here's a look at how the publications are projecting the Austin Regional:

D1Baseball.com	Baseball America
1. Texas	1. Texas
2. UTSA	2. Dallas Baptist
3. Kansas State	3. UTRGV
4. Oral Roberts	4. Bryant

Both outlets think Texas is the top seed. Most of the metrics the committee has at its disposal would agree. Texas is No. 2 in RPI but No. 1 in the KPI and the Diamond Sports Ranking, an Elo-style ranking system that D1Baseball.com and the website 643 Charts collaborate on. The KPI is a similar results-based ranking system that tries to determine the same thing: t figure out who the best team is without the eye-test or personal bias.

Things get tricky when trying to project all 64 teams and where the committee will put them, and you see that in the above lists. Neither outlet agrees on who else will make its way to UFCU Disch-Falk Field for the double-elimination regional, but the general thought is they'll be teams somewhat close to Austin, except for Baseball America's No. 4 seed, Bryant. That's in Rhode Island, so the Bulldogs would at least get a fun trip out of the deal.

Again, these are guesses at best and will most likely change next week with more games in the books. But hey, we're having fun here.

Next to compare are the national seed lists. These schools would host regional tournaments to open the NCAA tournament, and then the top eight seeds remaining would have the chance to host the best-of-3 super regional series for a berth in the College World Series, held June 13-23 in Omaha, Nebraska.

Generally speaking, the outlets have the same teams in their lists, just in a different order. The one exception is D1Baseball.com includes Arizona as No. 16, and Baseball America goes with TCU. The national seeds determine which schools will host the regional tournaments with a chance at hosting the best-of-3 super regional series for a berth in the College World Series.

Here's how the publications see who should be national seeds:

D1Baseball.com	Baseball America
1. Texas (SEC)	1. Texas (SEC)
2. Arkansas (SEC)	2. Georgia (SEC)
3. Florida State (ACC)	3. Florida State (ACC)
4. Louisiana State (SEC)	4. Arkansas (SEC)
5. Georgia (SEC)	5. Auburn (SEC)
6. Auburn (SEC)	6. Louisiana State (SEC)
7. North Carolina (ACC)	7. Vanderbilt (SEC)
8. Vanderbilt (SEC)	8. North Carolina (ACC)
9. Tennessee (SEC)	9. Clemson (ACC)
10. Clemson (ACC)	10. Tennessee (SEC)
11. Coastal Carolina (Sun Belt)	11. UCLA (Big 10)
12. West Virginia (Big 12)	12. Coastal Carolina (Sun Belt)
13. Oregon (Big 10)	13. Oregon State (Independent)
14. Oregon State (Independent)	14. West Virginia (Big 12)
15. UCLA (Big 10)	15. Oregon (Big 10)
16. Arizona (Big 12)	16. TCU (Big 12)

It will be interesting to see how everything evolves and morphs as the next couple of weeks unfold. Like in March Madness, it's possible that teams "steal" automatic bids by getting hot and winning their conference tournaments. There are 29 automatic bids awarded to conference tournament champions, with the remaining 35 at-large spots determined by the selection committee.