2023 NCAA Baseball Tournament Projected Field of 64 (3/30/23)

By Teddy Cahill
on March 30, 2023

More than a month into the college baseball season, the Road to Omaha is taking shape. Most conferences have begun conference play and while there’s still a lot of baseball left to be played, it’s not too early to start breaking down the postseason picture.

This is Baseball America’s first in-season Projected Field of 64 of the year. At this time of season, the emphasis is definitely on “projected.” This is not meant to be how the tournament would be seeded if it started tomorrow, it is meant to illustrate what it might be expected to look like on Selection Monday.

RPI, the primary metric the selection committee uses to build the field, is beginning to normalize, particularly at the top end. But, overall, looking at RPI still requires a large dose of salt. At this time last year, East Carolina ranked No. 74 in RPI and Dallas Baptist was No. 1. Those numbers were much different by Selection Monday, as DBU had fallen to the bubble and ECU was seeded eighth overall.

The SEC again is the top-rated league in conference RPI and it gets six hosts in this projection. While those six teams all rank in the top 11 of the Top 25, some of them will end up getting pushed down the seedings by the end of the season. Who loses out on a top-eight seed will be one of the bigger storylines in the season’s second half.

The SEC leads with 10 bids in this projection, which would match a record. The ACC follows with nine bids. The Pac-12 has six teams in the field, while the Big 12 has five and the Big Ten has four.

The Sun Belt Conference has three bids in this projection, but the newly powerful league could push a few more teams into the field. Its standings are a jumble at this point and it doesn’t have any early RPI darlings, but it does have 10 teams in the top 100.

Baseball America will continue to update the projected field weekly throughout the spring.

PROJECTED FIELD OF 64
Baton Rouge, La.		Buies Creek, N.C.
1. (1) Louisiana State*^		1. (16) Campbell^*
2. Oregon		2. North Carolina
3. Georgia Tech		3. Alabama
4. Southeastern Louisiana*		4. Davidson*

Winston-Salem, N.C.		Brighton, Mass.
1. (2) Wake Forest^*		1. (15) Boston College^
2. Washington		2. Connecticut*
3. College of Charleston*		3. Rutgers
4. Fairfield*		4. Columbia*

Gainesville, Fla.		Austin
1. (3) Florida^		1. (14) Texas^
2. Florida Gulf Coast*		2. Texas-San Antonio*
3. Florida State		3. Texas State
4. Bethune-Cookman*		4. Sam Houston State*

Stanford, Calif.		Knoxville, Tenn.
1. (4) Stanford*^		1. (13) Tennessee^
2. UC Santa Barbara*		2. Miami
3. Texas A&M		3. Southern Mississippi
4. Santa Clara*		4. Ball State*

Charlottesville, Va.		Columbia, S.C.
1. (5) Virginia^		1. (12) South Carolina^
2. West Virginia		2. Coastal Carolina*
3. Elon		3. Wofford*
4. Binghamton*		4. Evansville*

Nashville		Greenville, N.C.
1. (6) Vanderbilt^		1. (11) East Carolina^*
2. Iowa		2. Maryland
3. Arizona State		3. North Carolina State
4. Central Connecticut State*		4. Army*

Louisville		Los Angeles
1. (7) Louisville^		1. (10) UCLA^
2. Kentucky		2. Texas Tech
3. Indiana		3. Cal State Fullerton
4. Wright State*		4. Fresno State*

Stillwater, Okla.		Fayetteville, Ark.
1. (8) Oklahoma State^*		1. (9) Arkansas^
2. Missouri		2. Texas Christian
3. Dallas Baptist		3. Southern California
4. Oral Roberts*		4. Southeast Missouri State*