South Carolina baseball was projected as the 10th overall seed in the NCAA Tournament in last week's mock Regional brackets from D1Baseball.
Now, despite rising in the national polls, crushing two mid-week opponents in East Tennessee State and Winthrop, and knocking off the Missouri Tigers on the road in the "other Columbia," the Gamecocks have fallen substantially in the latest projection. When D1Baseball revealed their updated potential brackets, South Carolina baseball was the 16th overall seed, just barely holding onto a Regional host seed.
The Gamecocks' fall matched them up with the Oregon State Beavers, Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets, and High Point Panthers in the Columbia, South Carolina Regional and the Kentucky Wildcats, West Virginia Mountaineers, Illinois Fighting Illini, and Omaha Mavericks in the Lexington, Kentucky Super Regional (if Kentucky wins the Lexington Regional).
D1Baseball dropping the Gamecocks shouldn't alarm South Carolina baseball fans too much. The next couple of weeks will allow most of the postseason picture to settle into place.
If the Gamecocks win more games than they lose during the stretch, they will all but lock up a host site. Because the Gamecocks and other teams currently on or near the Regional hosting bubble also have to play teams in the postseason picture, there will be lots of movement before all is said and done.
This weekend, Carolina welcomes the Georgia Bulldogs (currently the 14th overall seed) to Founders Park for a series. The winner of the series likely will be in the top-13 of next week's projection, while the loser probably falls below the hosting line. USC has a series against the Tennessee Volunteers and the SEC Tournament remaining, as well.
This weekend's series against Georgia begins on Thursday with an 8:00 PM EST first pitch that will be broadcast on ESPN2 and streamed in the ESPN app. Friday's game 2 will be on the SECNetwork and ESPN app with gametime starting at 5:30 PM EST. The series finale on Saturday will begin at 2:00 and will be streamable on the ESNP app.