South Carolina Baseball: Gamecocks moving up in NCAA Tournament seeding projections

South Carolina baseball's season has been a roller coaster. The Gamecocks have slung their fans up, down, and all around since February, and with that, the projections surrounding their NCAA Tournament outlook have also been all over the place.

Despite the inconsistencies, the Gamecocks were hovering around the Regional host line for much of the SEC season, but back-to-back series wins over the top-5 Kentucky Wildcats and Missouri Tigers on the road pushed Carolina firmly inside that top-16.

Then, an absolutely embarrassing stretch of baseball that included suffering two series sweeps in a row to the Georgia Bulldogs and Tennessee Volunteers had some wondering if a bad showing at the SEC Tournament might see the Gamecocks kicked out of the postseason field altogether.

What a difference a week makes, though, as USC no longer has to worry about whether or not they will make the field of 64. Instead, with two wins over the Alabama Crimson Tide and Arkansas Razorbacks, South Carolina baseball is firmly in the field and trending upward from a seeding perspective.

According to the latest NCAA Tournament projection from D1Baseball, the Gamecocks are now in line for a 2-seed. In their mock NCAA Tournament, Carolina is slotted into the Clemson, South Carolina Regional where they will have to travel to their hated rivals from the Upstate.

Also featured in that Regional are the College of Charleston Cougars and the Penn Quakers. The Clemson Regional is paired up with the Raleigh, North Carolina Regional and the NC State Wolfpack. Clemson is the 6th-overall seed, and NC State is the 11th-overall seed. Also in the Raleigh Regional are the Vanderbilt Commodores, Connecticut Huskies, and VCU Rams.

South Carolina baseball and Vanderbilt were on the verge of not making the tournament, but the two SEC programs are projected for favorable draws by the analysts over at D1. Clemson isn't playing its best ball of late (they're still really good), and NC State, though one of the hottest teams in America, feels like a group that might have peaked too soon.

After a late-inning loss to the LSU Tigers on Thursday night, the Gamecocks play again on Friday against the Kentucky Wildcats. The game will be played at 4:00 PM ET and will be broadcast on the SEC Network and streamed on the ESPN app.