Notre Dame baseball: May 18 NCAA Tournament projections

Notre Dame baseball‘s Super Regional hosting hopes are hanging on by a thread. Another round of D1Baseball.com and Baseball America NCAA Tournament projections were released Wednesday, and the Fighting Irish did not earn a top-10 national seed in either of them.

It takes a top-eight national seed to secure automatic Super Regional hosting privileges should a team advance past the Regional round. D1Baseball.com has Notre Dame as the No. 11 national seed, and Baseball America slotted the Irish as the No. 12 national seed.

Here’s how each outlet penned the Irish’s NCAA Tournament outlook.

D1Baseball.com NCAA Tournament projection for Notre Dame

South Bend Regional

1. Notre Dame (11)
2. Dallas Baptist
3. UCLA
4. Ball State

Stanford Regional

1. Stanford (6)
2. UC Santa Barbara
3. San Diego
4. UNLV

Baseball America NCAA Tournament projection for Notre Dame

South Bend Regional

1. Notre Dame (12)
2. Texas
3. Iowa
4. Ball State

College Station Regional

1. Texas A&M (5)
2. Texas State
3. UC Santa Barbara
4. Nevada

The selection show is 12 days away. The field becomes final at noon ET on Monday, May 30. So much can happen before then, especially for a team like Notre Dame on the top-eight bubble. The opportunity to hop on the right side of the line is directly in front of the Irish.

Notre Dame (32-11, 15-9 ACC) sits atop the ACC’s Atlantic division. Miami (37-15, 18-9) is looking down on the entire Coastal. Those two division leaders clash this week in Coral Gables for three games starting Thursday. A series loss keeps the Irish out of the top eight. A series win on the road over the ACC’s top team could catapult the Irish into Super Regional hosting territory.

But it could take even more than that.

Miami dropped out of the top 10 in the RPI Wednesday. The Hurricanes are No. 11. Notre Dame is No. 15. A two-game series triumph or even a three-game sweep would be monumental for the Irish, but they could only move up so far as Miami would continue to dip.

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Virginia Tech (37-11, 16-9), for instance, is No. 5 in the RPI. If the Irish were playing the Hokies, there would be more potential for upward movement in the all-important metric that heavily factors into the committee’s NCAA Tournament layout. Notre Dame lost two cracks at Virginia Tech in March when games were cancelled because of inclement weather in snowy South Bend.

Thus, the ACC Tournament comes into play. Head coach Link Jarrett said last week he doesn’t put much stock in conference tournaments. He believes a better testament to a body of work is produced over the course of a regular season slate. This year, though, the tournament could be more significant to him than in most other years. A run through pool play into the semifinal, the final or even a championship crown could propel Notre Dame into the top eight.

Notre Dame has not won a conference tournament since 2006. Last year, the Irish won a regular season championship for the first time since the same year. But a 14-1 loss to Virginia in the ACC Tournament could have been the last straw in Notre Dame’s efforts to host a Super Regional. The Irish were slapped with the No. 10 national seed. They lost at No. 7 seed Mississippi State in the Starkville Super Regional. The Bulldogs went on to win the national championship.

Every game matters for Notre Dame from here on out. Even the ones in Charlotte.

D1Baseball.com’s national seeds

1. Tennessee
2. Oregon State
3. Virginia Tech
4. Miami
5. Auburn
6. Stanford
7. Maryland
8. Louisville
9. Texas A&M
10. Oklahoma State
11. Notre Dame
12. Florida State
13. Arkansas
14. Vanderbilt
15. Texas Tech
16. Gonzaga

Baseball America’s national seeds

1. Tennessee
2. Oregon State
3. Virginia Tech
4. Stanford
5. Texas A&M
6. Miami
7. Louisville
8. Auburn
9. Texas Tech
10. Vanderbilt
11. Arkansas
12. Notre Dame
13. Maryland
14. Oklahoma State
15. Virginia
16. Southern Miss