Where Notre Dame baseball stands in NCAA Tournament projections (May 17)
Tuesday’s loss to Northwestern wasn’t great for Notre Dame’s NCAA Tournament résumé. The Fighting Irish are living on the edge going into the final three regular season games of the year.
According to Baseball America’s May 17 tournament projections, Notre Dame is one of the last four teams to make the field of 64.
Baseball America has Notre Dame as the No. 3 seed in the Lexington Regional with No. 1 seed Kentucky (No. 11 overall), No. 2 seed Indiana and No. 4 seed Morehead State. D1Baseball has Notre Dame safely inside the field as the No. 3 seed in the Morgantown Regional with No. 1 seed West Virginia (No. 6 overall), No. 2 seed Tennessee and No. 4 seed .
The Irish (29-20, 14-13 ACC) ship up to Boston this weekend to start a three-game series vs. Boston College (32-16, 14-13 ACC) on Thursday. The two teams meet at Fenway Park on Friday before returning to campus for the series finale on Saturday. Boston College is projected to be regional host by both Baseball America and D1Baseball.
Notre Dame dropped to No. 52 in the Ratings Percentage Index (RPI) after being downed by the Wildcats of Evanston, Ill., 8-7 at Wrigley Field. Boston College has been holding steady at No. 13, a number certainly worthy of regional hosting privileges. Most of the work to earn a No. 1 seed was done months ago, though.
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Boston College won its first four ACC series of the season. Since then, the Eagles have only won one of five. This is a beatable BC team, but the Irish can’t just show up and expect to win. Especially not after giving Northwestern just its ninth win of the season in Chicago.
Put simply, this is the biggest series of the season for Notre Dame. The Irish have been on the tournament bubble all season, but there was always internal hope that enough would be done to hop off it. That didn’t end up being the case. Series losses to Clemson and NC State were missed opportunities to build some breathing room.
A third-straight NCAA Tournament appearance is on the line for the Irish. That hasn’t been done since Paul Mainieri led the program to eight-straight from 1999-06. Current head coach Shawn Stiffler inherited a program with high expectations even with a roster that saw tremendous turnover. A postseason berth would be a sufficient starting point for his tenure.
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