Southern Miss enters conference tournament with major hosting implications. What’s at stake?
Southern Miss will get five days to show the NCAA selection committee it belongs in the top 16.
As of Sunday, D1 Baseball projects Southern Miss (41-14, 23-7) to host a regional with the No. 9 seed. With the volatile world of conference tournament play taking over college baseball this week, a middling seed among the top 16 is far from set in stone.
Southern Miss is the top seed in the bracket after winning the C-USA regular season title for the sixth and final time. For the Golden Eagles, that means their NCAA tournament destiny is largely in their hands.
What’s at stake for USM
Hattiesburg has not hosted a regional since 2017. That was also the last year USM had more regular season wins than this year’s team ended up with.
The impacts of hosting are significant. The top seed in each region has the comforts of home and a slightly easier path the next round. Last year, 11 of the 16 hosts made it into super regionals.
The economic impact isn’t to be overstated, either, and Hattiesburg has a unique opportunity. Being the host school of the C-USA tournament this week, USM can double down on local tournaments.
This week, fans from Alabama, Louisiana, Texas, North Carolina, Florida, Tennessee and Virginia will converge in Hattiesburg.
According to D1 Baseball, if USM hosts, fans of LSU, Clemson and Belmont would arrive in town.
And looking even further ahead, getting out of regionals and into super regionals means another chance to host one more series. That is, as long as eight-seed Texas A&M loses in its own bracket. In the latest projection, that could mean the Texas Longhorns and its fan base driving to the Hub City.
How Southhern Miss can get there
The double-elimination tourney is broken up into two brackets. The USM bracket is made up of four schools whose mascots are all at least semi-airborne creatures: the UAB Dragons, USM’s Wednesday matchup, Florida Atlantic Owls and UTSA Roadrunners
Does this mean we can expect more balls to fly out of the yard on this side of the tournament? The numbers suggest so.
Only USM and Florida Atlantic, who takes on UTSA Wednesday, are among the top five home run hitting teams in the conference. However, FAU, UTSA and UAB have all allowed more home runs than any other team in the eight-team tournament.
This bodes well for the Golden Eagles, who have given up fewer home runs, triples and doubles than any other team in the conference.
Southern Miss has already lost a series to UAB, but the team is also riding a five-game win streak and the bats have seemingly come alive again. The Golden Eagles are averaging 10.6 runs per game over the last five contests, well above its 6.6 season average.
On the other side of the tournament, Louisiana Tech and Old Dominion are the top seeds. Southern Miss has already dispatched LTU at home, but also suffered a series loss at the hands of the Monarchs earlier this month.
Future implications
Southern Miss’ performance in the coming days could play a small role in shaping a very different distant future for the Golden Eagles. As of right now, Old Dominion is also projected to make the final field of 64 playoff teams.
Like USM, the Monarchs will be competing in the Sun Belt in 2023.
Three current SBC members are also projected in the field, including a Georgia Southern team who also finds itself on the hosting bubble.
If the SBC put five total teams in the postseason, that would put the conference on par with the PAC-12, which is projected to field five next month.
The average RPI rank of the new-look SBC is currently at 92.6 at the end of the regular season with five top-50 teams. Next year’s C-USA is sitting at an average of 137.1 with just two top-50 teams.
This is a landscape-altering change, especially considering C-USA does have a slightly higher RPI than the SBC right now.
While USM fans are abuzz about the move to a more competitive league, all attention still remains at the task at hand.
Southern Miss is scheduled to begin its postseason journey at 4 p.m. on Wednesday.
