Post Season Scenarios
Big West Baseball, 2023
Until the 2025 season, the Big West Conference will remain the only D1 Baseball Conference without a post-season tournament. Until May of 2025, the automatic berth to the NCAA Post Season will the Regular Season Champion. To that end, we’ve broken down all the scenarios with regard to that auto-bid.
Four teams are mathematically alive for the NCAA Invite, although we’ll run down five teams in this breakdown. You see, while UC San Diego is not eligible for the post-season, due to being in the midst of their transition from Division 2 to Division 1, they are actually the team with the best odds to be outright league champions. So throw that into the mix, if you will.
My guess would be that we’ll see more than one Big West team in the NCAA Post-Season, probably two, as there were in the most recent D1 Baseball projection, but you never know what all the twists and turns will bring. Here is the breakdown, as we head into the final weekend of conference play.
OUTRIGHT BIG WEST TITLE
UC San Diego 21-9
One Loss by UC Santa Barbara to Hawaii (Holds Tie Break over Cal State Fullerton)
UC Santa Barbara 18-9
Sweep of Hawaii in Final Series (Holds Tie Break over UC San Diego)
AUTOMATIC NCAA BERTH
EDITOR’S NOTE: *****IN THE EVENT THAT CAL STATE FULLERTON, UC SANTA BARBARA, AND UC SAN DIEGO END IN A THREE-WAY TIE, AT 21-9, GAUCHOS WOULD WIN NCAA BERTH (4-2 RECORD AGAINST TITANS & TRITONS), AS UC SAN DIEGO WOULD FACTOR INTO TIE-BREAKER SCENARIO, EVEN THOUGH TRITONS THEMSELVES, ARE NOT ELIGIBLE FOR THE CONFERENCE AUTO BID.*****
Cal State Fullerton 18-9
Any Combination of 3 CSUF Wins/UCSB Losses
FULLERTON WINS AUTOMATIC NCAA BERTH (Holds Tie Break over UCSB)
UC Santa Barbara 18-9
Any Combination of 4 UCSB Wins/CSUF Losses
UC SANTA BARBARA WINS AUTOMATIC NCAA BERTH
CSUN 17-10
CSUN Sweeps CSUN 20-10
UCSB Loses 2 of 3 @Hawaii 19-11
Fullerton Loses 2 of 3 @Cal Poly 19-11
CSUN WINS AUTOMATIC NCAA BERTH
UC Irvine 16-11
UC Irvine Sweeps UC Riverside 19-11
UCSB Loses 2 of 3 @Hawaii 19-11
Fullerton Swept @Cal Poly 18-12
CSUN loses 2 of 3 @CSUB 18-12
UC IRVINE WINS AUTOMATIC NCAA BERTH (Holds Tie Break Over UCSB)
ALL OTHER TEAMS ARE MATHEMATICALLY ELIMINATED
Hawaii could finish 18-12 with a sweep of UC Santa Barbara, but Cal State Fullerton would be 18-12, even if they get swept by Cal Poly, and hold the tie-break over Bows. All other teams have at least 13 losses, even if both Cal State Fullerton and UC Santa Barbara were to be swept, they’d have only 12 losses.
Here’s a look at most recent Big West RPI Rankings, heading into this weekend, courtesy of NCAA.com.
