Regional projections entering SEC Tournament: Is Mississippi State Baseball projected to host?

Mississippi State baseball begins the postseason in Hoover, Alabama for the 2024 SEC Baseball Tournament. The 5th-seeded Diamond Dawgs will take on 12-seed and rival Ole Miss in the tournament's nightcap Tuesday evening.

Mississippi State enters the SEC Tournament having already secured a spot in the NCAA Tournament. With 36 wins overall, a 17-13 conference mark, and a RPI of 24, there's no question as to whether or not the Bulldogs will appear in a regional.

The question though is whether or not the Bulldogs will host. Entering the final weekend of the regular season, there was a very good chance that if State got a sweep over Mizzou, they'd be a regional host. State took the series but couldn't get the sweep, and now their hosting chances seem up in the air.

So where do college baseball's prognosticators have Mississippi State? Do they foresee a regional being played in Starkville?

D1 Baseball's regional projections

Going into the Missouri series, D1 Baseball liked MSU's hosting chances quite a bit. At the time, they had the Bulldogs as a regional host. The one loss to Mizzou stung, however.

In their latest update, D1 has State as a 2-seed in the Terre Haute Regional. If that city doesn't ring a bell, it's the home of the Indiana State Sycamores, whom D1 currently has as the #14 national seed. The Sycamores are 39-11 and are 9th in the RPI. D1 has Kansas State and Bowling Green as the regional's 3 and 4-seeds respectively.

In these projections, the Terre Haute Regional would be paired up with the College Station Regional, hosted by #3 national seed Texas A&M.

Baseball America's Regional Projections

Baseball America wasn't quite as high on the Bulldogs previously. They didn't have State hosting prior to the Mizzou series, so as you can expect, they don't have them hosting now. But they do have a very similar projection to D1.

BA also has MSU as the 2-seed in the Terre Haute Regional, but in this case, they have Indiana State as the #13 national seed. BA projects Illinois as the regional's 3-seed and Saint Louis as the 4-seed. With Indiana State as the #13 national seed, their regional would be paired with the #4 national seed regional. In this case, that's the Lexington Regional hosted by Kentucky.

Could Mississippi State still earn a host?

Though comfortably making the postseason is a good step forward after the last two year's, State fans would obviously rather get another weekend at the Dude. So can State play their way back into hosting a regional?

They'll need to go on a run in Hoover, and that means two wins at a minimum. Beating Ole Miss alone wouldn't be enough, as that win wouldn't be enough of a boost to their metrics. Now if they could beat the Rebels and then upset Texas A&M on Wednesday, then they'd have a real chance.

The Aggies are #1 in the RPI, so a win over them could create a sizable move in the metrics. That said, I still don't think two wins guarantee them a hosting spot. I think it'd be a true 50/50 proposition at that point, and a deeper run would be needed to lock up a host.

Now if State can't host, Terre Haute wouldn't be a terrible landing spot. While that's not a nearby regional for fans, it would easily be one of the more winnable regionals for a 2-seed like State. Not to diminish Indiana State's ability, but it's just reality compared to some of the other places you could hypothetically be sent.

We'll see though if Mississippi State can make a run in Hoover to bring postseason baseball back to Dudy Noble Field.