2021 NCAA Baseball Tournament Crystal Ball Predictions, Sleepers & More
Teddy Cahill and Joe Healy, our college baseball experts, look into their crystal balls to make some NCAA Tournament predictions ahead of regionals.
Regional Winners
REGIONAL | TEDDY | JOE |
Fayetteville | Arkansas | Arkansas |
Austin | Texas | Texas |
Knoxville | Tennessee | Tennessee |
Nashville | Vanderbilt | Vanderbilt |
Tucson | Arizona | Arizona |
Fort Worth | TCU | Dallas Baptist |
Starkville | Mississippi State |
Mississippi State
|
Lubbock | Texas Tech | Texas Tech |
Stanford | UC Irvine | UC Irvine |
South Bend | Notre Dame | Notre Dame |
Columbia | Virginia | Old Dominion |
Oxford | Mississippi | Mississippi |
Greenville | East Carolina | East Carolina |
Eugene | Oregon | Oregon |
Gainesville | Florida | Florida |
Ruston | Louisiana Tech | NC State |
Eight for Omaha
TEDDY | JOE |
Arkansas | Arkansas |
Texas | Texas |
Tennessee | Tennessee |
Vanderbilt | Vanderbilt |
Arizona | Arizona |
Virginia | Old Dominion |
Notre Dame |
Mississippi State
|
Texas Tech | Texas Tech |
National Champion
Arkansas: The Razorbacks aren’t built like a traditional national title contender but have plenty of firepower. Lefthander Patrick Wicklander has emerged as a consistent Friday starter and relief ace Kevin Kopps anchors the whole pitching staff with his performance out of the bullpen. Arkansas has a deep, athletic lineup full of players with the ability to drive the ball out of the park and a premium defense. This is the best team in the country, plain and simple. – Teddy Cahill
Arkansas: At this point, you would have to almost manufacture a reason to pick anyone else as the national title favorite. There are teams with better starting pitching, there are teams with better bullpen numbers and there are even teams with better lineups, but there is no team in the country that has a better combination of all of those things and certainly not a team better at just simply figuring out a way to win games. The Razorbacks haven’t let up at all this season and it’s increasingly difficult to imagine it happening now. – Joe Healy
Sleeper
Notre Dame: The No. 10 national seed shouldn’t be regarded as a surprise team, but I believe that if Notre Dame does go to Omaha, going through Starkville, it would surprise most around the country. The #OmaIrish shouldn’t be surprising anyone anymore, not the way they did early in the season when they were my preseason Omaha Sleeper. This is a very good team that rolled through ACC play, losing just one series, with a talented pitching staff, an elite defense and a deep lineup. – Teddy Cahill
Dallas Baptist: DBU will go into Fort Worth hot, having swept through the Missouri Valley Conference Tournament. In Dominic Hamel, Rhett Kouba and Luke Eldred, it has a rotation that will match up well, and that group is at full strength now for the first time all season. But more than anything else, the Patriots’ deep lineup is well-equipped to mash its way through the postseason, taking advantage of taxed pitching staffs along the way. – Joe Healy
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