This is a 'scorecard' by conference for 2017, the 20-th for the 64-team playoff system where every conference gets an automatic bid. You can find the full results elsewhere.
My original motivation for this summary was the thought that the regionals are a major source of inter-conference and inter-region play that helps one evaluate the relative strength and (possibly) future selection or seedings of teams from various regions and conferences. I think it still serves that purpose.
Current status:
Super Regionals are almost complete.
The Regionals resulted in quite a few upsets.
The biggest surprise had to be that N7 seed Florida State
went 0-2 and BBQ to end the season, a season when Coach Mike Martin
passed Augie Garrido (1975 wins) to take the record for most wins
in Division 1 baseball. Martin now has 1987 wins.
FSU lost to 4-seed Samford in the opening game of the regional
and was knocked out by eventual champ Mississippi State.
Pac-12 champ and N2 Stanford was knocked out by Cal State Fullerton.
SEC champ and N4 Mississippi was knocked out by Tennessee Tech
from the Ohio Valley Conference, and N8 Georgia was knocked out by Duke,
In addition, N10 Clemson was eliminated by Vanderbilt,
N12 East Carolina finished 3rd in its own region, as did N15 Coastal Carolina,
and N16 North Carolina State was eliminated by Auburn.
Update to the format:
Although it has no effect on the organization of the table shown here,
there was a significant change in the playoff format that marks a final
break with a long-standing tradition in tournament seeding that will
affect these stats.
The NCAA seeded teams from 1 to 16,
and paired up the regionals so that 1 plays 16, 2 plays 15, ..., and 8 plays 9 in
the respective Super Regionals.
This now mirrors what has been done in Basketball "forever".
Although not publicized, this led to a significant change
in how the regionals are paired up. Until this year, it was forbidden
to seed two teams from the same conference so they would be "expected" to meet
in the same Super Regional, but this year they put two ACC teams
as the top seeds in Regions 7 [7 seed]] and 7a [10 seed].
Curiously, despite having 10 teams in the tournament, there were no
instances of SEC teams being intentionally paired up in the same
Super Regional. However, as in past years, upsets have resulted in
three all-SEC Super Regionals so half (3 of 6) of the
remaining SEC teams are guaranteed to be knocked out in the
next stage of the tournament and the other 3 SEC teams are
definitely going to the CWS.
As a result, I have already entered that result into the table below.
Here is the 'histogram' of the success rate for the 2018 NCAA regionals.
I tally a Regional champion under "win" and the Super-Regional champion (the team that goes to the CWS) under "champ" so the "champ" column is unchanged from the older 48-team system.
Notes:
A few more teams dropped Division I baseball, but one change is
worth mentioning here: NY Tech is gone, so there are no longer
any independent teams trying to get into the tournament.
There are no changes in the conference lineup.
There are still 31 conferences, each with an automatic bid,
so 31 of the 64 teams are automatic qualifiers.
------ wins ------
Conference Number 0 1 2+ win champ comments
========== ====== === === === === ===== -----------------
SEC 10 1 3 3 3 3/10 to CWS after solid start; 3/8 to CWS in 2017
ACC 6 1 3 1 1 weak start with FSU BBQ'd; 2/7 to CWS in 2017
Big 12 5 1 2 2 2/5 to CWS, 1/7 in 2017, 3/3 to CWS in 2016
Pac-12 4 2 2 2/4 to CWS, swept first day; 1/4 teams to CWS in 2017.
Big Ten 4 1 1 1 1 Better, but not yet the Big 13
American 4 2 2 Won regionals in 2016 and 2015
Atlantic Sun 2 1 1 Also won a regional in 2014
Ohio Valley 2 1 1 Won regional over N4 seed; Upset #1 seed in 2017
Conf USA 2 1 1 Upset overall N1 seed
Mo-Valley 2 1 1 Won region in 2017, previous win in 2015
Colonial 2 1 1 did well in 2016, won 2014 region over N seed
SunBelt 2 2 Won a regional in 2014 and 2015
Big West 1 1 Knocked out N2 seed. Got to CWS in 2017, 2015, 2014
Southern 1 1 Upset N7 (FSU); also upset N5 (FSU) in 2014
Patriot 1 1 Beat a 1 seed (N16) in 2018
Southland 1 1 Won region in 2017
Big East 1 1 Got an upset win in 2017
West Coast AC 1 1 Won a regional in 2014
MAC 1 1 Was in CWS in 2012
Atlantic-10 1 1 Won region in 2017 (also in 2015)
MEAC 1 1 Beat national seed in 2017, wins in 2014, 2002
Ivy 1 1 beat a Big Ten team in 2017
Mountain West 1 1 Had an upset win in 2017
Summit 1 1 Had an upset win in 2017
Big South 1 1 Went to CWS in 2016
Horizon 1 1 Won two games in 2016
America East 1 1 Won a game in 2015 and went to CWS in 2012
WAC 1 1 shadow of its former self
SWAC 1 1 Upset national seed in 2014
Metro Atlantic 1 1 Last regional win was in 2014
Northeast 1 1 Last win was in 2013
independent 0 - none now that NY Tech dropped div I bb