And The Valley Projects: Week 9 - BASEBALLAMANIA

As much as I hate to say it, our glorious leader was actually right for a change:

*LSU pins NEB for the 1-2-3* *sees A&M at the top of the ramp for the next match* *points to Wrestlemaina sign*

— Pod KATT (@valleyshook) March 8, 2015

Congrats Potter Cats. For your Nostradamus-like insight, you get to have me make a wrestling reference.

MULTIPLE Wrasslin' References! I'm SO DAMN PROUD RIGHT NOW! -PodKATT

It's gonna be #1 LSU vs. #2 Texas A&M in the Box this weekend on Thursday-Saturday in what will be an excellent warmup for LSU's (knock on wood) potential Super Regional. In fact, this will likely be a better series than any Super Regional. Personally, I wanted A&M to come in as the undisputed #1 so we could be the ones to knock them off, but I can settle for a defense of the crown. In fact, let's start setting the mood right now with some big dumb hard Swedish punk.

Now that I've got you ready to run through a brick wall, let's talk about hypothetical projections I made in Excel.

The Hosts

UCLA, Arizona State, LSU, Illinois, Texas A&M, USC, Florida State, Louisville

UCLA (28-8) regained the top overall seed with Texas A&M shocking the world and dropping a series to Arkansas. The Bruins took a series from tournament bubble team California after beating Fullerton in the midweek.

Arizona State (25-11), LSU (34-6), and Illinois (32-6) all moved up as well as following the Aggie's drop to the 5th national seed. At this point, the only thing keeping LSU out of the #2 seed is their rainout Sunday against Georgia. However, if LSU sweeps A&M or takes 2 of the 3 in convincing manner, they could easily be the #1 overall seed next week. That's a mighty big order to handle though.

The Illini keep the hot hand, extending their win streak to 13 with yet another perfect week. Earlier I had reservations that they were peaking just a touch too soon (see: 2008 LSU) but now that they've hit that golden 30 win mark before May, I'm really coming around on the Iwwwwwwwwwwwwwini.

Thanks to Mother Nature, Texas A&M (35-5) and Arkansas had to play a doubleheader on Sunday, which started with A&M up 1-0 and leading 8-3. They lost both the continuation of that game and the 7 inning one that followed it. That was Aggy's first series loss of the year and they're likely to not respond too happily to that and great now I need to get hyped up again.

Muuuuch better.

Florida State (30-12) also hit that coveted 30 win mark before May with the help of a walkoff over arch rival Florida and sweep of lowly Pittsburgh, but stayed put along with Louisville (30-9), who also got their 30 wins before the merry month of May.

The Hosts

Oklahoma State, UC Santa Barbara, Miami (FL), Rice, TCU, FAU, Florida

Oklahoma State (25-12) just got kicked around by Mother Nature, with their midweek game against Oral Roberts getting pushed to Wednesday, a game they got embarrassed 15-5 in, then had their Friday game with Baylor canceled and their Sunday game pushed back to Monday. Because a series is up in the air, I decided to freeze them where they are now. Some good news for the Pokes: With their win Saturday, they became the 18th program to reach 2,500 wins.

UC Santa Barbara (28-9) continued their torrid pace over the Big West with a 2-1 series win against Cal Poly, Rice (16-16) jumped in with a series win over UTSA, TCU (30-8) had a perfect week, FAU (31-9) held serve with a 3-1 week, the only imperfection being game 1 against Southern Miss, and Florida (31-10) swept Mississippi State to bounce back from Florida State's walkoff.

Side note: in my eyes, with that sweep Mississippi State's at large postseason bid died. Them playing in June solely relies on the Bulldogs winning the whole damn thing in Hoover. And if you think they can win it all, I have some prime real estate in Watson to sell you.

Miami University of Florida (FL) (30-11) did exactly what I said they wouldn't do, and that was drop a series against Virginia. I'm not saying I blame that on the the supply from the Biogenesis lab running dry, but I'm also not saying the two are not connected.

Did I just catch you not being HYPED? Boy you better rectify that.

The Rest Of The Field

Big news first: with South Carolina (25-16) and Virginia (24-15) both sneaked back into the field, making me break my general guideline of "maximum of six teams per conference". This is made possible by them taking a series each, with Vanderbilt losing to South Carolina, knocking them out of hosting duties, and Virginia beating Georgia Tech and pegging them down a three seed.

Also, UCF (26-15) is on the absolute edge of dropping out after losing yet another series against Tulane. That's three straight series losses for the Knights, which simply cannot happen for a team like UCF if they want to make the postseason. Their only saving grace is that they have two series left against conference leader and rival USF and a series against Memphis to try to write the ship.

LSU is paired with familiar foe Southeastern Louisiana (30-11) who is running away with the Southland. Also coming to town is Georgia Tech (24-15), a respectable at large from the ACC, with Radford (25-13) rounding out the pairing of teams.

The Group Of Death Of The Week is surprisingly a national seed regional, with Arizona State; Arkansas (24-17) who is having a rather disappointing season but I think we're seeing them coming into their own following their impressive rise from the mat in College Station; Nebraska (29-13) who is trying to keep pace with the rapid pace the aforementioned Illinois is setting; and Alabama State (27-11) who are 3 wins out from that nice round 30 win number, making them one of the stronger 4 seeds.

I'm going to leave you on a slightly different note this week, but remember the golden rule y'all. Here it is, your moment of zen.