Fresh off their ACC Championship on Sunday afternoon, #6 Clemson knows it will be one of the 16 regional hosts sites announced tonight and have also locked up one of the all-important top-eight national seeds. However, just because Clemson is comfortably in the top 16 does not mean that all the spots are locked up so there is some intrigue in tonight’s announcement.

At least seven of the top eight national seeds seem to be pretty locked in. Wake Forest is expected to be the #1 overall seed followed by Florida and Arkansas. The next grouping (4-6) should consist of Clemson, LSU, and Vanderbilt. Despite a lower RPI (16), Stanford seems to be in line for a top-eight after winning the PAC-12 by five games. The last team that we think will be among the top-eight is fellow ACC program Virginia. If all of those teams advance, they would earn the right to host a Super Regional as well.

Two familiar teams to the Tigers should be the next two seeds in Coastal Carolina and Miami (FL). Following those teams appears to be a cluster of Alabama, Auburn, Kentucky, and Oklahoma State (listed alphabetically). This only leaves two hosting spots left and that is where tonight’s announcement could get interesting! We currently project that the last two host sites will go to Campbell and Indiana State. Other candidates in the running for those spots would be Boston College, South Carolina, Dallas Baptist, and Southern Miss.

In the chart below, we take a look at hosting bubble teams (based on Warren Nolan’s Live RPI):

Tonight’s announcement will give an initial insight into how the committee is using the various metrics leading up to tomorrow’s full bracket announcement. TCI will release our projected tournament field Monday morning before the field is announced at noon.