Usually you figure that the first 15 to 20 teams will try to find a regional where they think they can win the whole thing but then the rest are making picks off based who else is in the regional so they can try to pick up at least one quality win. By the time you get to the bottom of the barrel you have to what’s left which usually are the toughest spots that everyone else is avoiding.
Here are the regional hosts with a notation about whether the matches will be played indoors or outdoors along with who the hosts will have to replace next season:
1. Cal (outdoors) – replace #2 and #3 (Fabikova/Chi)
2. Florida (outdoors) – replace #3 (Morgan)
3. North Carolina – replace #2, #4, #6 (Kay/Vialle/Dai)
4. Vanderbilt – replace #2 and #4 (Altick/Colton)
5. Ohio State – return everyone
6. Georgia – replace #3 (Garcia)
7. Oklahoma State – replace #4 (Laurente)
8. Pepperdine (outdoors) – replace #5 and #6 (Cutura/Capannolo)
9. Miami FL (outdoors) – replace #1 (Wagner)
10. Michigan – replace #1 (Yurovsky)
11. Auburn (outdoors) – replace #3 and #5 (Burgmans/de Man)
12. Virginia – replace #1, #2, and #3 (Collins/Elbaba/Nauta)
13. Duke – replace #1 (Capra)
14. Texas Tech (outdoors) – return everyone
15. Georgia Tech – replace #4 and #6 (Woodard/Prokhnevska)
There is also a tab below that has the my projections in grid format.
All the picks will show up on the ITA’s page as they come in and I’ll have a recap tomorrow afternoon.
In your defense this thing is pretty hard to predict. There are a lot of reasons why schools choose what they choose that you can't really predict (budget, travel, weather, teams already on schedule, etc.)
Texas may want to go back to Duke where they won this May. Does Joffe, coach at Texas, really want to go play his former players by picking Texas Tech and opening round match against A&M?
I think both South Carolina and LSU will take UVA. South Carolina for the obvious reasons, and with LSU expecting to be stronger next year than this year, even if Kingsley doesn't go to school, they have to figure they can beat South Carolina and UVA. Not quite sure who SC is going to bring in, but for LSU, playing South Carolina and Virginia is an easier road than an unknown and Auburn. The only real advantage to playing at Auburn is if they really want to play outdoors.