On Monday, the selection committee announced the field of 64 for the 2016 NCAA Baseball Tournament. Without further ado, let's have a look at the bracket ...
And here's a link to NCAA.com's interactive bracket.
Here are the matchups for all 16 regionals.
| GAINESVILLE REGIONAL | |
| 1. Florida (47-13) | 2. Georgia Tech (36-23) |
| 3. Connecticut (37-23) | 4. Bethune-Cookman (29-25) |
| TALLAHASSEE REGIONAL | |
| 1. Florida State (37-20) | 2. Southern Miss (40-18) |
| 3. South Alabama (40-20) | 4. Alabama State (38-15) |
| RALEIGH REGIONAL | |
| 1. NC State (35-20) | 2. Coastal Carolina (44-15) |
| 3. St. Mary's (CA) (33-23) | 4. Navy (42-14) |
| BATON ROUGE REGIONAL | |
| 1. LSU (42-18) | 2. Rice (35-22) |
| 3. Southeastern La. (39-19) | 4. Utah Valley (37-21) |
| LUBBOCK REGIONAL | |
| 1. Texas Tech (41-16) | 2. Dallas Baptist (41-17) |
| 3. New Mexico (38-21) | 4. Fairfield (32-24) |
| CHARLOTTESVILLE REGIONAL | |
| 1. Virginia (37-20) | 2. Bryant (47-10) |
| 3. East Carolina (34-21-1) | 4. William & Mary (29-29) |
| FORT WORTH REGIONAL | |
| 1. TCU (42-15) | 2. Arizona State (34-21) |
| 3. Gonzaga (35-19) | 4. Oral Roberts (38-19) |
| COLLEGE STATION REGIONAL | |
| 1. Texas A&M (45-14) | 2. Minnesota (34-20) |
| 3. Wake Forest (34-25) | 4. Binghamton (30-23) |
| LOUISVILLE REGIONAL | |
| 1. Louisville (47-12) | 2. Ohio State (43-18-1) |
| 3. Wright State (44-15) | 4. Western Michigan (22-32) |
| NASHVILLE REGIONAL | |
| 1. Vanderbilt (43-17) | 2. UC Santa Barbara (37-18-1) |
| 3. Washington (32-21) | 4. Xavier (30-28) |
| COLUMBIA REGIONAL | |
| 1. South Carolina (42-15) | 2. UNC Wilmington (39-17) |
| 3. Duke (33-22) | 4. Rhode Island (30-25) |
| CLEMSON REGIONAL | |
| 1. Clemson (42-18) | 2. Oklahoma State (36-20) |
| 3. Nebraska (37-20) | 4. Western Carolina (30-29) |
| STARKVILLE REGIONAL | |
| 1. Mississippi State (41-16-1) | 2. Cal State Fullerton (35-21) |
| 3. Louisiana Tech (40-18) | 4. Southeast Missouri State (39-19) |
| LAFAYETTE REGIONAL | |
| 1. Louisiana Lafayette (41-19) | 2. Arizona (38-20) |
| 3. Sam Houston State (41-20) | 4. Princeton (24-19) |
| OXFORD REGIONAL | |
| 1. Ole Miss (43-17) | 2. Tulane (39-19) |
| 3. Boston College (31-20) | 4. Utah (25-27) |
| CORAL GABLES REGIONAL | |
| 1. Miami (FL) (45-11) | 2. FAU (38-17) |
| 3. Stetson (29-29) | 4. Long Beach State (36-20) |
The structure of the NCAA Baseball Tournament is a bit different from the more familiar hoops variant, so here are a few takeaways on that front ...
- The field includes 31 automatic bids via conference championships and 33 at-large entrants. The first round of play is known as the regional, and it's a round-robin, double-elimination format. Each of the 16 one-seeds hosts its respective regional, when possible.
- The winner of each regional advances to the super regional, which are represented by the blank brackets above. The super regional is a best-of-three series format.
- The winner of each super regional -- eight teams in all -- advances to the College World Series in Omaha, which starts June 18.
- The College World Series is a double-elimination format until the final two teams are left standing. At that point, it's a best-of-three series to determine the national champion.
- The field of 64 also includes eight national national seeds. Here they are, ranked in order ...
1. Florida (47-13)
2. Louisville (47-12)
3. Miami (FL) (45-11)
4. Texas A&M (45-14)
5. Texas Tech (41-16)
6. Mississippi St. (41-16-1)
7. Clemson (42-18)
8. LSU (42-18)
If a national seed wins its region, then it hosts the super regional. Otherwise, the sites of the super regionals will be announced after the regional round concludes. - Thirteen of the 16 regional hosts come from the SEC or ACC, and as you can see four of the eight national seeds come from the SEC. That's a record. As well, South Carolina, Ole Miss, and Vanderbilt had cases for being among those national seeds.
- Defending champion Virginia, as you can see, earned the right to host their regional. They're vying to become the first repeat champions since South Carolina in 2010 and 2011.
Regional play gets underway on June 3. So who ya got?
