On Monday, the 64-team field for the 2015 NCAA Baseball Tournament was announced. Via NCAA.com and without further throat-clearing, here it is ...
And here's a link to NCAA.com's interactive bracket.
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 13.
•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. UCLA (42-14)
2. LSU (48-10)
3. Louisville (43-16)
4. Florida (43-16)
5. Miami-FL (44-14)
6. Illinois (47-8-1)
7. TCU (43-11)
8. Missouri State (45-10)
If a national seed wins its region, then it hosts the super regional. Otherwise, the sites of the super regionals will be announced on June 1, after the regional round concludes.
•Florida State is hosting a regional for a record 32nd time. Texas (no. 3 seed in the Dallas Baptist regional) has the most College World Series appearances of all-time, with 34. USC has the most national championships with 12. Their last title came in 1998.
•The last six national champions have come from the SEC or Pac-12, including last year's winner, Vanderbilt. The last team from outside those conferences to win the College World Series was cinderella Fresno State in 2008. This time around, the SEC and ACC lead the way with seven teams each in the field. This year, the Big Ten set a conference record with five bids.
So ... who ya got?
