The NCAA Division I Baseball Tournament field of 64 for 2024 has been announced and seeded, and first-round action — known as the regionals — gets underway Friday. The tournament precedes the eight-team Men’s College World Series in Omaha, which begins June 14.
Given the urgency of the hour, it’s high time we preview the 2024 edition of the tournament. In keeping with ancient and holy traditions, we’ll do that now via the FAQ format. Ping!
So this is just like the Men’s and Women’s NCAA Basketball Tournament, right?
Wrong, actually. The more well-known basketball tourneys are, to be honest, more straightforward than the baseball version of such things. Here’s how this thing works:
- The first round of play is known as the regional, and it’s a double-elimination format featuring four teams. When possible, each of the 16 one-seeds hosts its respective regional. Only one team out of four survives each regional, which makes the opening round a bit of a purge.
- The winner of each regional advances to the 16-team super regionals, which is a best-of-three series between two regional winners.
- The winner of each super regional — there are eight teams in all — advances to the College World Series in Omaha.
- The…
