NCAA Baseball Tournament Needs to Change its Format
The NCAA Baseball Tournament has been using the same Regional and Super Regional Format since 1999 but it needs to be tweaked.
As a Mississippi State baseball fan, I love the NCAA baseball tournament more than probably most average college baseball fans. The Bulldogs have always been really serious about baseball, and I think I can confidently say the tournament needs to change.
Related Story: Mississippi State Wins Game 1 of Starkville Regional
One of the things that the best baseball teams want to do each year is host a regional in the NCAA Baseball tournament. Your fans get to pack the stadium, and your players get the adavantage of playing in their home park.
But for the games in which the regional host isn’t playing, the stands are often empty and he atmosphere is as dead as can be. Usually, the regional host is the heavy favorite and they only end up playing in three or four games tops.
Another problem is having to work in a large number of games in a three or four day span. If the weather cooperates, this isn’t a problem. But as we all saw this past weekend, weather played a major factor in trying to get games in for so many of the regionals.
The NCAA Baseball Tournament needs to add a weekend, and go to best two out of three for each round of the tournament. Here is how it would work within the confines of the Starkville Regional for this year’s NCAA Baseball Tournament.
Mississippi State still would have been a national seed. This would have secured them home field advantage throughout the three rounds of the NCAA Baseball Tournament.
The Bulldogs would have hosted SEMO for a best of three series at Dudy Noble Field. Cal State Fullerton would have hosted a best of three series against Louisiana Tech.
The winner of each series would have moved on to the next round. If it were Mississippi State and Cal State Fullerton, , the Titans would have traveled to Starkville for the next round. Who ever would win that series would then move on to the Super Regionals to play the winners of the ULL section of the bracket.
More from Maroon and White Nation
- College football schedule week 4: 3 must-watch under-the-radar games
- Meeting the Opponent: Week 4 – South Carolina Gamecocks
- Mississippi State football vs LSU: The good, bad, and ugly
- M&WN Staff – Week 3 SEC Picks and Best Bets
- Mississippi State football film study: Why did MSU’s defense fail vs. LSU?
This allows teams to play in front of full stadiums throughout each round of the NCAA Tournament. It also allows fans to not have to choose between buying individual game tickets for just their team, or purchasing whole regional tickets which would cover games they don’t care about.
One of the problems we had with this year’s NCAA Baseball Tournament was there weren’t any teams out west who were worthy of hosting a regional. This would give those West teams as two seeds an opportunity to do so.
And when weather is an issue, trying to work in two games each day is a problem. If there is only one game being played each day, weather would not be such an issue.
The only drawback I can see is it adds a weekend to the NCAA Baseball Tournament. But that would be minimal as classes are out during this time of the year, and wouldn’t put any additional strain on the players.
Related Story: Daniel Brown Stepped up when Bulldogs Needed him
As great as the NCAA Baseball Tournament is, it can be better. And I really think this is a way in which we can get the tournament to reach its maximum potential.