2018 NCAA Baseball Tournament Bracket, Schedule, Seeds, Explanation

The 2018 NCAA Baseball Tournament is almost here!

There’s a grand total of 64 teams aiming to make a trip to Omaha this year. And, well, every other year too. It’s officially almost time for the 2018 NCAA Baseball Tournament! The festivities will get kicked off tomorrow as the regional round of the NCAA Tournament begins.

The sites for the regionals are broken up into 16 different locations, each hosted by a college there. Three teams flock on over to the host team’s campus to play in a small double elimination tournament.

The top seeded team will take on the fourth seeded team while seeds number two and three play each other in the opening round of the tournament. From there, the two winners will face each other while the two losers battle in an elimination game.

The winner of the elimination game will move on to play in yet another elimination game against the losing team from the winning side of the regional bracket.

Once a team plays its way through the elimination games, they will take on the team that has won out in a championship matchup for the regional. And, since there is a double elimination rule here, a team must lose twice before they’re sent home. So, a team that gets sent to an elimination game but makes it to the regional championship must then beat their opponent a grand total of two times to actually claim victory.

From there, the winning team of that regional is paired up with another regional’s winner for a Super Regional, which is a best of three game series. Whichever team claims that series heads on to the College World Series where it will then meet up with 7 other teams attempting to win the national title.

So, what’s the bracket look like this year?

The top 16 seeds in the NCAA Tournament get to host a regional. In seeded order, that means that Florida, Stanford, Oregon State, Ole Miss, Arkansas, North Carolina, Florida State, Georgia, Texas Tech, Clemson, Stetson, East Carolina, Texas, Minnesota, Coastal Carolina, and North Carolina State are all hosting teams.

Take a look here below:

Or, alternatively, check out this interactive bracket.

When will things get started?

The NCAA Baseball Tournament officially gets started this Friday, June 1st, which just so happens to be tomorrow. The regional round of the tournament goes through the weekend and possibly spills over into next Monday, should that day be needed.

The Mississippi State Bulldogs and the Oklahoma Sooners will get the Tallahassee Regional started tomorrow at 11:00 am central time. FSU and Samford will start playing after the Bulldogs and Sooners wrap up their game.

After the regional rounds get finalized, the super regional round begins. This round will begin next weekend, starting on Friday and going from June 8th through the 11th. If that much time is needed that is.

And then the College World Series up in Omaha, Nebraska will play out from June 16th through the 23rd. After that, the College World Series will end with the championship series in which the national champion will be decided from the 25th through the 27th.

Next: Can MSU Make A Super Regional?

With the Mississippi State Bulldogs in the tournament, Gary Henderson has officially salvaged MSU’s season. State still has a lot up ahead of it that it must overcome. But, the Bulldogs definitely have a chance to make a run to Omaha. The only issue is there’s 63 other teams that have that same opportunity.