The NCAA baseball tournament has gone from 64 to 16, with the remaining teams two wins away from a trip to Omaha. As usual, there have been several surprises, including a few big ones.
UCLA and Georgia Tech, the top two teams in the regular season, are gone. Meanwhile, No. 4 seeds Little Rock and St. John's are still alive.
With eight matchups on the table, there are plenty of storylines to watch in this final step before Omaha. Here are a few of the best ones.
First-Timers in the College World Series
There will be at least two first-time participants in the College World Series. For three of them, there is absolutely no pressure. Cal Poly, Troy and Little Rock were never expected to get this far. The fact that they are here, especially in Cal Poly's case given that the Mustangs had to come through UCLA's regional, is a victory in itself. Getting to Omaha would be the cherry on top.
That is not the case for West Virginia.
The Mountaineers are facing a defining moment, as this is their third trip to the Super Regionals. In their first two trips, they were not expected to win. They faced North Carolina in 2024 and LSU in 2025, both on the road, and in each case they had not been expected to come out of their regional, let alone win Supers.
This time, they are up against Cal Poly. West Virginia earned a national seed at No. 16, and when UCLA fell, the Mountaineers found themselves hosting. That brings its own kind of pressure, especially against an opponent with nothing to lose. If the Mountaineers lose, they will face questions all offseason about whether the program will ever break through to Omaha.
That might be a bit unfair, given how hard it is to reach the College World Series. But that is reality. West Virginia is never going to have a better opportunity to reach Omaha than by going through Cal Poly on its home turf.
SEC Exclusive
With two all-SEC battles, there was always the possibility of a rematch, and that is exactly what exists between Georgia and Mississippi State. The first series went to the Athens Bulldogs, who went to Starkville and swept Mississippi State, winning with offense in the first game and defense in the second. The teams met again at the SEC tournament, and Georgia prevailed again, claiming a 5-3 victory.
Now they will play at Foley Field, which only helps Georgia's powerful offense. Mississippi State is built more around its arms than its bats. The Starkville Bulldogs will have to be nearly perfect in this situation, as Foley Field does not play deep at all. If Mississippi State keeps the ball on the ground, it has a chance. If not, it is probably going to be a short weekend in Athens.
The other SEC series, Auburn against Mississippi, is not a rematch. With the SEC only playing a 30-game schedule, each team misses five opponents, and this was one of those non-pairings. So even though it is a conference game, it is essentially a non-league matchup this year.
Fighting for Respect
Oregon and USC are now carrying the flag for the Big Ten. The league has improved at baseball over the past few seasons, but it still struggles to get much respect nationally. If either the Ducks or the Trojans can break through to Omaha, it would go a long way toward legitimizing the league.
The Ducks beating Texas would be an especially strong statement. Oregon has not made the College World Series since 1954. Part of that absence owes to the baseball program not existing from 1981 to 2007, but the Ducks have become a regional power since bringing it back. A trip to Omaha is the one thing still missing from the resume.
For USC, a once-proud program has only just begun the climb back. The Trojans won the College World Series in 1998 and made it as recently as 2001. Since then, there have been just five NCAA tournament trips, only two of them in the past 11 years. Taking down North Carolina would be a statement win for this group.
Carrying the Flag
On the other side of that matchup, North Carolina is the sole survivor of the ACC's nine-team contingent. The league simply did not get the job done in the postseason this year, losing two national seeds along the way.
That puts real pressure on the Diamond Heels. They are still standing, and there is a sense that they are playing for next year's team as well as their own. If the ACC gets shut out of Omaha, it will be harder to justify giving the league as many bids as it received this year.
Renewing Old Rivalries
Kansas and Oklahoma shared one of the Big 12's most enduring rivalries before the Sooners departed for the SEC. Now, with both schools in the Super Regionals, Oklahoma is heading to Lawrence to face the resurgent Jayhawks.
A win would send Kansas to its second College World Series appearance, though they have been away from that stage for so long the sport itself looked different when they last got there. The Jayhawks have not made the CWS since 1993, making this moment a significant achievement in its own right, and a potential trip to Omaha would be one of the bigger stories in college baseball this spring.
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