NCAA Division I Baseball: full tournament bracket and seeds

The NCAA Division I Baseball tournament is entering its final stage as the 64 teams who entered the regionals have been whittled down to eight. The College World Series action moves to Omaha, Nebraska as we work toward crowning a national champion for 2023.

How does the College World Series work?

The eight remaining teams are divided into two four-team brackets, with each team playing the others. Following a double-elimination format, when a team loses two games their ride ends. The brackets continue until there are only two teams standing, the winners of each bracket. At that point, the slate is wiped clean and the last two teams enter a best-of-three series with the winner declared national champions.

Teams rarely repeat as national champions, and this year will be no different, with reigning national champion Ole Miss (25-29) suffering a miserable regular season, not qualifying for a bid in this year’s tournament. The last repeat champion was the South Carolina Gamecocks, who managed the feat in 2010 and 2011.

Bracket 1

No. 1 Wake Forest vs Stanford

Wake Forest is entering the competition with their number one seed intact. The Demon Deacons swept to the top of the national rankings at the end of the season and have maintained a solid grip on it ever since, blasting their way through the regionals and Super Regionals, setting an NCAA record with 9 home runs in their dismantling of Alabama.

They will meet Stanford who raised eyebrows in their defeat of Texas in the Super Regionals when starting pitcher Quinn Mathews refused to be pulled from the game, going the full 9 innings, striking out 16 and throwing a monstrous 156 pitches in the process.

No. 5 LSU vs Tennessee

The LSU Tigers were the national number one in all polls from preseason until just before the SEC tournament. They had a precipitous fall, tumbling down the rankings, but seem to have righted their wobbling ship, breezing through the regionals and sinking Kentucky in the Super Regional in spectacular fashion. Led by the likely number-one-overall draft pick Dylan Crews and top-five draft pick Paul Skenes, the Tigers are looking every bit as dangerous as their early season form suggested.

They will face the Tennessee Volunteers, who are in full rebuild mode. Last-year’s number one seed crashed out in the regionals and lost most of their prodigious bullpen. Since then, the Vols have gone from top to bottom and back again, clawing their way through Southern Miss in the Super Regionals to make it to Omaha. They will not want to waste this opportunity.

Bracket 2

No. 2 Florida vs No. 7 Virginia

The Florida Gators are back in Omaha following a sweep of South Carolina, continuing their dominant run in the tournament. They will face a gutsy Virginia, who managed to get here on the back of pitcher Brian Edgington’s complete-game victory over Duke.

TCU vs Oral Roberts

TCU have been the overlooked Texas team all season and they quietly have been slipping past opponents all the way, just as they did Indiana State. Opponents Oral Roberts needed three games to get past Oregon, but they have been equally underestimated this season as well. Now the two Cinderella stories meet in Bracket 2.