NCAA Division I Baseball Tournament

The NCAA Division I Baseball Championship tournament is held each year from May through June and features 64 college baseball teams in the United States, culminating in the College World Series at TD Ameritrade Park in Omaha, Nebraska. Coastal Carolina is the current champion, defeating runner-up Arizona by a run in the third and deciding game of the finals.

The tournament is unique in that it features four tiers of competition, alternating between double-elimination brackets and best-of-three series. In fact, throughout the entire 64-team tournament, a team can lose a total of four games and still be crowned champions.

During team selection, eight teams are given national seeds. These teams automatically host a super regional if they advance past the regional round, assuming they have the facilities to do so. Only 2 times has a national seed not hosted due to lack of proper facilities. As in other NCAA tournaments, conference champions (usually determined by a tournament) receive automatic bids, and the selection committee fills the remaining spots.

The first tier, called Regionals, consists of 16 locations that include four teams, seeded 1 through 4, competing in a double-elimination bracket. The 16 host sites are determined mostly by merit - most No. 1 seeds host - but are also contested by bids from schools guaranteeing the NCAA a certain amount of revenue from that regional. Host teams traditionally have a large advantage, although the home team for each game is determined by rule, so the host school sometimes plays as the visiting team. The winner of each regional moves on to the second tier, the Super Regionals.

Super Regionals are played at eight locations throughout the country and consist of the 16 surviving teams, matched up by predetermined regional pairings. National seeds cannot meet each other in the super regional and are guaranteed to host. If the national seed in the bracket is eliminated in the regional stage, the super regional will be played at the higher seeded team's field. If the two seeds are the same, the Super Regional will be bid upon by the two competing teams. If the national seed wins the regional but is unable to host, the Super Regional is awarded to the other regional winner in its bracket. This scenario played out in 2015 when national seed Missouri State could not host a Super Regional because the minor league Springfield Cardinals, which have scheduling priority at the stadium where both teams play, were playing a home series at that time. The Super Regional was thus awarded to Arkansas. The two teams play a best-of-three series to determine who moves on to the College World Series. Although one school hosts all three games, the teams split home-team status in the first two games, with the host school batting last in the opening game and first in game 2. If a third game is needed, a coin toss determines home-team status. Ole Miss is the only school to host three Super Regionals without advancing to the College World Series under the current format. Florida State has lost five Super Regionals as host, but has also advanced to the College World Series five times under the current format.

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