College World Series
The 2008 NCAA baseball tournament, which leads up to the College World Series, is slated to begin soon, which is why the brackets were released today. While this doesn’t cause as much of a stir as, say, the release of the March Madness basketball tourney brackets, it’s still a pretty big deal.
As with basketball, 64 teams qualify for the tournament based on regional tournaments. Once the field of 64 teams is set, they’re divided into 16 four-team regional brackets, where they play in a double-elimination format. The 16 winners from the regionals advance to the best-of-three super regional series, with the eight winners then going on to participate in the College World Series in Omaha, NE beginning on June 14.
Florida was selected as the top seed in the nation, with North Carolina, Arizona State, Florida State, Cal State Fullerton, Rice, LSU, and Georgia also scoring top national seeds.
Meanwhile, two-time defending champion Oregon State didn’t qualify for this year’s tournament after posting a mediocre 28-24 record during the regular season.
I usually try to catch a couple games of the CWS on ESPN every year, so hopefully there will be some good action in the 2008 tournament!