NCAA baseball tournament 2024: Re-seeding super regional field ahead of College World Series (2024)

Evansville is officially this year's Cinderella team. The Purple Aces stunned No. 16 national seed East Carolina in the regional opener, 4-1, before it racked up 17 runs in an offensive battle with VCU to secure its spot in the driver's seat. A winner-take-all third game against the host Pirates on Monday saw Evansville's Mark Shallenberger belt a three-run, go-ahead home run in the 6th inning, and that shot was the decisive blow that sent the Purple Aces to their first regional title in program history.

The Huskies are off to the super regionals for the second time in three years and just the third time in program history, and that is a development that few would have believed at the midway point of the season when UConn stood six games under the .500 mark. Not only did Jim Penders reboot his squad to earn an automatic bid into the postseason, but he also led the Huskies to two wins in three games against No. 9 national seed Oklahoma in the Norman Regional.

The up-and-down 2024 season is back on an upswing for Florida, and the momentum reversal could not have come at a better time for a team that was, to many, a surprise selection in the 64-team NCAA Tournament field. The Gators lost six-straight SEC series before they toppled Georgia on the road in the regular-season finale, and perhaps that bounce back gave them the confidence they needed to fight their way through the losers' bracket in the Stillwater Regional. At any rate, the consecutive victories over Oklahoma State guarantees the college baseball world two more looks at two-way star Jac Caglianone, who leads the Gators in every major offensive category and is the team's top starting pitcher.

Oregon is proof that every week in college baseball is a new week. The Ducks went 0-2 in the Pac-12 Tournament but quickly righted the ship and rolled through the Santa Barbara Regional as a three-seed, beating the host squad twice in as many days to secure their second-straight super regional berth. Oregon is an offense-first club but relied on its pitching staff in the regional, and Sunday starter Kevin Seitter delivered the performance of his life with a complete-game shutout to push the Ducks to the next round.

Few regional performances were as impressive as that of Kansas State in the second game of the Fayetteville Regional, wherein the Wildcats chased the best pitcher in college baseball — Arkansas' Hagen Smith — with a six-run inning en route to an upset victory. Three-seed Kansas State beat Cinderella candidate Southeast Missouri in the regional final to capture just the second super regional berth in program history and first in more than a decade. Kaelen Culpepper is K-State's top hitter and is red hot after he went 7-12 and blasted a pair of home runs over the weekend.

West Virginia made its 15th regional appearance this season and emerged from arguably the most loaded four-team field in the NCAA Tournament for its first regional championship in program history. Sunday's 10-6 win over Grand Canyon marked a breakthrough for the Mountaineers, who have just two qualified hitters over a .300 batting average and one starting pitcher with a sub-5.00 ERA. Following their pair of disappointing losses in the Big 12 Tournament, the Mountaineers flipped a switch against two of the better mid-major programs in the nation and now have momentum and confidence.

Travis Bazzana did what Travis Bazzana does during Oregon State's regional sweep, adding two home runs to his program-record tally. He and the rest of an overpowering offense showed why the Beavers were a top-10 team all season long. With standout freshman Trent Caraway back from injury, this lineup is also now at full strength for the first time since the campaign's earliest days, making it even more formidable. Oregon State boasts a terrific one-two punch atop its pitching rotation, and so long as the iffy bullpen does not squander leads (as it is prone to do) in the Lexington Super Regional, the Beavs can realistically find themselves back in Omaha.

Third baseman Alec Makarewicz tallied six hits and four extra-base knocks, including a home run, to pace the NC State offense in a Raleigh Regional sweep. First baseman Garrett Pennington also had a rousing start to the NCAA Tournament with his two-homer game in a tight winners' bracket battle against South Carolina. That duo put the Wolfpack offense on its back all season long and proved capable of stringing postseason wins together, but it also needs reliable help from the rest of the lineup and starting pitchers. That has not always been a given.

Following a win over Penn in Game 1, Virginia battled twice against a highly motivated Mississippi State team that felt wronged by the selection committee when it narrowly missed out on the opportunity to host. The Cavaliers dispatched the Bulldogs with a pair of terrific 9th inning performances, winning in walk-off fashion Saturday and plating six runs in the final frame of Sunday's regional final. It was about as far from a breeze as regional sweeps come, but wins are wins in the postseason, and Virginia deserves ample credit for fending off a pair of upset bids from a strong Mississippi State squad.

Georgia had a flair for the dramatic in its sweep of the Athens Regional, and it will have to play much more sound baseball in the games to come if it is to reach Omaha for the first time since its 2008 national runner-up finish. Army tallied seven runs on the UGA arms in Game 1 and held a lead for most of that contest, then Georgia Tech loaded the bases in the ninth inning of a tied regional final before Bulldog reliever Chandler Marsh escaped the jam. Credit to Georgia's offense for its timely hitting, but this team cannot continue to play with fire and rely too heavily on Charlie Condon and the bats.

Game 1 starter Carson Dorsey was an out away from a complete game gem, and Florida State rolled to a 7-2 victory in that Tallahassee Regional opener to set the tone for a comfortable weekend at Dick Howser Stadium. That the Seminoles cruised to a regional sweep without a single hit from their top bat, James Tibbs III, was a testament to the depth of a terrific offense. If there is a potential downfall for this team, it is the pitching staff, which has just two arms under a 4.24 ERA. But that was no problem over the weekend as the 'Noles allowed no more than four runs in any of their three wins.

Coach Erik Bakich defended his Clemson program amid its College World Series drought, touting the Tigers as college baseball blue bloods ahead of their regional. They backed up that claim with a sweep of High Point and Coastal Carolina to win their first regional since 2010 and snap a miserable stretch of postseason disappointment. Clemson's 4-3 wins in the first two regional games were not entirely convincing, though, and it was not until the Tigers met a fatigued Chanticleers pitching staff that they broke through offensively with 12 runs. Perhaps that was just what they needed to get things rolling entering super regional play.

There is no shame in needing three games to notch two wins against LSU. The Tigers were always going to be a tough draw for a regional host as one of the hottest teams in the country, and while they took North Carolina down to the wire in a decisive Game 7, it was ultimately the Tar Heels who emerged from a strong Chapel Hill Regional field. Vance Honeycutt was as advertised earlier in the weekend when he blasted two home runs in the first matchup against LSU, and that star power — which extends to sluggers Casey Cook, Parks Harber and other elite bats in a loaded lineup — makes UNC a national title hopeful despite the minor regional hiccup.

A shutout victory in the regional opener was a harbinger of things to come for Texas A&M, which allowed only six runs across three games. The Aggies delivered one of the best moments of the NCAA Tournament thus far when they beat rival Texas in the winners' bracket game thanks to a Ted Burton RBI single and run-scoring wild pitch in the 11th inning of a spirited battle. Making Jim Schlossnagle's squad even more dangerous ahead of a favorable super regional draw against Oregon was star two-way player Braden Montgomery rounding back into form with a nice 6-for-15 weekend that included a home run and five walks.

After it earned a hard-fought 10-8 win over regional four-seed Western Michigan in the opener, Kentucky rolled to a perfect weekend behind remarkable performances on the mound. Starting pitchers Trey Pooser and Mason Moore were tremendous on the bump as they combined to throw 13 innings of one-run baseball, stymying the Illinois and Indiana State offenses en route to the Wildcats' second-straight super regional berth. Kentucky now enters uncharted territory as a program and hosts a super regional for the first time.

Tennesseelooked every part of a deserving No. 1 overall seed on its dominant path through the Knoxville Regional, winning all three games by at least six runs apiece and averaging 11 runs offensively per contest. Tony Vitello and his squad are off to their fourth-consecutive super regional but remain in search of a breakthrough, and in order to finally achieve college baseball immortality, they would have to buck the 25-year trend of top overall seeds falling short of a national title. They certainly have the bats to do it, given that catcher Cal Stark smashed Tennessee's 159th home run of the year to set a new program single-season record.