As expected, the Indiana University baseball program received an invitation to the 2018 NCAA tournament. The 64-team NCAA Division I baseball championship field was revealed today live on ESPNU.
The Hoosiers (38-17) will travel to Austin, Texas as a No. 2 seed. IU will face No. 3 seed Texas A&M (39-20) on Friday at 5PM EST on ESPN 2. Indiana is the only team in the Austin regional that is not from the state of Texas.
You can see the IU players react to the announcement here:
See you soon, Austin. pic.twitter.com/anCGPFYFGP
— Indiana Baseball (@IndianaBase) May 28, 2018
Regional site host and No. 1 seed Texas (37-20) is ranked 22nd in the RPI and 12th nationally according to the D1 Baseball rankings. The Longhorns are the 13th overall seed in the tournament and are making their record 59th appearance.
Texas A&M is 15th in the latest RPI and Indiana is 29th. No. 4 seed Texas Southern (27-26) rounds out the Austin regional.
The invitation marks IU’s fifth appearance in the NCAA tournament in the last six years. IU last reached the College World Series in 2013.
Big Ten programs Ohio State, Minnesota and Purdue also received invitations.
ABOUT THE TOURNAMENT
The field is divided into 16 regional sites. Each regional field features four teams, seeded 1-4, playing in a double-elimination format. All 16 regionals are scheduled from Friday, June 1 to Monday, June 4.
Super Regionals will be held June 8-10 or June 9-11 on eight campus sites. At each site, two teams play in a best-of-three tournament format. The winners from each site advance to the NCAA Men’s College World Series.
The 2018 NCAA Men’s College World Series (CWS) will be held at TD Ameritrade Park Omaha, June 16-26/27, 2018. The eight winners advancing from the Super Regional competitions will compete in two four-team double elimination brackets to determine the bracket champions. The two bracket champions will then play a best two-of-three championship series (CWS Finals) to determine the national champion. The CWS Finals format consists of single games Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday (if necessary), June 25-26/27.
You can view the full NCAA tournament bracket here.
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