NCAA baseball tournament 2017: Miami snubbed, but UCLA in

The 2017 NCAA baseball tournament field was set on Monday, with Oregon State notching the tournament’s top overall seed. The Beavers won 49 games and lost only four this season, a remarkable feat in a hard-fought Pac-12. Pat Casey’s club enjoys an unhittable pitching staff, which boasts an ERA of just 1.84.

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Led by aces Luke Heimlich and Jake Thompson, Oregon State’s pen should shine in their Corvallis regional, which includes Holy Cross, Yale, and Nebraska. The Huskers, for their part, were Big Ten regular season champions, and this is their third tournament appearance in the last four years. They were bounced from last year’s tilt in consecutive losses to Oklahoma State and Western Carolina.

This year’s group of death in the regional round, however, is certain to be in Houston, where the hosts will face Iowa, Texas A&M, and Baylor. All four teams won at least 34 games this year, with Houston cresting at 40 wins. A&M earned a national seed last year, and Baylor went on an early season tear that saw them win their first 10 games. The Bears own a series win over Houston this year, besting the Cougars 2-1 back in early March. Iowa is the odd man out in this region, stealing a last-second bid over the likes of Miami and South Carolina.

Louisville has again earned national-seed hosting privileges after doing so last year. The Cardinals were bounced from last year’s super regional round on a dramatic walk-off grand slam by UC Santa Barbara. If they have designs on the super regional round this year, they’ll have to make it through Radford, Xavier, and Oklahoma, who had to beat arch-rival Oklahoma State twice just to get into the Big 12 tournament a couple weeks ago.

The ’Canes fell apart as early as their first weekend series in Gainesville, when they got swept by Florida in an outing that would prove indicative of larger problems. Miami just couldn’t patch together extended stretches of wins, backing up the sweep at Florida with a series loss to Dartmouth, of all teams, the following weekend.

The Hurricanes did end the regular season on a four-game winning streak, including a series sweep of ACC foe Virginia Tech. They beat Georgia Tech and regional host Wake Forest in the conference tournament before eventually failing out at the hands of No. 2 overall national seed UNC in a 12-4 shellacking. How did FSU’s clubhouse take the news of Miami’s exclusion? Well:

A full seven ACC teams made the field of 64 this year — a testament to the conference’s remarkable depth — but Miami isn’t one of them.

Sure, teams like UMBC (23-23) and Texas Southern (20-32) own disastrous records that would otherwise leave them out of the tournament, but automatic bids earned through conference tournament championships are still a fact of reality.

That still leaves some in Miami and Columbia, S.C. scratching their heads, as the Bruins carry a 30-25 record into the Long Beach, Calif. regional. To their credit, they did win nine of their last 12 regular season games, including an impressive series win over pesky Oregon. In addition to the host Dirtbags, the Bruins will square off with Texas and San Diego State in a local-ish four-team round robin.

As Bruins Nation points out, the committee considered the Bruins’ strong finish to the season, the fact that they were never swept in conference but swept three of their Pac-12 opponents, their No. 52 rank in the RPI, and that they accounted for one of Oregon State’s four losses on the season. This should push any team into the field of 64, and for their troubles the Bruins are off to the postseason.

Tournament play starts up on June 2, and every game is available to be streamed — even four at a time on a split-screen — on WatchESPN. The final round takes place during the last weekend of the month.