The 2024 NCAA Baseball Tournament bracket left some bubble teams in joyous rejoice while others suffered the heartbreak of just missing the cut.
Following the announcement of the actual field on ESPN2, the broadcast flashed up a graphic detailing which bubble teams were truly the last four in and the first four out according to the selection committee. Here was that list with the teams ordered alphabetically:
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Certainly some tough choices there at the end for the committee, and in an interview following the bracket reveal, D1 Baseball Committee Chairman Matt Hogue admitted 2024 presented quite a challenge on the bubble.
“The margin is razor thin. I think, in my experience, this is one of the most difficult years we’ve had,” revealed Hogue. “A lot of groups of teams that had quality resume items.”
Hogue emphasized that strength of schedule played a massive factor with the bubble teams, especially when it came to teams from the same conference who played different conference schedules.
Again, I think a thread that seemed to weave through that last grouping of schools was strength of schedule. I think the committee felt very strongly about that as we reviewed and vetted and scrubbed, through an incredibly thorough process, all those teams you just listed on the screen. I think in many cases that ruled the day.
“Also, I think one thing that will be a key issue going forward is you don’t have full round robin league schedules anymore. So we really had to dig deep — who was playing the most difficult schedule in their league, how many series did you win, especially when you had a cluster of teams maybe in the same conference.”
Reading between the lines, Hogue could very well be talking about the triad of Big 12 teams on the bubble in UCF who made the field while Cincinnati and TCU were left just outside.
Overall, though, Hogue trusts the hours of research and discussion the committee did and believes they’ve crafted an appropriate field.
“So, very difficult. This is always an examination, an exercise, that takes a lot of hard work, and I feel like we have a great committee that did a really nice job with it,” he added.
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