The stage has been officially set for this year’s NCAA Baseball Tournament after the field of 64 wasreleased on Monday. With 64 of the nation’s top teams now knowing who they’ll compete against in the Regionals in pursuit of a trip to Omaha for the College World Series.
From intriguing Regional matchup pairings to bubble teams not making cut, there’s plenty to unpack ahead of the NCAA Tournament. But given the number of talented teams across the country, ESPN‘s Mike Rooney believes that this year’s field of 64 shows that it may be time to expand the NCAA Tournament field.
“My big takeaway is we’ve outgrown this this format,” Rooney said on ESPN’s selection show on Monday. “This committee is very talented administrators who truly love college baseball, but you know, I think about one team from the CAA. That’s not good enough. We don’t have a Regional in Starkville, that’s that’s a loss for the sport. Payton Tolle of TCU not being this thing. Lamar, second in the country and wins.”
“Something like 72 teams, 32 hosts, there’s a real opportunity to continue to grow the sport and they’re just really good teams that didn’t make it.”
The College Football Playoff expands to 12 teams this upcoming football season with conversations about further expansion already arising. With similar discussions surrounding the NCAA Basketball Tournament as well to make March Madness even more mad. But could it be time for the NCAA Baseball Tournament to follow suit?
“I mean to your (point) Lamar swept Oklahoma earlier this year. And that’s why I think growing it, you get to 72, you add more teams, Lamar’s in,” Kyle Peterson said in agreement. “Lamar’s in, Cal‘s in, Cincinnati‘s in, TCU. I mean TCU went 8-0 against the Pac (12). Now granted, they didn’t play the top end of the Pac, but they went 8-0 against the Pac and they went 2-0 against Dallas Baptist. Like they’re non-conference, UCLA was down this year, But when you schedule UCLA I think it’s probably going to be a pretty good series. Add eight more.”
Teams will miss the cut in postseason college tournaments across all sports and have a case to make tournament appearances regardless of how many teams are added to the field. But in baseball, the expansion of the field adds more worthy tournament teams and the amount of exciting Regionals hosted by the nation’s top programs. A unique element to the sport’s postseason that could be enhanced with the addition of more teams in the future.
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