Ole Miss Lands A NCAA Regional Host
By Dave Bevan
Ole Miss will play host to its’ sixth NCAA Regional in program history. That’s right, we are hosting in Oxford. The team will await the results of the remaining full 64 team selection by the committee on Monday.
Okay, so lets look past the National Seed, because I hate to break it to you, we have a better chance of Scott Esby calling a correct call then landing into the elite eight at this point. Even with the National Seed teams not being announced until Monday, it looks as though they are set in stone, and we are not one of them. Lets look past the poor decisions from the umpires that lead to our elimination in the Southeastern Conference Tournament. Lets look past the fact that LSU basically snagged the National Seed away from us. Lets take a moment and be thankful for what we got out of the selection. Let us no longer focus our worries on the National Seed and lets focus on baseball.
We have won a divisional title, something that is etched in stone and goes forever down in the record books. It something we have not experienced in five years. If you think that is a long time, just look at Mississippi State, they have not won a divisional title since 1989. That is something I am giving to you free, so go brag that to your Bulldog friends. Now, we will be hosting our sixth NCAA Regional, and even though as fans, we give Mike Bianco hell sometimes, he is without a doubt one of the best coaches to ever step foot in Oxford. How many regionals do you think we have hosted with another coach? Try, none. This will be the 12th time under the Mike Bianco era the Rebels make it to the postseason, out of his 14 years with the team.
And yes, I realize we have not been to Omaha since 1972.
So, lets focus on what we got, and that is hosting a regional. The Rebels were selected along with fifteen other teams to host the Regional NCAA Tournaments. Five of the sixteen teams selected, hail from the Southeastern Conference. Below, is the complete list of teams that will host a regional with the location.
[table id=20 /]
So, what does this mean for Ole Miss Baseball and how does it work?
The format for the NCAA Division – I Baseball Tournament starts with sixteen teams being selected to host NCAA Regional Tournaments. Then the NCAA committee will select all 64 total teams to enter the tournament, and each team is broken down (into fours) to go play in one of these sixteen regions. Since we are host of our regional, this means we don’t go anywhere, we are staying at home. Now, unfortunate for teams like Mississippi State, they maybe (for an example) selected go play in Fort Worth, Texas. We did this last year.
After the committee selects the 64 teams, they will select the elite eight National Seed teams (which maybe selected first). One of these elite eight spots is what we were wanting, but the odds of that happening looks slim to none now. Not only does these elite eight teams get to host a NCAA Regional, but if they pass through their regional, they have an automatic bid to host the Super-Regional. The Super-Regionals are the 2nd-tier of the NCAA Baseball Tournament. This is where the remaining sixteen teams face off for a best-of-three series. The remaining eight teams from the Super-Regionals head to Omaha for the College World Series.
I felt I needed to explain that you, because we haven’t been to Omaha since 1972. So, some of you might not know how this works.
On Memorial Day Monday, the NCAA Committee will select the National Seed teams and all 64 teams entering into the 2014 NCAA Baseball Tournament. At 11:00 a.m. CST, the selections will be nationally broadcast on ESPNU. You can follow us on Twitter for all the latest updates for the NCAA Tournament selections. We will also be airing a podcast show after the selections to discuss these postseason nominations, and more importantly to you – the Ole Miss Rebels’ Regional.
Let us know your thoughts of the Ole Miss Rebels being selected for a NCAA Regional host in the comment section below. You can log into your Facebook or Twitter account to comment.