The Nebraska baseball team has officially made the NCAA Tournament as an at-large bid, that’s the good news. The bad news is that they are the second seed in the Corvallis regional, meaning that they will likely need to topple the nation’s number one seed in Oregon State if they want to move to the second round.
While Oregon State is the best team in the country, the other piece of good news is that the Nebraska baseball team might have managed to land in a regional that has some of the easier teams to top as the third and fourth seeds. The Huskers have a tough but not impossible road to hoe if they want to make it to the Super Regionals.
The Nebraska baseball team opens against an Ivy league school off a two-decade drought
The Huskers are just 1-8 in the post season over the last three years. On it’s face, it appears they might have gotten the kind of draw they needed to turn that trend around. The Nebraska baseball team will open against the Yale Bulldogs, who are in the tournament thanks to their Ivy League championship.
The regionals bid ends a 24-year drought for Yale who got close last year after their won their division but lost in the championship round. This year, they swept the best of three series against Penn. The 32-16 Bulldogs are ranked 48th in RPI, which isn’t all that far behind the Huskers.
Yale has already taken home plenty of honors this year, getting eight players on the all-Ivy league team.
Their coach was also named the coach of the year. Interestingly, the Bulldogs have already matched up six times with the regional’s 4th seed six times this year. Yale is 6-1 this season against Holy Cross.
Oregon State or Holy Cross will be Nebraska baseball’s second matchup
Depending on what happens in the first round games, the Huskers will either have to face off against Oregon State (49-4) or Holy Cross (23-27).
Oregon State is the nation’s top RPI rated team while Holy Cross is rated as the 210th ranked RPI team.
The Crusaders have made the tournament thanks to winning the Patriot League but are clearly not anywhere near the best of the best. The Beavers will likely make short work of Holy Cross and the Huskers will be hoping to face off against OSU in the second round.
While Oregon State looks nearly unbeatable, they do have a non-conference loss on their resume and that team was an Ohio State squad the Huskers were able to beat this year. The Nebraska baseball team will kick off their regionals on Friday, June 2 at 3:00 pm.
