Which NCAA baseball teams could blow up the bracket
The Montgomery Advertiser’s Adam Cole and The Southwest Times Record’s Jackson Fuller break down who could wreck the tournament bracket.
With its back against the wall, Arizona baseball responded, rebounding from an 18-2 loss to No. 5 North Carolina in the opener of the Chapel Hill Super Regional to take two in a row from the Tar Heels last week, including a 4-3, come-from-behind thriller on June 8 in which the Wildcats scored three runs in the eighth inning.
With those victories, the Wildcats are back in a familiar spot.
The 2025 College World Series begins on June 13 at Charles Schwab Field in Omaha, Nebraska, with a pair of games, the first of which will pit Arizona against No. 13 Coastal Carolina in a rematch of the 2016 CWS championship series.
Arizona is no stranger to college baseball’s biggest and brightest stage. This year is the Wildcats’ second trip to the CWS in the past five seasons and their first under coach Chip Hale, who replaced Jay Johnson when he left for LSU after the 2021 season.
Beyond the immense significance the moment carries for Hale and his players, this year’s CWS is a chance for Arizona to add to its already illustrious baseball tradition.
Here’s a closer look at Arizona’s baseball history heading into the 2025 College World Series:
Arizona baseball national championships
The Wildcats have won four College World Series championships, making them one of just seven Division I programs with at least that many titles.
Three of those four championships came over an 11-season stretch from 1976-86, when legendary coach Jerry Kindall led Arizona to CWS titles in 1976, 1980 and 1986, giving the Wildcats the most championships of any Division I program during that span. Arizona’s fourth and most recent championship came under coach Andy Lopez in 2012, when it defeated South Carolina in the championship series, denying the Gamecocks a third consecutive title.
Hale was a star player on Arizona’s 1986 championship team. He finished his career as the program’s all-time leader in hits, games played and total bases.
The Wildcats fell in the CWS championship in 1956, 1959, 1963 and 2016. Interestingly, the loss in the 1956 championship came at the hands of their future coach, Kindall, who was a star player for a Minnesota team that beat Arizona 12-1. A more excruciating form of heartbreak came in 2016, when the Wildcats beat Coastal Carolina in the first game of their best-of-three championship series before dropping the final two, losing each by one run.
Here’s where Arizona ranks among programs in CWS titles:
- USC: 12
- LSU: 7
- Texas: 6
- Arizona State: 5
- Arizona: 4
- Cal State Fullerton: 4
- Miami: 4
Arizona College World Series appearances
The Wildcats have made the College World Series an impressive 19 times, tying them with Stanford for the eighth-most among Division I programs.
Arizona made it to Omaha all but one year from 1954-60 and won its three titles in the 1970s and 1980s across five CWS appearances. After missing it 17 consecutive times between 1987 and 2003, the Wildcats returned to the CWS in 2004, marking their first of five appearances this century. Four of those trips have come since 2012.
Here’s where Arizona ranks among programs in most CWS appearances:
- Texas: 38
- Miami: 25
- Florida State: 24
- Arizona State: 22
- USC: 21
- Oklahoma State: 20
- LSU: 20
- Arizona: 19
- Stanford: 19
Arizona baseball NCAA tournament appearances
The Wildcats have 44 all-time NCAA tournament berths. They’ve made the tournament in five consecutive seasons and have missed it only twice since 2016.
Arizona baseball all-time record
The Wildcats have an all-time record of 3,068-1,671-22.
Arizona baseball alumni
Entering this season, the Wildcats had produced 284 MLB draft picks and 94 players who eventually made it to the major leagues. Their list of MLB alumni is impressive, a group that includes Trevor Hoffman, Kenny Lofton, Terry Francona and J.T. Snow.
