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The opening weekend of the NCAA Tournament rarely disappoints—and this year was no exception.
From historic mid-major runs to stunning regional host eliminations, the first four days of tournament play delivered plenty of surprises and raised new questions about where the sport stands. The SEC stumbled. The ACC surged. Parity proved it’s far from dead. And with the portal now wide open, even the teams still standing face unique challenges moving forward.
Here’s a look at this year’s biggest winners and losers coming out of regional weekend and heading into super regionals this weekend.
Winners
The ACC
It was the SEC that entered the tournament with the most fanfare, landing 13 of its 16 members in the field and none of them on the ‘Last Four In’ bubble. But the opening weekend brought a stunning face plant: Just four SEC teams survived the first cut (more on this below).
The ACC, meanwhile, shined. Five of its nine tournament teams advanced to super regionals, including Louisville, Miami and Duke, all of whom toppled regional hosts to punch their tickets. It’s the conference’s strongest super regional showing since 2013, and it comes on the heels of a 2024 postseason in which four ACC teams reached the College World Series.
There’s still a wide gap between the SEC and the rest of college baseball in the eyes of scouts, coaches and players alike. But the ACC’s postseason performance begs the question: Just how wide is that gap, really?
Murray State
There was no debate about this one. On Monday night, Murray State became just the 10th No. 4 seed in super regional history to punch a ticket to the second round, edging Ole Miss 12-11 in a wild, winner-take-all Game 7.
The Racers had never advanced to super regionals before, and for head coach Dan Skirka, this run could be life-changing. An informal survey of Division I head coaches late Monday night and Tuesday morning made clear that Skirka, just 40 years old, is viewed as a rising star in the profession. He enters the Durham Super Regional with a 204-148 career record and has now authored what will go down as the best season in program history.
Go ahead and add Skirka to your offseason hot board lists.
UTSA
Similar story, different seed. UTSA is headed to the first super regional in program history, a breakthrough that required taking down national No. 2 Texas twice in Austin. While not quite the Cinderella run that Murray State authored—UTSA entered as a regional No. 2 seed—the history makes this just as special.
Head coach Patrick Hallmark, like Skirka, has firmly inserted himself into the national coaching conversation after delivering an all-time season for the Roadrunners. UTSA will now face UCLA with a trip to Omaha on the line.
JD Arteaga
Let’s start here: Miami is a major winner. The program had been in what felt like an unrecoverable tailspin since its last College World Series trip in 2016, missing the tournament entirely three times since.
But as big a moment as this is for the Hurricanes, it’s an even bigger win for head coach JD Arteaga, who entered the season on the hot seat and remained there well into the spring before engineering a remarkable turnaround.
Now, it’s hard to imagine Arteaga hasn’t earned himself a much longer leash. He’ll have the runway to continue rebuilding the Miami program he once pitched for in the mid 90s.
College Baseball
The headline here might feel broad, but it’s fitting. College baseball was a clear winner this weekend, if only because it emphatically proved that parity in the sport is alive and well. That’s no small thing, given how loudly fears of growing imbalance have echoed across the landscape in recent years—from administrators to coaches to fans.
Three mid-majors—Coastal Carolina, Murray State and UTSA—punched super regional tickets. Seven more—Southern Miss, Little Rock, Wright State, Cal Poly, East Carolina, Creighton and UC Irvine—pushed to their respective regionals finals.
This year’s field featured high-major representation at an unprecedented rate in the super regional era. But it was the mid-majors who ultimately stole the show.
Losers
The SEC
College baseball’s most powerful league never woke up from its nightmare weekend. Only four of 13 SEC teams advanced, including both national No. 1 seed Vanderbilt and No. 2 seed Texas bowing out. This year’s tournament marks just the second time since 1999 and the first since 2008 that neither of the top two national seeds will appear in super regionals.
Of the nine SEC teams eliminated, four—Vanderbilt, Texas, Georgia, Ole Miss—failed to survive their home regionals.
No one should rush to bury the league; its track record speaks for itself, with five straight national champions and unmatched MLB output. But this collapse raises valid questions about bid distribution.
None of the SEC’s at-large teams reached supers, yet none were listed among the ‘Last Four In.’ Like it or not, this performance is going to stick in the minds of next year’s selection committee.
The Big East
We already listed the Big East as a Selection Monday loser after it failed to land an at-large bid despite clearly having teams with the metrics to do so.
Xavier and Connecticut were both worthy candidates but were left on the outside while high-major leagues, particularly the SEC, gobbled up those spots. After the opening weekend’s results, it’s hard not to wonder what Billy O’Connor’s battle-tested Xavier squad could have done or whether Jim Penders, fresh off a super regional run just last year, could have pushed UConn back to the second round.
The same question facing the SEC now applies here: How does the selection committee get bid distribution right? The Big East’s snub, paired with the SEC’s 13 bids and subsequent flameout, should fuel that conversation in a meaningful way this offseason.
Oregon
Like several other regional hosts, Oregon failed to advance. But the Ducks’ case stands apart for a few reasons.
First, they were the only host to go 0-2, bounced after just two games thanks to losses to Utah Valley and Cal Poly. It was stunning end for a team with legitimate Omaha aspirations. That alone lands them firmly among the opening-round losers.
But beyond performance, officiating played a significant role in Oregon’s early exit. In the seventh inning of their game against Utah Valley with the Ducks mounting a rally, catcher Anson Aroz was called out and ejected for “malicious contact” on a collision at home plate. The ruling erased what would have been a run to cut UVU’s lead to 6-5.
The call was, at best, questionable. Aroz appeared to slow and adjust his body to avoid head-to-head contact. In a statement, the NCAA clarified the ruling:
“Rule 8-7 of the Baseball Rules Book refers to ‘flagrant or malicious’ contact. That does not mean that the contact was intentional or that the runner tried to injure the catcher. Actions listed on page 91 in the note to this rule indicate that if the runner does not make a legal slide (buttocks and legs on the ground before contact is made) or make motions that show effort to avoid a collision trying to reach the plate, the rule should be enforced.”
Regardless of intent, the ruling loomed large in what became one of the most disappointing host performances of the tournament.
Arizona
At first glance, this might look like an odd inclusion, as Arizona did exactly what it needed to do in Eugene by sweeping through its regional without a loss.
But this is more of a forward-looking “loser” designation.
The Wildcats’ reward for advancing? A trip to Chapel Hill to face red-hot North Carolina.
The Tar Heels looked dominant over the weekend, rolling through a 4-0 win over Holy Cross, an 11-5 victory over Oklahoma and a 14-4 rout of the Sooners to clinch the regional. A lineup that looked light entering the postseason exploded, and their pitching staff—bolstered this weekend by several standout freshmen—continued to shine.
At this point, UNC is one of the last teams anyone would want to face. Arizona simply drew the short end of the super regional stick. Of course, if Chip Hale’s club can knock off the Tar Heels, there won’t be any doubting what his group is capable of from there.
Teams Still Playing
Yes, this one might look odd. The 16 teams still standing are winners in every obvious sense—they’re still playing while the rest of the country heads to summer ball, swapping metal bats for wood.
But in today’s NCAA landscape, simply still playing comes with a new kind of challenge: balancing the present with the future.
The transfer portal opened June 2. According to 64Analytics, more than 1,550 players have already entered—nearly double last year’s total. Every team left in the field will need to dip into that pool if it hopes to sustain this level of success next season.
And yet few coaches would tell you the current system is functional.
Trying to scout next weekend’s opponent and next year’s roster simultaneously is an enormous strain. It requires not just talent evaluation, but campus visits, endless phone calls and agent-driven NIL negotiations—all while preparing for the most important games of the season.
There’s no easy fix. Pushing the portal window later runs into academic calendars while shortening it could raise legal issues amid the continuing expansion of athlete rights. But for now, this is the reality. And, ironically, it’s the best teams in the country that feel its harshest effects.
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