How does College World Series work? Explaining college baseball's CWS format
The race to Omaha is near with the NCAA Division I baseball tournament set to begin.
The tournament will feature 64 teams competing to be one of the eight teams to reach the men's College World Series, but the tournament isn't anything like what people are used to seeing with basketball in March Madness. Rather, the tournament is broken up into three rounds, with each one having a double-elimination format. It could be confusing to follow at first, but broken down, it's easier to understand, all while maintaining the theme of survive and advance.
Here is how the NCAA Division I baseball tournament works:
How does the NCAA Division I baseball tournament selection work?
Like in March Madness, the field is made up of automatic bids by conference winners and at-large selections. The tournament selection committee first picks the top 16 national seeds, which get the honor of hosting a regional. Afterward, all qualified teams are placed into each regional. In total, there are 16 regions − hosted by a national seed − with four teams in every regional.
How do the NCAA Division I baseball tournament regionals work?
Each team in a regional is seeded − the national seed is the No. 1 seed, and the tournament selection committee determines the Nos. 2-4 seeds. The No. 1 seed will play the No. 4 seed and the No. 2 seed will play the No. 3 seed to start the action.
Every regional is double-elimination, so if a team loses two games at any point during the regional, it is eliminated. The losers of the first two games will play each other in an elimination game, while the winners will play each other, and it plays out from there. The team to emerge without two defeats wins the regional.
An example of what the bracket looks like can be found here.
How do the NCAA Division I baseball tournament super regionals work?
The 16 regionals are formatted into a bracket similar to March Madness for the super regionals, So the No. 1 seed regional winner will face the No. 16 seed regional winner, the No. 2 seed regional winner will face the No. 15 seed regional winner, and so on.
In the super regionals, the best seed hosts a best-of-three series. The winner of the super regional advances to the Men's College World Series.
How does the Men's College World Series format work?
The eight super regional winners in the Men's College World Series are split into two brackets, similar to the regional rounds. There, it's double-elimination in the two brackets. Once there is one team left in each bracket, those two teams will meet in the Men's College World Series final.
The final is a best-of-three series, and whoever wins is the national champion.
When is the selection show?
It will be on Monday, May 27 at noon ET and be shown on ESPN2/ESPNU.
Men's College World Series 2024 schedule
The regionals run from May 31-June 3 and the super regionals will be played June 7-9 or June 8-10.
The 2024 Men's College World Series begins Friday, June 14.
The Men's College World Series finals will be June 22-23, and June 24 if a third game is necessary.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: College World Series format: How does baseball CWS work?
