2019 NCAA baseball tournament bracket: Who will win the College World Series?

The slate is set and the 2019 NCAA baseball tournament is about to begin. Here’s what the bracket looks like for the teams on the road to Omaha.

There are currently 64 NCAA baseball teams who all (at least in theory) have a chance to win a national title this season. The regular season is over, the conference tournaments have completed, and now all of the regionals are set.

The 2019 NCAA baseball tournament is about to begin.

Starting Friday, May 31, the regional round of the tournament will get underway. For those unfamiliar with how the regionals work, the field of 64 is split into 16 different locations (with the top 16 teams in the country acting as hosts) where four teams compete in double-elimination tournaments.

After the regionals are sorted out, the super regional round begins and a best-of-three game series is set up between the winners of two regionals that have been paired together.

But before we start talking about super regionals, let’s look at the bracket and the regional round.

View the full bracket here:

https://twitter.com/NCAACWS/status/1133047761371316225?s=20

Where is the toughest regional this year?

The Corvallis Regional is one that sticks out to me. The defending national champs, Oregon State, are the No. 16 overall seed in the country and they get the pleasure of hosting Creighton (the current Big East Champs), Michigan (a team that has won 41 games this season), and Cincinnati (the Bearcats, not the Reds).

While the Bearcats may not be much of a hurdle for the hosting Beavers, there’s a solid chance that the Bluejays or the Wolverines could make things difficult for Oregon State. The Beavers are ranked at No. 20 in the most recent RPI rankings. Creighton sits just a couple of spots behind them at No. 23.

Oregon State might have a tougher challenge than just about any other hosting team in the country.

Other regionals to consider: Morgantown (West Virginia hosts Texas A&M as the No. 2 seed in the regional and the Aggies are No. 15 in the latest RPI rankings),  Starkville (Mississippi State hosts Miami, the No. 17 team in RPI rankings), and Lubbock (Texas Tech has to deal with two teams in the 20’s in the latest RPI rankings in Florida and Dallas Baptist).

Who has the easiest path to the College World Series?

The Vanderbilt Commodores might have gotten the easiest path to Omaha. Vanderbilt’s regional features three teams that are likely simply outmatched by the Commodores this season. Vanderbilt hosts Indiana State, McNeese State, and Ohio State. None is currently ranked higher than No. 24 in RPI rankings.

Assuming that Vanderbilt does make it through the Nashville Regional, there’s a very real chance that they’d be matched up with either West Virginia or Texas A&M in a Nashville Super Regional. While the Mountaineers and Aggies are very good teams this season, at the moment it’s hard to imagine either walking away winning two of three against the Commodores in their own ballpark.

Texas A&M fans are likely to have an issue with this point given that the Aggies beat the Commodores in the regular season. Texas A&M even shut Vanderbilt out and clinched the series by winning 7-0 in the final game of the series.

But it is worth noting that this series would not be in College Station.

Texas A&M struggled in road series and went 10-9 this season away from Blue Bell Park. West Virginia wasn’t much better in away games and went 16-13 in road games this year. Vanderbilt is 31-5 this season in Nashville. Maybe it’s the whistler, maybe it’s the fact that this is a really, really good team right now. Whatever the reason, it’s nearly impossible to beat Vanderbilt in Nashville in 2019.

And so, the Commodores likely have the easiest path to Omaha.

Other teams worth noting: UCLA – the perks of being the best team in the country include getting one of the easiest paths to Omaha. The Bruins are matched up with the Corvallis Regional and it’s unlikely that the Beavers or Bluejays or Wolverines can keep up with UCLA in Los Angeles.

Final takeaways

But, at the end, who knows what will really happen this season with the 2019 NCAA baseball tournament? Baseball is often a wildly unpredictable sport that shocks fans and weird things happen when teams are determined to win.

It was hard to imagine Ole Miss making a run in the SEC Tournament and nearly beating Vanderbilt in Hoover. LSU also made a name for itself by having a really good week of baseball and secured a hosting spot in the process. Any team can get hot at the right moment right now and make an upset.

Mississippi State in 2018 is a great example of that.

And that’s what makes this sport, this tournament in particular, so great. The 2019 NCAA baseball tournament is here and hopefully, it becomes as chaotic and wonderful as it has the potential to be.