2008 NCAA Division I Baseball Tournament

The 2008 NCAA Division I Baseball Tournament was held from May 30 through June 25, 2008. The 64 NCAA Division I college baseball teams were selected out of an eligible 286 teams on May 26, 2008. Thirty teams were awarded an automatic bid as champions of their conference, and 34 teams were selected at-large by the NCAA Division I Baseball Committee. Thirty-eight of the 64 selected teams participated in the 2007 tournament.

The 2008 tournament culminated with 8 teams advancing to the College World Series at historic Rosenblatt Stadium in Omaha, Nebraska on June 14th.

On June 25, 2008, the Fresno State Bulldogs beat the Georgia Bulldogs, 6-1, to win the NCAA Mens Division I Baseball Championship. Fresno State was the lowest seeded team (4th in Regional) to win the National Championship in NCAA History.

National Seeds

"Bold" indicates CWS participant.
#Miami (FL) (47-8)
#North Carolina (46-12)
#Arizona State (45-11)
#Florida State (48-10)
#Cal State Fullerton (37-19)
#Rice (42-13)
#LSU (43-16-1)
#Georgia (35-21-1)

Regionals & Super Regionals

Regional Schedule

Regional rounds were held Friday, May 30 through Monday, June 2. Each regional followed a similar format, with 2 games played on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, and one on Monday if needed.

Tournament Performance by Conference

Notes on tournament field

*Oregon State was not invited to the NCAA tournament, marking the first time since 1991 that the defending champion did not return to the following year's tourney (Georgia).
*Dallas Baptist is making its first appearance. It is the first independent institution to qualify for the Division I tourney (other than Miami FL, which kept an independent schedule during its years in the Big East) since Cal State Northridge did so in 1992.
*Michigan was the only non-#1-seed selected to host a regional, forcing #1 seed Arizona to play an away regional, as the NCAA organizing committee said it was trying to maintain geographical balance with the host sites. [http://www.azstarnet.com/sports/240824]

Round 1

*Four #1 seed regional host schools, out of 16 total, lost round 1 games to lower seeded teams:
**Georgia 7, Lipscomb 10
**Stanford 2, UC Davis 4
**Florida St. 0, Bucknell 7
**Long Beach St. 3, Fresno State 7

Round 2

*Fresno State was the only #4 seed to register wins in the first two rounds of the tournament.
*Tulane was the only #3 seed to register wins in the first two rounds of the tournament.
*9 of the 16 #1 seeds registered wins in the first two rounds of the tournament.

uper Regionals

*Six of the eight national seeds advanced to the College World Series. Only #3 seed Arizona State and #5 seed Cal State Fullerton were unable to make it past Super Regionals.
*Fresno State became the first team in the history of the NCAA Tournament to make it to the College World Series as a #4 regional seed.

College World Series

Television/radio/online coverage

*All games can be tracked live online through CBS College Sports Network application Gametracker [http://www.cstv.com/gametracker/brackets/cws/2008/08_cws_bracket.html?from=tab]

Regionals

*During the regionals, ESPNU showed games from Coral Gables (Karl Ravech and Barry Larkin) and Fullerton (Kyle Peterson), with Mike Gleason and Will Kimmey in the Charlotte ESPNU studios.
*CBS College Sports Network was not originally scheduled to show any games, as in years past. However, it aired Nebraska's Friday and Saturday games through a simulcast with Nebraska Educational Telecommunications.
*The Baton Rouge regional was shown regionally on Cox Sports Television, the Athens regional on Comcast Sports Southeast/Charter Sports Southeast, and the final two days of the Tallahassee regional aired on Sun Sports.

uper Regionals

*All super-regional games were shown on ESPN, ESPN2 or ESPNU on television and ESPN360.com through online streaming video. Announcers included Karl Ravech, Pam Ward, Dave Ryan, Brian Jordan, Robin Ventura, and Kyle Peterson.

Mike Gleason and Will Kimmey made up the studio team (in Bristol, Connecticut) for both regional and super-regional rounds.

College World Series

*All College World Series games will be shown on ESPN, ESPN2 or ESPNU on television and ESPN360.com through online streaming video.
*Westwood One will broadcast all CWS championship series games on radio. Participating institutions are allowed local broadcast rights in the earlier rounds, and games may also be available on XM Satellite Radio and Sirius Satellite Radio.

See also

*NCAA Division I Baseball Championship
*2008 Nebraska Cornhuskers baseball team
*2008 LSU Tigers baseball team
*2008 Vanderbilt Commodores baseball team
*2008 Fresno State Bulldogs baseball team

External links

* [http://sports.espn.go.com/ncaa/news/story?id=3412793 Schedule, results, and game times] at ESPN