2003 NCAA Division I Baseball Tournament

The 2003 NCAA Division I Baseball Tournament was held May 30 through June 23, 2003. Sixty-four NCAA Division I college baseball teams met after having played their way through a regular season, and for some, a conference tournament, to play in the NCAA Tournament. The tournament culminated with 8 teams in the College World Series at historic Rosenblatt Stadium in Omaha, Nebraska.

Contents

• Automatic Bids
• National seeds
• Regionals and super regionals
• Tallahassee Super Regional
• Baton Rouge Super Regional
• Columbia Super Regional
• Houston Super Regional
• Coral Gables Super Regional
• References

ESPN, which held the rights to the College World Series, began televising super regional games in 2003. As part of the contract with ESPN, four super regionals would begin on Friday and run through Sunday, while the other four super regionals would begin Saturday and run through Monday.

The 2003 College World Series saw a format change and the championship was decided by a best-of-three series. From 1947 through 1988, the College World Series was a true double elimination tournament. From 1989 through 2002, there were two double elimination pools, but the two teams coming out of the pools played a single championship game and a champion was crowned regardless of whether the loser had two losses.

In the 2003 championship series, Rice defeated Stanford two games to one. John Hudgins became the 16th player to win the College World Series Most Outstanding Player Award from a losing team.