Suvarna Garge (Editor)

2008 NCAA Division I Baseball Tournament

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Season
  
2008

Teams
  
64

Finals Site
  
Johnny Rosenblatt Stadium Omaha, NE

Champions
  
Fresno State (1st title)

Runner-Up
  
Georgia (6th CWS Appearance)

Winning coach
  
Mike Batesole (1st title)

The 2008 NCAA Division I Baseball Tournament was held from May 30 through June 25, 2008 and was part of the 2008 NCAA Division I baseball season. 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.

Contents

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

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

The Series was won by Fresno State, who became the lowest ranked team ever to win an NCAA Baseball Championship, and the fifth consecutive baseball team to win the title that was not one of the eight national seeds. They were considered a 'Cinderella' team throughout the tournament. This was the second National Championship for Fresno State following the 1998 NCAA Women's College Softball team.

Fresno State sophomore third baseman Tommy Mendonca won the Most Outstanding Player Award. Tommy hit four home runs and had 11 RBIs and also made a number of spectacular plays in the field.

The first day of the 2008 CWS was moved to Saturday (June 14) from the traditional Friday. Also, if all games were needed in the first double-elimination round, it would take eight days to complete rather than seven. The NCAA cited the need to be more flexible in the super-regional round in case of inclement weather. It also allowed for greater potential ticket revenue, in part because the extra "if-necessary" day would now be ticketed separately if both games are played.

Automatic bids

Conference champions from 30 Division I conferences earned automatic bids to regionals. The remaining 34 spots were awarded to schools as at-large invitees.

National seeds

Bold indicates CWS participant.

  1. Miami (FL) (47-8)
  2. North Carolina (46-12)
  3. Arizona State (45-11)
  4. Florida State (48-10)
  5. Cal State Fullerton (37-19)
  6. Rice (42-13)
  7. LSU (43-16-1)
  8. Georgia (35-21-1)

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.

Best-of-three super regionals were held Friday, June 6 through Monday, June 9. Four series were played Friday-Sunday and four series were played Saturday-Monday.

Brackets

Bold indicates winner. * indicates extra innings.

Coral Gables Super Regional

Hosted by Miami (FL) at Mark Light Field

Athens Super Regional

Hosted by Georgia at Foley Field

Fullerton Super Regional

Hosted by Cal State Fullerton at Goodwin Field

Tallahassee Super Regional

Hosted by Florida State at Dick Howser Stadium

Cary Super Regional

Hosted by North Carolina at USA Baseball National Training Complex

Baton Rouge Super Regional

Hosted by LSU at Alex Box Stadium

Houston Super Regional

Hosted by Rice at Reckling Park

Tempe Super Regional

Hosted by Arizona State at Packard Stadium

Monday, June 23

Game 14, 6:00 PM

Tuesday, June 24

Game 15, 6:35 PM

Wednesday, June 25

Game 16, 6:00 PM

All Tournament Team

The following players were members of the All-Tournament Team.

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.
  • Super Regionals

  • All super-regional games were shown on ESPN, ESPN2 or ESPNU on television and ESPN360 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 were shown on ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, or ESPN Classic on television and ESPN360 through online streaming video.
  • Westwood One broadcast all CWS championship series games on radio. Participating institutions were allowed local broadcast rights in the earlier rounds, and games were also available on XM Satellite Radio and Sirius Satellite Radio.
  • References

    2008 NCAA Division I Baseball Tournament Wikipedia