For the 11th time in program history, the Missouri State Bears have been selected to play in the NCAA Division I Baseball Championship. The Bears drew the No. 3 seed in the Oxford (Miss.) Regional as part of the 64-team NCAA field. Joining Missouri State will be the Atlantic-10 tournament champion Saint Louis Billikens.
Making their third NCAA Tournament appearance in the last four seasons, the Missouri Valley Conference champion Bears (39-15) will face the Tennessee Tech Golden Eagles (48-9) in opening-round action at 2 p.m. (CDT) Friday (June 1) at Oxford-University Stadium/Swayze Field. The top-seeded Ole Miss Rebels and fourth-seeded Saint Louis Billikens will meet Friday evening at 6:30 p.m. in the other regional pairing.
Regional play continues through Monday (June 4) with a double-elimination format. The 16 regional winners will advance to the Super Regional round, which will be contested June 8-11, with the eight winners of the three-game, head-to-head series moving on to the 2018 NCAA Division I Men’s College World Series at TD Ameritrade Park Omaha in Omaha, Neb., June 16-27.
In other regional baseball news, a nation-leading ten Southeastern Conference teams were selected: Arkansas, Auburn, Florida, Georgia, LSU, Ole Miss, Mississippi State, South Carolina, Texas A&M and Vanderbilt. This ties the record for the most SEC teams in the NCAA Tournament. Ten SEC teams earned bids to the NCAA Tournament in 2014.
The Mizzou Tigers were left out after losing their SEC Tournament opener to South Carolina
