2008 NCAA Division I baseball tournament

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 National Collegiate Athletic Association|NCAA Division I (NCAA)|Division I baseball tournament|2007 tournament].
The 2008 tournament culminated with 8 teams advancing to the College World Series at historic Rosenblatt Stadium in Omaha, Nebraska, on June 14.
The [2008 2008 Fresno State Bulldogs baseball team|Fresno State Bulldogs baseball team|Fresno State Bulldogs] beat the [2008 2008 Georgia Bulldogs baseball team|Georgia Bulldogs baseball team|Georgia Bulldogs] in the best-of-three championship series to win the NCAA Men's Division I Baseball Championship. Fresno State became the lowest seeded team to win the National Championship in NCAA history, 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 only the third national championship of any kind in school history, following the 1968 NCAA Men's Tennis Tournament and the 1998 NCAA Division I softball national champions.
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 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.

Bids

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.

School	Conference	Record	Berth	Last NCAA appearance
	Pacific-10	45–11	Won Pac-10	2007
	MEAC	36–20	Won MEAC tourney	2007
	Patriot League	29–22	Won Patriot playoff	2003
	Atlantic 10	43–14	Won A-10 tournament	2007
	Big South	47–12	Won Big South tourney	2007
	Ivy League	22–28	Won Ivy playoff	1976
	Ohio Valley	27–28	Won OVC tournament	1999
	Mid-American	25–32	Won MAC tournament	2003
	SoCon	43–16	Won SoCon tourney	2006
Fresno State	WAC	37–27	Won WAC tourney	2007
	C-USA	39–22	Won C-USA tourney	2006
	Horizon	34–20	Won Horizon tourney	2007
	Colonial Athletic	38–17	Won CAA tourney	2002
	A-Sun	32–28	Won A-Sun tourney	First appearance
	Big West	37–19	Won Big West	2007
	Big East	41–19	Won Big East tourney	2007
[2008 2008 LSU Tigers baseball team\|LSU Tigers baseball team\|LSU]	SEC	43–16	Won SEC Tournament	2005
[2008 Miami Hurricanes baseball\|Miami Hurricanes baseball team\|Miami (FL)]	ACC	47–8	Won ACC tourney	2007
	Big Ten	45–12	Won Big Ten tourney	2007
	NEC	21–32	Won NEC tourney	First appearance
	Summit	46–12	Won Summit tourney	2007
	Metro Atlantic	29–25	Won MAAC tourney	1994
	Southland	37–23	Won Southland tourney	2007
	WCC	41–15	Won WCC playoff	2007
	America East	34–24	Won AmEast tourney	2004
	Big 12	37–20	Won Big 12 tourney	2007
	MWC	43–17	Won MWC tourney	2007
	SWAC	16–32	Won SWAC tourney	2004
	Sun Belt	33–25	Won SBC tourney	2004
Wichita State	Missouri Valley	44–15	Won MVC tourney	2007

National seeds

Bold indicates CWS participant.

Miami (FL)
[2008 2008 North Carolina Tar Heels baseball team|North Carolina Tar Heels baseball team|North Carolina]
[2008 2008 Florida State Seminoles baseball team|Florida State Seminoles baseball team|Florida State]
LSU
'''Georgia'''

Regionals and 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.

Day	Game	Teams
Fri. 5/30/08	1	2/3 or 1/4
Fri. 5/30/08	2	2/3 or 1/4
Sat. 5/31/08	3	Loser Games 1 & 2
Sat. 5/31/08	4	Winner Games 1 & 2
Sun. 6/1/08	5	Winner Game 3 vs Loser Game 4
Sun. 6/1/08	6	Winner Games 4 & 5
Mon. 6/2/08	7	if needed, only if winner of game 5 wins game 6

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 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

College World Series

Bracket

Championship series

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 College World Series All-Tournament Team.

Position	Player	School
P	Alex White
P	Justin Wilson	Fresno State
C	Jason Castro	Stanford
1B	Dustin Ackley
2B	Erik Wetzel	Fresno State
3B	Tommy Mendonca	Fresno State
SS	Gordon Beckham	Georgia
OF	Tim Fedroff
OF	Steve Susdorf	Fresno State
OF	Steve Detwiler	Fresno State
DH	Ryan Peisel	Georgia

Record by conference

Conference	# of Bids	Record	Win %	RF	SR	WS	NS	CS	NC
WAC	1	10–4		1	1	1	1	1	1
SEC	9	24–21		5	2	2	1	1
ACC	6	27–15		5	4	3	1
Pac-10	5	18–11		4	3	1	1
Conference USA	5	14–10		5	1	1
Big West	4	10–9		2	2
Big 12	6	11–13		4	1
MVC	1	4–2		1	1
Big South	1	3–2		1	1
WCC	2	5–4		2
Colonial	2	3–4		1
Big East	2	1–4
Sun Belt	2	1–4
		8–36		1

The columns RF, SR, WS, NS, CS, and NC respectively stand for the regional finals, super regionals, College World Series teams, national semifinals, championship series, and national champion.

Tournament notes

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.
Clemson was not invited to the NCAA tournament, breaking a streak of consecutive appearances for the Tigers that dated back to the 1987 season.
Dallas Baptist made its first appearance. DBU was the first independent institution to qualify for the Division I tourney 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.

Round 1

Four No. 1 seeded regional host schools, out of 16 total, lost first-round games to No. 4 seeds:
*Georgia 7, Lipscomb 10
*Stanford 2, UC Davis 4
*Florida St. 0, Bucknell 7
*Long Beach St. 3, Fresno State 7
Five No. 3 seeds upset No. 2 seeds in the opening round.

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.

Super 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.

CWS records tied or broken

Most runs scored in an inning: 11
Most runners left on base in a nine-inning game: 17
Most doubles hit by a player: 3 by Rich Poythress Georgia against Stanford, Game 11.
Most losses by a team who won the College World Series: 31
Lowest seed to win the College World Series: #4 regional seed, #89 RPI

Television/radio/online coverage

Regionals

During the regionals, ESPNU showed games from Coral Gables and Fullerton, 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 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.