Alex Swenson, a former Division I coach and scout, breaks down the 2023 NCAA baseball tournament: 64 teams, 30 automatic bids plus 34 at-large selections chosen by RPI and strength of schedule. Wake Forest is the #1 seed, followed by Florida and Arkansas. The tournament runs through 16 regionals with double elimination, then super regionals, before eight teams reach the College World Series in Omaha.
Questions this video answers
64 teams.
30 automatic bids (conference champions) and 34 at-large bids.
Starting June 2 (weekend referenced in the video).
There are 16 regionals with four teams each; each regional is double-elimination; the regional winners advance to super regionals (16 teams).
Eight teams in Omaha split into two brackets; the bracket winners play a best-of-three series for the national championship.
Chapters
Hey, how you doing, Alex here. Thanks for joining me. In today's episode, we are talking about the 2023 NCAA Division 1 baseball championship. That was a mouthful. But you guys know of March Madness for basketball? Well, we have that for baseball in June. I call it June Madness. And it is a tournament style, a lot of fun. I played and have coached in it and it is awesome. You're going to be able to watch all of these games as of this weekend, starting on June 2, there's 64 teams. And before I get into all the details, because I will, I'll get in all into details, I'll zoom in here. You guys will be able to see the teams that are competing. But if you're new to my YouTube channel or my podcast, you might be listening to this in the car, wherever you may be. My name is Alex Swenson. I'm a former Division I college coach, scout and recruiter. And now what I do is help high school baseball athletes and their parents navigate this college recruiting process and help best position them as best as possible to play at the next level and find that best college fit. I'm actually bringing on a couple guys in June into my program. You guys can go on and apply on my website@howtoberecruited.com also leave the link down in the description if you guys are interested in getting some help through this process. But with that said, let's talk about this tournament style bracket. So there's 64 teams. There's about 300 Division 1 baseball programs in the country. And now we are down to 64. 30 of them are automatic bids, meaning they won their conference and they got in automatically. And then there's 34 that got in at large bid because of their season. They didn't win their conference tournament, but of how well they have done in the season. There's a Division 1 committee that decides on who's going to be those 34 at large bids. And that is off of strength of schedule, something called the RPI as well, and other factors, but a lot of good teams, but also teams. And this tournament is structured in a way where you can have some Cinderella teams as well go for it and compete for a national championship, which is really good. So each, each regional has four teams. So we start off and they're put into these kind of buckets of 6, 16 regionals with four teams in each regional and it's a double elimination. So whoever comes out of that alive, they go to a super regional. It's down to your 16, your sweet 16, if you will. So let's go on and zoom in here. So Wake Forest is actually the number one seed. Let me go over actually the national top 16 seeds because this is important because if they win their regional, they get to host a super regional. And anytime you're hosting, whether it's a regional or whether it's a super regional or any hosting event, you have an advantage. So here are some of the top 16 seeds, if you will. Wake Forest comes in at number one. They've been just consistent and in the top five every year or this year rather. And they've just been good all around each and every year. Coach Walter over there is just awesome. Florida is number 2, Arkansas is number 3. Clemson is number 4. LSU number 5. Vanderbilt number 6. Virginia 7, Stanford 8, Miami 9. Coastal Carolina number 10. They won the College World Series a few years back. I think it was 17, 16 or 17. Correct me if I'm wrong on that. Oklahoma State number 11, Kentucky number 12. Auburn number 13. Indiana State got a national seed which is great, a mid major program. They've had a great year. South Carolina number 15 and number 16, Alabama. They've had some controversy. So it's good over there. Coach Jackson doing a good job keeping that team together. So these are all the teams I got this bracket off of ncaa, their website. They put this bracket together where it's going to be really good for you guys to keep up with this stuff is division one baseball.com they do an outstanding job with coverage of all Division 1 baseball. So definitely check them out and they go into full detail of journal guys that are just in depth into college baseball, which is really cool and writes articles on a weekly basis and they're all consuming on this. So definitely check them out. They actually have a bracket challenge where you can pick and guess. Kind of like a March Madness, but for again for baseball. Some of the intriguing regionals that I want to cover on my end that I'm kind of keeping an eye out on is this one, the South Carolina. I was a little surprised that they got a regional host because just they didn't finish that strong. Now they had a great year, but they have some tough competition with Campbell coming in at number two. Just a dominant mid major that been really good over the last few years with NC State. They're very, very competitive in Central Connecticut. There are no slouch either. So I'm keeping an eye on them. Actually above them. The Florida regional is going to be really, really tough as well. UConn is a very, very Good program. Texas Tech is a very good program. And Florida A and M, they are sneaky and they could sneak up on you. There's a lot of teams that could be sneaky. Army is going to be very competitive in that. Virginia as a number four seed and others. There's Vanderbilt, Eastern Illinois. That's going over on this one. Lsu, Tulane. So this is, this is how the tournament. Winning your conference, you get automatic a bid in. So Tulane had a rough year this year. They were 19 and 40, but they got hot towards the end of the year and won their tournament. So they're in. All right, they're in here. And then some other things. Auburn, other regionals and Penn going head to head. Sanford and Southern Miss Clemson, which they have just gotten hot towards the end with their head guy. It does no surprise that they started off slow and now they are hot and Tennessee's in that mix. This is going to be a very, very tough regional with Charlotte as well. Lipscomb out of the A sun, very competitive as well. Really good in my opinion, overall, just as far as placing the teams where they are. There's not any big like weak regionals, if you will, where one team is just going to dominate. It is pretty well spread out and competitive all the way around. So keep your eye on this. Watch college baseball this weekend. This is the top 64 teams competing this weekend and ultimately trying to get to Omaha. So regional champs goes down to 16 and then there's going to be super regional champions. Whoever wins the super regional goes to the College World Series and that is down to eight teams in the College World Series with two brackets and the winners of the both brackets will compete for a series of two out of three, win two out of three. So go on and watch. Let me know if you have any questions down below. Let me know who you think is going to win. Comment down below and I will see you in the next video. Take care. Bye.
