While the USF Softball team prepares for its first trip to the Women's College World Series, the USF Baseball team will stay home after not being chosen for an at-large slot in the NCAA Men's Tournament.
The Bulls (50-12) will play the Oklahoma Sooners (50-8) at 1 p.m. Thursday in the opening game of the tournament, which will be held in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. The winner of that game will take on the winner of the other game in their bracket, either Number 1 seed Cal (56-5) or SU (39-23, the only unseeded team in the tournament other than USF). The losers of the two games will play an elimination game at noon Saturday.
Other teams in the eight team tourney include Tennessee, Alabama, Oregon and Arizona State. Double-elimination play continues through Sunday. The final two teams play a best-of-three series starting Monday.
USF made their first ever Women's College World Series by winning the three game Super Regional Series with Hofstra in Tampa this past weekend. Hofstra won Friday's game 1 2-1 in 11 innings, but USF came back to win a doubleheader Saturday, taking both games by a score of 2-1. Game 2 went 9 innings and Game 3 the regulation 7.
For more information about the Bulls and the Series, click here, and click here for a photo gallery from the Softball Super Regionals.
The Bulls baseball team wasn't as fortunate, first losing the Big East championship game to St. John's 7-3 Sunday, and then being left off the list of 64 teams that made the NCAA Baseball Tournament. USF won four games in a row in the losers' bracket to reach their first-ever Big East championship game. However, six games in five days limited the pitching choices for the Bulls (38-22), who fell to St. John's (37-21), the winners of their record seventh conference crown.
Among the state teams that made the Baseball Tournament are number one overall seed Florida, Florida State, Miami (making their record 40th straight appearance), UCF and Bethune-Cookman.
