NCAA Baseball Regionals Double Elimination Process

NCAA baseball tournament double elimination is a process for selecting the best teams from two brackets. NCAA uses this method starting from regionals to CWS.

Before the regionals begin, the teams are divided into two qualifying groups: the automatic berths and the at-large selection teams. NCAA Division I Baseball Committee decides the bids for selecting 33 teams. The automatic berths include 31, including the conference champions.

Following the selection process, 16 of the 64 teams will receive the seed for nationals, and they are provided with the choice to host a super regional after advancing to the second tier.

The games starting from Regionals and Super Regionals will use the double-elimination bracket to choose the final eight teams for the CWS championship stage. Of the eight teams, two will reach the finals and play in the best of three games for the CWS title.

Since 1954, the NCAA Division I baseball tournament field has been split into two qualifying groups: The automatic berths and the at-large selections. Since 2014, that split sees 31 conference champions receive automatic berths, and 33 teams receive at-large bids, decided by the NCAA Division I Baseball Committee. 

As part of that selection process, 16 teams receive national seeds and are offered the option of hosting a super regional if they advance to the second round.

The NCAA Baseball tournament allows teams to play through four stages. These stages use the double-elimination format before reaching the finals, which follows the best-of-three process.

The process through the four stages of the NCAA tournament is as follows;

Regionals

Regionals are the first round which includes a total of 64 teams that are split into 16 brackets of 4 teams each. These brackets utilize the four-team double-elimination process to choose the winning team for the upcoming stage. 

Each team would get two chances to show they are eligible for the next stage since each would have to lose twice to get out. They use the best of three for the finals in each stage.

Super Regionals

Super Regionals include the 16 winning teams from the first stage. They follow the same double-elimination bracket using two teams divided into eight brackets.

The winners from these pairings are decided using the best-of-three series.

College World Series

The final eight winners from the Super Regionals are the national seeds for the College World Series championship. They will be heading to the CWS stage in Omaha.

CWS is the third stage of the NCAA tournament, where the eight seeds are once again divided into two double-elimination brackets of four teams each.

They will follow the procedure to get the final two seeds for the CWS finals. 

College World Series Finals

Winners from the two CWS brackets will compete against each other at the CWS Finals using a best-of-three series. The NCAA champion will be decided based on the team that wins two games.

Is The Regional Final Double Elimination?

The regional final is the best of three after the four teams' double elimination bracket decides on the two finalists. Winners from each bracket will be the host for super regionals.

48 teams get eliminated from the regionals after losing two games, and the 16 winning teams will be heading toward the next stage of the NCAA tournament.

They move on to the super regionals and play the same double-elimination process in four brackets for the best eight teams. These eight teams are considered national seeds, and they would be the ones to compete in the College World Series.

They will be divided into two brackets of four teams each. Following the double elimination the remaining two teams will play in the best-of-three finals.

4 Team Double Elimination Bracket is the selection of winners from the pool of four candidates. There will be six matches to play between the four teams.

Each team needs to lose twice to get eliminated from the bracket. Thus, a team can still win the tournament even if they lost once before the finals. The winners will be decided by letting the undefeated team play the victorious one from the loser's group.

The loser's group is made of the losing candidate from the third game and the winning candidate from the fourth match. Since the fourth match was held between the losers of the first and second matches, the candidates of the fifth round are called the loser's group.

They will play the fifth match to determine the final contender for the undefeated team.

Below are the points that further simplify the procedure for the four teams' double-elimination bracket;

• The first match will be played by Team A and Team B.
• The second match will be played by Team C and Team D.
• Winners of the first and second matches will be playing the third game.
• Losers from the first and second matches will play the fourth game.
• For the fifth game, the winner from the fourth match will be playing against the loser from the third match.
• The winner of the fifth game will be competing against the undefeated team for the championship title.
• In the sixth game of the championship finals, the game would be best of three since the undefeated team will need to lose twice to get eliminated. 
• If the undefeated team wins in the first game of the finals, the winner will be decided. If they lose they will be playing the same team again to determine the winner.

WCWS Double Elimination process allows a team to become champions even after losing two games. The WSWS champion will have to win twice in the finals.

Both NCAA Mens College World Series and Womens College World Series implement the double-elimination process to skim the finalists. Each team would get two opportunities throughout the four stages to become an NCAA champion.

NCAA Division I Softball tournament has 64 teams participating at the event. They go through the pairings for regionals and super regionals similar to the format used in baseball.

After the first two stages are complete, the WCWS will start with the winning eight teams from the super regionals. They would move on to Oklahoma City to play in the WCWS. 

Divided under two brackets of four teams each, the WCWS will follow the Double-Elimination method for four teams in each bracket. Winners from these brackets will be playing in the fourth stage of the WCWS Finals to determine the NCAA Softball Champion.

They can either advance further as an undefeated seed or as the winning seed from the losers' group. Since the finals use the best-of-three method, the undefeated seed would need to be defeated twice before the other becomes a champion.