NCAA Baseball Bracket Released; Road to College World Series Begins

The 2011 NCAA baseball brackets are out, and the schedule begins June 3 with the regionals. The road to the College World Series has been set out in front of baseball fans, and now the 64 teams will battle it out for a spot in the final eight teams.

The brackets came out Monday, revealing which teams have the top seeds in each region. It is important because those top seeds will be hosting for as long as they remain in the tournament. It gives a unique advantage to those top teams, and could really help them to make it through to the College World Series.

The way the NCC tournament of baseball works is that teams are placed into groups of four that face off in a double elimination round. The winner of each regional group then advances to the Super Regionals, where a best-of-three series is played against another regional winner. Each Super Regional winner advances to the College World Series, where another double elimination tournament reveals the two teams that will play in the Baseball Championship Series.

The schedule will have the regional round taking place June 3-6, the Super Regionals from June 10-13, and the College World Series playing out from June 18-25. The two teams good enough to make it all the way to the championship series will play a best-of-three set from June 27-29. It's a lot of baseball that will be packed into the month of June, but it will also give Major League Baseball fans an inside look at some of the best players who will be in the MLB Draft.

The NCAA announced Monday Virginia (49-9) would be the No. 1 overall seed in the tournament. The team will get to face Navy, St. John's, and East Carolina in regional matches beginning June 3. Florida received a No. 2 seed with a 45-16 overall record, North Carolina is the No. 3 seed at 45-14 overall, and South Carolina received the No. 4 seed at 45-14 this year. All four teams now have a great shot at making it through to the College World Series.

Filling out the rest of the top eight seeds were No. 5 Florida State (42-17), No. 6 Vanderbilt (47-10), No. 7 Texas (43-15), and No. 8 Rice (41-19). The Pac-10 Conference ended up with six teams in the tournament, including recent College World Series champion Oregon State. UCLA is one of the other Pac-10 teams that could have a real chance at surprising the field, but, after the regional round, the California squad might have to play Virginia in the Super Regional games.