Notre Dame Baseball Headed to Statesboro Regional
Notre Dame (35-14) will head to Statesboro (Ga.) to open regional play after the baffling decision by the selection committee not to select South Bend as a host for regional play.
Link Jarrett’s squad will be the No. 2 seed and open tournament play against Texas Tech (37-20). Georgia Southern (40-18), the top seed in the regional, will play UNC Greensboro (34-28), the program Jarrett was the head coach for from 2013-2019.
Mike Buddie, who holds a chair on the selection committee tried to explain why Notre Dame was left out as a regional host on ESPN2 following the selection show.
"I think this is my sixth year on the committee and often times, RPI and conference finish are a little bit more aligned,” explained Buddie. “That was a good thing because we don't ever want to rely solely on one metric. It really forced us to dig in.
"When we were looking at Notre Dame, Oklahoma and LSU for some of those last host spots, we had to get really particular. Instead of looking just at Quad 1, we looked at record against teams ranked 1-25 to try and separate. Our belief was to be a national seed, unless you've done something spectacular in your conference regular season and/or winning the tournament like East Carolina, Stanford and Tennessee were able to do. How do you quorum against those really exceptional teams - those elite teams.”
Buddie’s explanation also got a little confusing when he blamed geography for Notre Dame’s slide off the regional host line.
“Certainly, the regular season needed to matter,” said Buddie. “Notre Dame was a four-seed in the ACC and some of the others didn't finish in the top two. Extremely challenging. We certainly know Notre Dame is a great team and had a phenomenal year. Unfortunately for them, geography is sometimes their enemy. They lost three games - three conference games. Two against Virginia Tech and one against NC State. Those three games, or even two of them, could have swung in a significant direction for either of those teams. Unfortunate for sure, but that's what makes baseball beautiful and frustrating at the same time."
The regional is a double-elimination tournament and the winner will have the opportunity to play the winner of the Knoxville Regional in a best of three Super Regional.
Texas Tech has reached the College World Series four times in Tim Tadlock’s tenure as head coach: 2014, 2016, 2018 and 2019.
Last week, the Red Raiders went 1-2 in the Big 12 Tournament. Texas Tech beat Kansas State 5-3 before losing to Oklahoma (6-3) and Kansas State (6-5/11).
As far as common opponents, Michigan is the only team both programs have played as the Red Raiders beat the Wolverines 7-6 in the first game of the season on Feb. 18th. Notre Dame beat Michigan 14-5 on April 12th.
This will be Notre Dame’s 24th NCAA Tournament appearance in program history and the Fighting Irish hold a 45-46 record in the Field of 64. It’s also the first time since 2006 that Notre Dame has had back-to-back appearances in the tournament.
The Statesboro Regional will begin play on Friday.
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