Oklahoma State Opens With UC Santa Barbara at CWS

Oklahoma State returns to Omaha this weekend — a new Omaha than the last time they visited, mind you — and gets plucky upstart (can we call them that?) UC Santa Barbara which is playing in its first ever College World Series (after playing its first ever super regional).

You may have heard this, but they had a freshman hit a walkoff against Louisville and one of the top closers in the country. I cannot watch this enough times.

This is real…

A walk-off GRAND SLAM to go to Omaha by UC Santa Barbara's Sam Cohen! #CWShttps://t.co/avSzj06I9t

— NCAA Baseball (@NCAACWS) June 12, 2016

Santa Barbara, which finished No. 3 in the Big West Conference, actually finished No. 23 in the final college baseball RPI rankings while OSU sat at No. 32 so this isn’t some fluke that they made it to Omaha.

Their Round 1 game will start at 2 p.m. on Saturday followed by Miami vs. Arizona. The winners of those two games will play at 6 p.m. on Monday while the losers will play at 1 p.m. on Monday.

The first round in Omaha is much like the regional setup. Essentially a double elimination mini tournament. If you win your group of four, you move on to face the winner of the other group of four — Florida, Coastal Carolina, TCU and Texas Tech — in a three game series for the national championship.

Here’s what the full bracket looks like.

Only three of the eight national seeds made it. Arizona, UCSB, Coastal Carolina and OSU were all No. 2 seeds in the regionals. Oklahoma State is the only remaining undefeated team in Omaha. Every other squad has lost at least one game this postseason.

OSU was the first team eliminated in 1999 after losing to Alabama and Rice consecutively. Lastly, here are the teams ranked by total appearances in Omaha.

Miami: 25
Oklahoma State: 20
Arizona: 17
Florida: 10
TCU: 4
Texas Tech: 2
USCB: 1
Coastal Carolina: 1